On Thu, 4 Dec 2014 01:42:14 -0000, "Arfa Daily"
<
arfa....@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>Has anyone else been through this process and felt better for it at the end,
>or am I just going to regret doing it for years to come ... ?
Yep. I have a similar problem. Most of the "recent" manuals, which
means in the 30 years, I've recycled or sold. They're all available
in PDF form somewhere. The really old stuff, dating back to the
1960's through 1980's, I'll keep for now, as they're often difficult
to find. I've been scanning these as needed, and posting them to
various public archives. However, since there's no money in doing
this, it's a very low priority for me. Fortunately, I have an easy
way to do the scans. One of my customers has a Canon ImageRunner 5000
copier, that will do double sided scan and OCR reads to PDF very
quickly. Video of the machine in operation:
<
http://802.11junk.com/jeffl/crud/CanonImageRunner5000.wmv>
A much bigger problem is how to organize manuals and driver CD's. The
recent stuff can usually be found online, but the old stuff is long
gone and difficult to find. I have several large boxes full of
disorganized CD's, that require a linear search through the mess every
time I need something. I think of it as a miniature version of the
service manual problem.
About a year ago, I purged my office of floppy disks, keeping only
those that I suspected I might need. Since then, I've spent an
inordinate amount of time finding images of the one's I tossed.
However, I expect that problem to be only temporary, as I'm refusing
to work on any antique computers, which also allows me to toss old
power supplies, cables, PCB's, etc. That's much easier than running
an antique computah warehouse.
I suspect that you'll be quite happy with scanned manuals. There's
not as handy as the printed variety, but they do have the advantage of
being searchable, which makes them quite superior to printed manuals.
If you're scanning to PDF, try:
<
http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer> (free)
which has a built in OCR reader which can be used to make scanned
PDF's searchable.
--
Jeff Liebermann
je...@cruzio.com
150 Felker St #D
http://www.LearnByDestroying.com
Santa Cruz CA 95060
http://802.11junk.com
Skype: JeffLiebermann AE6KS
831-336-2558