Archiving Datasheets For The Coming Zombie Apocalypse - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 04:23:37 am
content: It occurs to me I have a pretty good lab and stock of parts now. Should the Zombie Apocalypse hit, though, I may be pretty screwed on datasheets, limiting my effectiveness at constructing bottlecap mines and the like, as the Internet will likely be down until civilization is restored in about 1,000 years or so. Does anyone know if the major manufacturers have an archive available of their datasheets like they used to do in those huge data books? I wouldn't mind getting the public non-NDA data sheets for TI, AD, Linear, ON, Freescale, Atmel, Microchip, Fairchild, Micrel, and Maxim, if there is a convenient way to do that. Sky's the limit on hard drive space. Any ideas?

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 04:36:39 am
content: You can find a lot of databooks at archive.org and bitsavers.org.There are huge archive sites for datasheets; perhaps you could ask how they ended up with their collection (and if they're willing to share with you, although they'd probably say no), and slowly download from them for your own collection.

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 04:42:58 am
content: Quote from: amyk on October 18, 2015, 04:36:39 amYeah, but I certainly don't actually want all the old parts from scanned pages that are unsearchable and available for some reason in 10 nearly identical versions. Almost everything I use now is current technology and there are proper and updated datasheets for those parts, and I can always find them on the major manufacturers sites. The problem I have is finding an easy way to bulk download it. I could probably figure this out if I wanted to devote enough time to it. What I am hoping is someone says "look here", just not to shittydatasheetachivesitenumbertwentyfive.com. Those sites all suck.

author: hammy
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 01:33:44 pm
content: It should be easier to get the whole internet. It is just a box. So you have everything, not just the datasheets.

author: Stupid Beard
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 02:35:59 pm
content: Quote from: JoeN on October 18, 2015, 04:42:58 amIn a zombie apocalypse, you would be salvaging parts from various places as well as potentially looting distributor warehouses. Should the zombie apocalypse ever come to pass, you might rue the day you shunned those ancient datasheets.

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 05:46:59 pm
content: Quote from: Stupid Beard on October 18, 2015, 02:35:59 pmScrew it. From here on out I am only designing with all the 16 bit and better converters and all the PLDs and ARM microcontrollers I have sampled.Old cans of corn I will take, though.

author: HighInBC
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 06:09:35 pm
content: Since it is crucial that the datasheets survive liquids such as blood and gore, and they must survive high temperatures in case of flame throwers or nuclear cleansing they must be put on something very sturdy.I would recommend reducing the datasheets in size and then etching them onto PCB. The FR4 will be sturdy and the solder resist will give it some protection from heat.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 18, 2015, 11:33:25 pm
content: Quote from: JoeN on October 18, 2015, 04:23:37 amI'm not sure if it's still true today, but for while in the 2000s IC manufacturers had their current product line datasheets available on CD. You only had to ask the sales reps. Have you tried contacting those companies and asking?There were also commercially available 'collections of all datasheets' available on CD (and microfilm!) But they cost a fortune. I expect that business model probably failed long ago.Personally, I greatly prefer the physical databooks (if you have space for the shelves, and I do.) Shelf space is much more stable in the long term than HD and CD/DVD storage, and less prone to getting misplaced ('forgot where you put it in your folder hierarchy'), or lost (crap. The HD died and so did the backup.) Also no issues with storage technology life cycles.Btw, as time goes by you'll encounter another flaw in the 'everything online' model. Most manufacturers delete datasheets for discontinued products. If you rely on them for all your data needs, you are definitely going to regret it at some point.

author: jwm_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 12:26:50 am
content: Oh, I'm set. As a kid this and other databooks I still have were my bedtime reading books.I designed a whole 8085 based system on paper (couldn't really afford the actual chips at the time on my allowance) and wrote an OS for it in assembly longhand. I wish I could find my notebooks, I would love to actually solder up my original on paper design and program in my OS and see it go for real rather than just in my head.

author: ivaylo
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 06:02:50 am
content: WTF is a Zombie Apocalypse?

author: Simon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 06:59:51 am
content: Quote from: ivaylo on October 19, 2015, 06:02:50 amJudging by the way this thread has gone on, don't ask and just play along

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 07:16:50 am
content: Its quite simple, if you buy a chip or even a transistor, or find something interesting enough to look up online, archive a local copy of the datasheet. There is no magic way of auto-linking your grotty 30 year old parts cabinets to datasheetarchive, so you'll just have to bite the bullet and google for each one, if you haven't been maintaining your local datasheet collection as you go. I've still got datasheets I got photocopies of for projects I did in the '80s. They dont go in the trash until I've found and downloaded a searchable PDF.

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 11:39:04 am
content: Quote from: Ian.M on October 19, 2015, 07:16:50 amThat's probably the best advice. The one I don't want to hear. Fact is, sometimes I download them and sometimes I don't and just read them online. I actually have a very good index of all my parts in an Excel spreadsheet. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and download them all one night. It would actually be quite a bit of work.Quote from: ivaylo on October 19, 2015, 06:02:50 amhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie#Zombie_apocalypse

author: GNU_Ninja
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 12:10:59 pm
content: Forget datasheets, the only technical reference source you'll need for the Zombie Apocalypse is a copy of this book:http://www.amazon.co.uk/Boy-Electrician-Alfred-P-Morgan/dp/1626549818/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1445256442&sr=8-1&keywords=the+boy+electricianThe Boy Electrician, by Alfred P MorganI already have a copy stashed away

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 12:31:33 pm
content: If your spreadsheet identifies manufacturers, you could make it generate a clickable url for a google search of: <part_no.> <manufacturer> filetype:pdfThat will make life a lot simpler. Without the manufacturer, you will tend to get too many part brokers and other crud sites. Once you have the datasheet, put in folders by manufacturer and link to your spreadsheet. Some macro programming may be required to get the spreadsheet to use relative paths for the datasheets.

author: SteveLy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 01:07:45 pm
content: Learn Coulomb's law, Ampere's law and the (Maxwell-)Faraday law. (And maybe the other nameless one, i.e., no magnetic monopoles, but that's not as important. Forget Ohm, no time for that in emergency. It's not even a proper law anyway.) Learn a bit about metallurgy. Learn how diodes work and how to make one. And then transistors. The rest is easy.

author: datasheetarchive
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 02:50:53 pm
content: As the owner of a "sh1tty" datasheetarchive site I can give a bit of insight into this. It may sound like a bit of a grumble but I want to make a point about my site.In 1995 I started to archive pdf datasheets as a hobby. Over the next ten years most of the datasheets I had stored were no longer online. I think at the time I had stored about 330,000. So in 2003 I created the datasheet archive to list datasheets that were not available on any other site. Then in 2004 I borrowed some cash and bought over 12,500 data books and catalogs from between $1 and $120. Typically ranging from 50 to 1000 pages each. Many yellow in colour and low resolution so poor for OCR. I took the spine off each book and scanned them as separate datasheets for our website. This took years to complete.Since 2003 our archive has grown to 26 million unique documents. However, most of our data book scanning project has been "bulk downloaded" and listed on several other sites. The non-scans we collected have also been stripped several times and distributed on thousands of other sites. No source accreditation.I really tire of seeing our site labelled as sh1tty. A large section of the data out there is distributed from our archive as the original source. From back in the days when no one was interested in archiving the data. Now all users want to do is strip the data, bypass the original creators, or publicly berate us.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 03:11:15 pm
content: I'm assuming you *are* datasheetarchive.com. I doubt there are many genuine electronic enthusiast users who would be unwilling to give you credit for all your hard work. Your site is easy to use, doesn't have obtrusive or totally irrelevant advertising, and doesn't give my security software fits!Unfortunately the leeches who are only in it to sell advertising space or far east 'street reconditioned' parts are another matter and they have polluted the concept for everyone.Out of curiosity, what resources would it take to legitimately mirror your site, and what sort of incentive would you need to encourage you to grant permission?

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 03:23:10 pm
content: Quote from: datasheetarchive on October 19, 2015, 02:50:53 pmWait, what? Did anyone here say your site is shi77y?Thanks for the info, and it seems like a good site.Have to admit, when I'm searching for data I just google the part number and although your site layout seems familiar, I'm pretty sure it very rarely comes up in the first couple of google pages. Which just means you don't bother with all that ridiculous SEO crap. Seems like that's a pity it's not more visible, as the layout is nice, and there's no link click maze to get to the actual pdfs.Which led to the surprising realization that I don't ever seem to have made a list of datasheet archive sites.OK, starting one now, with your site first up.I'd be interested to see _your_ list of such sites, and your ratings (from 'extreme bastards, nukes on the way' to 'maybe would piss on them if they were on fire', ha ha...) If you're not too worried about libel suits.

author: SteveLy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 03:26:54 pm
content: Cool site datasheetarchive. I was unawares. Tried it on a few ICs I could think of off the top of my head (there aren't many there) and it delivered the goods. Bookmarked.But I am curious why people think it's "sh1tty". Might you be struck with tall poppy syndrome? If so there's not much you can do but wear it with pride. As for people downloading your offerings in bulk, that can't be helped either. Goldmine will attract gold diggers.

author: SteveLy
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 03:28:59 pm
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on October 19, 2015, 03:23:10 pmuhhm:Quote from: JoeN on October 18, 2015, 04:42:58 am

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 03:41:11 pm
content: IMHOhttp://www.datasheetarchive.com/stands head and shoulders above the others, (which mostly *DO* deserve the full pejorative description). The only other sites that also are generally useful are eastern block archives that originated from the samizdat movement, though you'd better use a locked down machine to browse them and virus check any downloads! I use datasheetarchive myself as the third choice after first the manufacturer and second leading distributors sites, and ahead of various academic and eastern block sites.

author: datasheetarchive
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 03:57:03 pm
content: Ian - thanks for the kind words. Appreciated. To host the site on AWS it could be done for $3000 per month if you were just leveraging relational databases. To leverage a huge full-text database as I do now its significantly more. That depends on traffic though. We are not really interested in having a mirror because I enjoy tinkering with the data and adding new content. I hoard datasheets.TerraHertz - thanks also. - the problem is simple. the less traffic these sites (and my site) get the more intrusive the adverts are. This is because you would rather inconvenience the end user than shut down your site. For example I scan all the full datasheets for 2S Japanese parts in 2007. When I put the data online my traffic rocketed to 180,000 unique visitors per day and I implemented 1-click search and download. Six months later 30+ websites had copied this data and each taken a chunk of the traffic. Meaning that I had to put in an extra download page to recover costs.

author: CatalinaWOW
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 04:02:18 pm
content: Quote from: datasheetarchive on October 19, 2015, 02:50:53 pmGiven that you are a good guy, and your site is much more useful and legitimate than the rip offs, it behooves us as a community to help keep you afloat. What does that take, beyond bookmarking your site and using it?

author: datasheetarchive
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 04:40:06 pm
content: thanks CatalinaWOW, inbound links and using the site are the best ways to keep it going. Although, I also have a new type of component search engine launching soon and having some of you guys look over that would really help. When I was archiving all this pdf data in the mid 90's I also started archiving the product images to match it. So now I've developed a visual search engine using these images. I think it will be the worlds first visual component search engine with 18 million images.It's not too far off so if anyone wants to give feedback email me at christopher at datasheetarchive .com - Might take a week or two to iron out the bugs before testing commences.Screenshot attached for a typical search.

author: ozwolf
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 06:43:45 pm
content: Quote from: Ian.M on October 19, 2015, 03:41:11 pmBookmarked!

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 10:35:11 pm
content: Elektor has or had datasheet collection books and CD-ROMs (maybe DVDs nowadays) with a comprehensive selection of commonly used chips.

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 11:32:19 pm
content: Quote from: Ian.M on October 19, 2015, 12:31:33 pmI was thinking of just going directly to their sites and using the search function there. Sure to get the latest data sheet that way. Drop back to Google if I can't find it that way.

author: JoeN
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 19, 2015, 11:34:37 pm
content: Quote from: datasheetarchive on October 19, 2015, 02:50:53 pmI apologize. I wasn't referring to any one site and I may not have been referring to yours. Frankly, I am not sure. Many of them are very shitty, though. So I was referring to the genre. Frankly, I think of it like horror movies. There may be a few genius ones, but most of them are shitty. I mean, I did say "shittydatasheetachivesitenumbertwentyfive.com" not your site's name in particular. I was trying to point out that there are a mass of hard to differentiate sites out there and most of them suck.Quote from: Ian.M on October 19, 2015, 03:11:15 pmBased on this other user's positive response, from now on I will skip the Google search and come straight to you and assume that if you don't have it, no one does. For new parts I generally go right to TI, AD, and just get it from there but there are still some very classic parts that I use from time to time.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 04:37:15 am
content: alldatasheet.com is another one I use, since it also turns up often in the Google results.@datasheetarchive: The one major feature that would make me use your site more is search bypinout.

author: TerraHertz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 05:27:03 am
content: Quote from: amyk on October 20, 2015, 04:37:15 amHow about also:- Search for manufacturer, by image search given a symbol on an IC.- Search for data based on the package shape and short codes on SMD parts.

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 08:27:30 am
content: Quote from: TerraHertz on October 20, 2015, 05:27:03 am- I just use this:http://www.classiccmp.org/rtellason/logos/semiconductorlogos.html(warning:manysmall images on that page)- Plenty of other sites have this info already, like this one:http://www.s-manuals.com/smdPinout search is AFAIK not something I've seen on a datasheet site before, although I do have a personal database of them, which is why I suggested it.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 11:44:50 am
content: QuoteQuoteWithout wishing to be unnecessary pedantic, wouldn't this thread be better renamed 'Archiving Datasheets For AFTER The Coming Zombie Apocalypse'?

author: datasheetarchive
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 01:39:37 pm
content: I like the suggestions. The difficulty is that most datasheets do not contain part markings to collect the SMD codes. Even if they do they do not have the data in a way it can be automatically extracted from the documents. It would take a huge effort and probably be something that would have to be crowd-sourced somehow.I've tinkered with creating an SMD database a few times but with only a small percentage of our document database containing the codes it seemed futile.Thank you to the several people who contacted me wanting to test my new visual search engine. Will be in touch early next week.

author: PA4TIM
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 06:06:28 pm
content: I like your site. Use it almost every day. I repair test and calibration gear, most times gear without service doc. I then look up the datasheets from parts to reverse engineer the instrument.One thing I would like to see is finding datasheets for smd parts based on the markings and package. This can be a real pain in the,....Fred

author: bktemp
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 20, 2015, 07:52:52 pm
content: datasheetarchive.com is the best datasheet archive, because I hate other sites for modifying the PDFs and adding their names into the PDF.A good SMD markings + package database would be great, because it can be really difficult to identify a part.www.systek.ru/marking.phphas probably the best database and search for this, because they show the results sorted by package. But their list is far from complete. If it is not in the list, you have to know what the ic does, to feed google with the proper terms to find the datasheet, but sometimes you are lucky and google finds something leading to the correct part.Unfortunally, parsing datasheets for marking codes is almost impossible, because every manufacturer has a different way of listing the codes.

author: jwm_
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2015, 01:00:52 am
content: chipdb is also very useful but is for information extracted from datasheets, just has popular parts but the raw data is on github so you can contribute.http://www.msarnoff.org/chipdb/I use it to automatically spit out labels for my chips with pinouts on them before breadboarding.http://notanumber.net/archives/83/label-your-chipsI wasn't able to get the qr code to work with the brother label printer though, but maybe will give it another go, would be great to point my phone at a chip and have its datasheet pop up.I should send some labeled chips to dave for a mailbag. He still seems to break out the bread board now and again.

author: PA4TIM
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 21, 2015, 08:35:43 am
content: bktemp: your link does not work.http://www.s-manuals.com/smdthis is the site I use for identifying smd markings.