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The Online Documentation Project

Erik

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As per the thread discussing documentation archives I have set up an area for this very thing.

The goal of this message area is to act as a repository of links to documentation sources on the web.

The only way this will be useful is if there is sufficient information along with each link.

At an absolute minimum there needs to be enough make/model/version information for a reasonable search to locate the thread.

So, if I know where a manual to a Commodore Pet 2001 is stored, I need to specify at least the following:

Manual for Commodore Pet 2001
URL = www.blahblahblah.com/manuals/commodore/pet2001.pdf

Obviously more information would be a lot better (date of publication, version (first printing, etc.), quality, type of file (bmp, jpg, pdf, txt, etc.) and more.

For a software manual the basic information is manufacturer/software/version plus what the manual is for.

A CP/M 2.2 user's manual on the web might be listed as:

CP/M 2.2 for CompuPro 8/16 User's Manual
URL = www.blahblahblah.com/manuals/cpm/compupro/8_16users.pdf

Again, more information is better.

In order for this to work, we'll need the following:

1. People willing to share their sources for online manuals.
2. People willing to host manuals online
3. People willing to convert paper documents into online documents.

Anyone can fill any or all of those roles or they can work with others who compliment their skills. If someone has the webspace and bandwidth to host documents but can't find the time to scan and PDF them, hopefully they'll hook up with someone with a scanner and a bit of free time, etc.

So, with all of that said, here are the rules:

Please post related discussions, requests for scans, storage or whatever in the "Requests/Discussions" forum.

Please post links to manuals in the "Manuals" forum. If this area gets big enough I'll consider breaking it out into categories, but for now let's lump it all together. If you have a review of a document or any follow-up information about a given posted link, please add it to the thread about that link.

Please include as much information as you possibly can when posting manuals. Please limit yourself to one document or one document family per post. For example, if you know where there are manuals for an Atari 800, an Apple ///+ and a CompuPro 8/16, please put those into separate threads. If, on the other hand, you know where there are a set of documents for the Altair 8800, please put them all in the same thread or even the same message.

Before you post a new manual, PLEASE search the boards to see if there is already a link to that document. Also, please only post about documents that have something to do with the vintage computer hobby. I'll do my best to moderate, but I'm hoping I don't have to do much!

Thanks to Thomas Hillebrandt for this exceptional idea! We’ll continue to revise it as the concept evolves. Hopefully this is a good starting point, though.

Erik
 
Willing to host online docs

Willing to host online docs

Per this post, I am willing to host VC docs on my network. Please contact me privately.
 
I was just wondering if anyone had a lead to a schematic of the Atari 810 disk drive.
Got one in for repair and I could sure use the schematic to figure out the problem and solution.

Thanks in advance
 
Erik, why duplicate and fragment what Al K. already does so well at bitsavers.org?

Well, this is actually an old idea that's been resurrected but it isn't intended to duplicate Al's effort, it is intended to group it with other similar efforts in one location and to augment it when needed.

So, ideally, we'd end up with a section that had links into Al's document libraries as well as others who are covering different ground. Where there are obvious gaps people could scan documents either for Al or any number of others who host such things or they could host them themselves and reference them here.

The post and forum are only intended to reference these in a searchable way.
 
You do realize that bitsavers is mirrored in several places
around the world?

Yes, and bitsavers is a wonderful resource.

This is not intended to be another mirror or anything like it. All we want to do is create a meta-catalog of sorts which points to bitsavers and other collections. When gaps are found (i.e. someone has a manual for a Glibnork 3000 and hasn't been able to locate a scanned copy) they can then scan and host it, put a copy on bitsavers or something like that.

But wouldn't it be great to have a single place to search for relevant links to online docs?

And before you say Google, that's what this is supposed to work with. Google ranks vintage-computer.com fairly high and, hopefully, docs listed here will be higher results than some of the less useful and/or dead pages listed nowadays.
 
And there is nothing wrong with having several sources, even if the effort is duplicated. Duplicated effort is not necessarily wasted effort.
 
Just curious..

I have a pile (3 banker boxes), of old REMARK and HUG (heath user group) mags..

Is there any where to send these to scan them.. They are too heavy to keep moving, but I can't bear to just pitch them with out atleast a record being made.. Lots of good info on the ancient heath and heath/zenith computers (h-8, h-89, pc clones). Can't even remember what date range these go over.

Google books would be perfect, but I can't find any way to submit items to them..
 
Since I read elsewhere in these forums that the TH99 documentation floating on the Internet is more or less orphaned, would it be an idea to make that part of this project? Perhaps "wikify" it, and improve and extend it from there? Or would it extend to far beyond the "vintage" realm?
 
I offered Google Books access to my magazine collection (and I'm local to them) and haven't heard back in months...
 
SEBHC group

SEBHC group

Just curious..

I have a pile (3 banker boxes), of old REMARK and HUG (heath user group) mags..

Is there any where to send these to scan them.. They are too heavy to keep moving, but I can't bear to just pitch them with out atleast a record being made.. Lots of good info on the ancient heath and heath/zenith computers (h-8, h-89, pc clones). Can't even remember what date range these go over.

Google books would be perfect, but I can't find any way to submit items to them..

Your best bet is here:

http://groups.google.com/group/sebhc/topics?hl=en&start=

I made a post regarding your request, you might want to follow up on that...

ziloo
 
I think this is a great idea. I've just returned to the world of vintage computing, with a TRS-80, and spent quite a while searching for information about it. I managed to download a lot of great information, from lots of different websites, and the person I bought the machine from included 2 fantastic CDs of manuals and newsletters - some of which I'd already downloaded. Now, my iPad had gigs of pdf's for me to read. I've also bought a few books from eBay that I'd be willing to scan and include on my website (and in your repository). Having one source to look at would be a great idea.

I was just wondering what the copyright situation was.
 
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