Hi, Blair... What you say about 'job files" is quite true. I've been in & around computers since the late 1950's, and although I've ditched all my 8" floppies, I still have some 5 1/4" that I have saved in the forlorn hopes that they will become useful again for some other function than as coasters.
...but about the lifetime of tech manuals, I think the significant yardstick by which to measure them would be the average lifetime of the hardware they describe. Granted that eBay has the occasional SX-24 or HRO, or even the FT-101, I think that progress in the field is such that over a 10 or 15 year interval the useful hardware's lifetime is exceeded on average. Emphasis on "average!" The equipment in my ham operation looks very different from the way it looked 10 years ago, and on the computer side, I reckon 2 or 3 years is the absolute maximum life for hardware. Manuals designed to last for 25 or 50 years are just silly. John Ragle -- W1ZI ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
