Saving old documentation

From: Megan <mbg_at_world.std.com>
Date: Wed Nov 24 16:49:51 1999

> >> "PDP-10 Processor Handbook", dated 1970 and describing the KA10;
> >> "PDP-10 Timesharing Handbook", same vintage, describing monitor
> utilities and such;
> >> "DECsystem-10 Assembly Language Programming", dated 1972 (? unsure,
> and the book isn't here with me right now), describing KA10 and
> KI10 and some programming utilities (MACRO, DDT, Loader, etc.)
>
>These are all phonebook-style manuals, printed on newsprint, and are all
>beginning to fall apart - the paper has turned yellow/brown, and some of
>the pages are starting to crumble like dry leaves.

I have exactly the same books...

>Can anyone suggest any ways these books could be preserved (or at least,
>have their disintegration slowed down)? I'm inclined to try to scan them
>in and OCR them to preserve the information, but I believe that would
>require me to take the pages out of the binding, destroying the books
>immediately. Can anyone suggest any other preservation methods?

Thanks for asking this... I'm interested in the answer as well...
I also think that they would be destroyed by the attempt to scan. So
the question becomes, Are you attempting to preserve the actual
documentation, or the information contained within...

I'm not sure which direction to go myself... but at least in one or
two cases of the above (and other -10 manuals), I have a copy which
*could* be damaged to scan it in if I were to decide to do it...

                                        Megan Gentry
                                        Former RT-11 Developer

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| Megan Gentry, EMT/B, PP-ASEL | Internet (work): gentry!zk3.dec.com |
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Received on Wed Nov 24 1999 - 16:49:51 GMT

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