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The Online Documentation Project

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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
 
I'll try to help

I'll try to help

As I clean out my old shop, I've been copying all the old disk and hard-drives from my server to CD's. Most of the 5 1/4 are still readable and there is a lot of 3 1/2's ... Not many games but mostly set-up disks for every part we sold in fifteen years of business.... As for the manuals and books I'll store them the best I can , until possibly scan them into PDF
 
I found this site that contains a huge amount of documentation. It is targeted at mainframes and minis from the 50s into the 80s but also has documentation on early micros from the 70s and 80s under their appropriate manufacturers.

Great resource for those interested in old computers in general.

http://www.bitsavers.org/

Matt
 
I have started scanning quite some docs and there are more coming from a friend too.

Check em out at http://www.computer-museum.net (click on Vintage Document Library on the left).

The next addition will be the "Intel SDK-2920 System Design Kit User's Guide" from 1981. These were already old copies and the quality was not the best so a good time to start scanning ;-)
 
We here at Chicago Classic Computing are building a document library to augment Bitsavers and the others out there. It consists mainly of stuff I've found in my travels (often in my own basement ;) that didn't appear to be scanned anywhere else on the 'net. It is small now but will grow over time. All are welcome to mirror the site or incorporate the docs into their own archives:

http://chiclassiccomp.org/docs/
 
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