Piles of data books from the 1980's - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: woodchips
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2016, 10:40:31 am
content: More bulk reduction, this is my collection of data books and application manuals.Almost all date from the 80's, some into the start of the 90's, odd one earlier, nothing newer than the MSP430.Collection as you would imagine, TI, Philips, Maxim, NS, Motorola, Intel etc etc. Mostly just standard books with the odd rarer one included such as Plessey, C&T, Motorola 56k & 96k DSP, TI DSP etc.There is a shelf and a half of applications books from the usual sources. Also a few old, 80's, disty catalogues that have the odd data sheet in them.An approximate count turned up 500 books, about 60 applications manuals, a pile of single device sheets and short books, a few of the DATA type books. Very few of the data is in photocopy form, real books. These books occupy about 10 shelves solidly stacked!Price £500, yes, I know most were handed out free, at least when I became important enough for the reps to give them to me, but there is a significant hassle factor associated with 1/4 tonne of books! Will need to be collected.

author: ebclr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2016, 11:01:44 am
content: It could make a good Christmas bonfire, nowadays any datashet can be found on the internet very easy

author: DTJ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2016, 11:22:32 am
content: Maybe you will sell them..... I had trouble giving them away and they all went into recycling.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2016, 02:45:46 pm
content: If you have interesting ones like the Moto 68000 or such those can be sort of collectable.

author: philpem
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 11, 2016, 02:53:46 pm
content: Hmm.. thinking laterally...80gsm paper is -- literally, 80 grams per square meter of size in mass.One A4 sheet is 210x297mm. 16 sheets is a square metre.500 sheets to a ream - that's 2.5kg, give or take.A quarter ton into 2.5kg? 90.7 reams of paper. Let's call it 91, just to be fair.Ebuyer everyday 80gsm paper comes in 5-ream boxes for £12.48... 91 reams is 18.2 boxes... let's round that up again to 19 boxes, because you can't buy 0.2 of a box... (well, you can, you buy a £2.34 ream, but I'm too lazy to do the math...)19 boxes * £12.48 = £237.12.But that's blank paper -- which is a different product...Used databooks tend to be more often priced individually... databooks? Radio rally pricing ends up at "50p for that mate" to "I dunno, few quid?" or even "You've bought a load of other stuff already, just take the bloody thing!"And let's face it. Manufacturers gave these things away for free...We've established that £500 is twice the going rate for the blank paper. For an unsorted pile of databooks, 500 quid for effort is a hilarious example of British car-boot pricing.Having done this before -- here are a few tips:Your best bet is to do a quick Google and chuck anything you can find a PDF of in the "give it to Oxfam" (if they take stuff like this?) or "Recycle" pile. This should get you down to half or less.Next, from what you have left, figure out if there are some rare ones in there -- the Plessey ones might be interesting to the right person and tend not to be scanned, for instance. Also, stuff like RF databooks tend to be interesting to ham radio enthusiasts.If you want rid of this stuff quick (and this applies to the components too), get a table at a hamfest (amateur radio rally) and set a blanket price of "£2 a book, £5 an IC tube" or something. Drop the price as the day progresses. Play the game well, and you'll go home with an empty car and a full wallet

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2016, 12:54:16 pm
content: I get so sick of hearing that "They are all on the net as pdf, just throw them out" line. Very likely within a couple of decades more people will understand how retarded and short sighted that idea is.However, AT THE PRESENT TIME, it's the standard belief. There's virtually no chance you will be able to sell them. Hopefully once that becomes clear, you won't just bin them out of pique.Much better to offer them for free, pickup only. That way they might at least go to someone who values them, has the storage space, and will preserve them a few more decades till this 'burn them all' madness has passed.My own row of shelves of 80s+ data books isn't going anywhere. I'm in Australia though, so can only cross my fingers and hope you find a taker.It would be nice if you could post some photos of your bookshelves.

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 15, 2016, 06:23:55 pm
content: And PDF is almost but not quite portable. I have older pdf's created by older versions of Adobe that throw errors in newer versions of Adobe reader. Usually pdftk can extract them but I predict in another decade or two some more backward compatibility will get lost in Adobe products.

author: ebclr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2016, 08:54:57 am
content: Any pdf can be opened and read on iphone or android do you want some thing more portable than that ?

author: eugenenine
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 16, 2016, 05:41:58 pm
content: Read what I wrote. Try opening a decade old PDF on a current version of Adobe and look at some of the errors generated.

author: Cliff Matthews
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 17, 2016, 05:56:28 pm
content: Quote from: eugenenine on December 16, 2016, 05:41:58 pmEscaping Adobe bloatware is easy!Try using Sumatra on Windows and Lirbi reader for Android (I make that the default reader under the awesome ESS file browser).

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 12:39:25 pm
content: QuoteDo you have such a file which doesn't work for you? I'd be interested in taking a look if you could send it to me - I haven't used Adobe for a decade or more (and have no intention of polluting my machines with it) but it seems to me that the issue isn't Adobe per se but any reasonable reader software. So long as the file is viewable with a commonly available application on a commonly available OS (and machine) it's still scoring massively over an original databook.And, as it happens, I do have such a bunch of books but when I need to look something up I do a quick Google on the datasheet despite probably having the original in a book right behind me on the shelf...

author: DeepBlu
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 05:54:43 pm
content: Quote from: eugenenine on December 15, 2016, 06:23:55 pmeugenenine Try using the free Foxit reader for pdf instead of Adobe. Abandoned Adobe a while back and used Foxit, never had an issue yet. It's free so worth a try on old pdf's

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 18, 2016, 10:09:08 pm
content: Does Foxit support non-aliased fonts nowadays? I tried it once but I quickly uninstalled it due to aliased fonts (I can't focus on aliased/smeared letters).

author: PointyOintment
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 03:20:37 am
content: Quote from: Cliff Matthews on December 17, 2016, 05:56:28 pmDo you mean ES File Explorer? It used to be good, but it's now pretty much malware.https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/search?q=es&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all

author: Cliff Matthews
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 12:48:56 pm
content: Quote from: PointyOintment on December 19, 2016, 03:20:37 amESS made good speakers back in the day... I was always wondering about ES software always adding more bloat. Since posting, I updated that app and you are correct. The ads seem minimal for now, but I will be rolling back to an earlier version. I updated Lirbi PDF as well and yeah it too has ads, but the same author (Ivan Ivanenko) hasPDF Reader Classicwhich I had since Android 2.2 on an older phione. With both of these, you tap with 2 fingers to clear the rulers from then screen before reading the PDF. I'm finding my newer 5.1.1 phone has Google PDF reader which is fine too.I am disheartened at times with these fast moving product cycles - always pulling the rug out from underneath us. If one tries to keep-up with what's new, the honeymoon ends as soon as success arrives and the author tacks-on his/her new revenue $tream.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 08:27:30 pm
content: Quote from: ebclr on December 11, 2016, 11:01:44 amMany datasheets are still only available in the original paper form to those who have these databooks or the scans available on the internet are incomplete. Parts with multiple sources may have subtle variations making the original datasheets which are unavailable in electronic form relevant.Some discrete parts are especially bad with internet searches showing no more than they existed.

author: Cliff Matthews
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: December 19, 2016, 08:54:24 pm
content: My brother and I used to fight over an ECG book. Oh! DTL, ECL.. I think I'm going to.. yes, yes, YES! Sneeze!! Sorry, but I still don't miss paper.

author: DeepBlu
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: December 20, 2016, 09:26:18 am
content: Quote from: nctnico on December 18, 2016, 10:09:08 pmSorry nctnico could not find an answer to that one, wasn't in the manual and am using the freebe. Have to join the forum there, its quite late