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Digital Equipment Corporation - MicroFiche Underground

Hi Friends,

proofreading is done, the scans are online now:
http://files.retrocmp.com/fichescan...pdp11/microfiche/Diagnostic_Program_Listings/

You can insert this into your bitsaver mirror tree with
$ cd <your-bitsavers-mirror-root>
$ wget --recursive --level 0 --no-host-directories --cut-dirs 2 --no-parent -R index.htm?* http://files.retrocmp.com/fichescanner/bitsavers/
You need about 130 GB space for 1600+ listings.
A Win10 version of wget is at http://files.retrocmp.com/wget-1.21.2-win32.zip

In 2016 I posted a batch of listings, which was archived at
http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp11/microfiche/ftp.j-hoppe.de/...
These were repacked and included in the above distribution.
So despite I'm very pleased to see my name on bitsavers:
Please discard the "ftp.j-hoppe.de" directory now !

For each listing there are 3 files:
- a "gray" pdf in archive quality.
- a highly compressed "bw" pdf, about 10x smaller.
- an ASCII *.dat with context and title strip data, prepared for database import.
The pdfs contain pictures of their fiches as title pages.

The quality of the fiches is everything between "brilliant" and "awful"
DEC made every possible error while preparating them, the list is endless.
My favorite bug: Title strips glued to the wrong fiche (corrected here).

I even tried OCR but the results where poor.
"ocrmypdf" (= "tesseract + pdf") seems a good tool, but
the fiches are too problematic for a fully automatic run.
You have to dive into tesseracts training procedures.
See https://hub.docker.com/r/jbarlow83/ocrmypdf/

Some project links:
http://www.retrocmp.com/projects/scanning-micro-fiches
https://youtu.be/X22gr5THBRA
https://hackaday.com/2021/09/17/automatic-microfiche-scanner-digitizes-docs/

By the way: This project ate up lots of (physical and personal) resources.
I'll will scan other document sets in the future, maybe begging for a donation then.

Enjoy!
Joerg
 
Something strange with

MD-11-DVQAA-D__LSI11__SUITCASE__EP-DVQAA-D-DL-A__OCT_1976_bw.pdf
MD-11-DVQAA-D__LSI11__SUITCASE__EP-DVQAA-D-DL-A__OCT_1976_gray.pdf
CVKUAA0__KUV11-AA__LSI_WCS_DIAGNOSTIC__AH-E103A-MC__JUN_1978_gray.pdf
MD-11-DTRKA-B__RK11__DEVICE_ROUTINE_MPG__EP-DTRKA-B-DL-A__NOV_1976_gray.pdf
MD-11-DVKAG-A__LSI11__EIS_DIAGNOSTIC__EP-DVKAG-A-DL-A__OCT_1976_gray.pdf
 
It is being transfered to bitsavers, and will be 25% of the entire pdf archive size, which is currently around 300gb
It will probably be there in a day or so.
 
Hi,

Something strange with
MD-11-DVQAA-D__LSI11__SUITCASE__EP-DVQAA-D-DL-A__OCT_1976_bw.pdf
MD-11-DVQAA-D__LSI11__SUITCASE__EP-DVQAA-D-DL-A__OCT_1976_gray.pdf
CVKUAA0__KUV11-AA__LSI_WCS_DIAGNOSTIC__AH-E103A-MC__JUN_1978_gray.pdf
MD-11-DTRKA-B__RK11__DEVICE_ROUTINE_MPG__EP-DTRKA-B-DL-A__NOV_1976_gray.pdf
MD-11-DVKAG-A__LSI11__EIS_DIAGNOSTIC__EP-DVKAG-A-DL-A__OCT_1976_gray.pdf
You're right: these 4 listings have the fiche photo only, but no listing pages.
Reason is explained in the *.dat file, field "Scan.Note":

MD-11-DVQAA-D__LSI11__SUITCASE__EP-DVQAA-D-DL-A__OCT_1976_bw.pdf
MD-11-DVQAA-D__LSI11__SUITCASE__EP-DVQAA-D-DL-A__OCT_1976_gray.pdf
Scan.Note=Fiche contains MD-11-DWQAA-A LSI11 SUITCASE TEST

CVKUAA0__KUV11-AA__LSI_WCS_DIAGNOSTIC__AH-E103A-MC__JUN_1978_gray.pdf
Scan.Note=Wrong title strip: Fiche contained MAINDEC-11-DVKAJ-A-D

MD-11-DTRKA-B__RK11__DEVICE_ROUTINE_MPG__EP-DTRKA-B-DL-A__NOV_1976_gray.pdf
Scan.Note=Fiche contains MPG MINIMAL SUPPORT ROUTINES MD-11-DTMSA-A

MD-11-DVKAG-A__LSI11__EIS_DIAGNOSTIC__EP-DVKAG-A-DL-A__OCT_1976_gray.pdf
Scan.Note=Fiche contains MAINDEC-11-DVKAHA-A LSI-11 4K SYSTEM TEST


In a few cases (about 10+ of 1600) DEC mounted wrong title strip to the listings.
For some cases I could assign the correct listing from other mixed up fiches, but for these 4 title strips I did not found the correct listings.
So they remain empty, as a memory that something strange happened here.

Joerg
 
Great work to all participants! I could not be happier.

Please see my blog for a message.
 
Guys,
Another elephant has been eaten:
The complete source code listings of VAX/VMS 4.0/4.1 are scanned (93.000 pages)

Unluckily I can't publish them, until I know what harm HP's lawyers can do to me.

Lets continue discussion on the "VAX/VMS sources on microfiche listed on ebay" thread.

Joerg
 
I'm starting this thread in an attempt to bring to the community, access to DEC's documentation, published on MicroFiche.

SUMMARY:

This Underground is being started in the hopes that it will become a collecting point for others out there, like myself, who have original issues of DEC Microfiche sets.​
These sets contain incomparable engineering and service details on DEC products. Much of it, unavailable in any other venue, and in danger of being LOST forever.​


INTENT:

We are banding together, to transcribe to modern media and methods, the entire scope of knowledge contained in the various DEC MicroFiche sets.​


To accomplish this, we will do the following:
  • Register the fact of our possesion of Dec Microfiche sets with the Underground
  • Exchange Details of the contents or existence of various sets [whether or not we have them]
  • Obtain assistance [donations of equipment, software and funds] to accomplish the transcription
  • Support the output by distributing and hosting it on the internet
  • Accept requests for documents in the fiche library - to prioritize the transcription process.

APPEAL:
Please - If you are aware of any of these sets, let us know. If you possess one, consider donating or lending it to the Underground for the purposes of keeping it from being lost.​


This will be a non-profit endeavor, for the posterity of the computing industry and mankind in general. Let there be no more "Ancient Libraries at Alexandria" - Lost.

P.S. - Feel free to PM me, if you have privacy concerns with your information or contribution.
I worked in the Engineering department between 1976 - 1984 that made most of DEC's fiche 👍
 
These are just "fiche index" images, not per-page scans -- so they document the fiche rather than the *content* of the fiche. Those come some day in the future. In the meantime it's good to know that there are specific fiche in the processing pipeline.
 
The RICM just received a metal DEC box full of fiche. It contains DEC standards, polices, procedures, and manufacturing documentation. Some of the fiche says that it is company confidential, but not copyrighted. I imagine that HPE owns the rights to it now. Is there any interest in getting this scanned?
 
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