I agree about reference cards.  But I remember when I learned how ~expensive~ 
it is to print physical manuals.

At this employer we were encouraging end users to learn DYL-280II so they could 
write their own inquiry programs instead of disrupting the developers' 
projects.  ("Listen, I know you promised me that update in three weeks but I 
just gotta know how many red cabovers Ford sold in Michigan between 1969 and 
1998.")  So I was ordering manuals for each new user, and my boss got tired of 
approving purchase orders for the manuals on a onesy-twosy basis; order a bunch 
of them, he said, and pass them out and charge them to the user department as 
needed.  How many?  Oh, say a hundred.  The manuals at the time came in two 
thick ring binders and went for $150 a set.

So I went to the folks at Dylakor and asked for a discount for ordering a bunch 
of them at a time.  Sure, they said, and offered me half off.  Wait, you don't 
understand, I said, we're ordering a HUNDRED!  (I was perhaps overly impressed 
with myself at the time.)  So they said Tell you what:  We'll issue you a 
license to print the manuals at your own print shop, and we'll just sell you 
the binders and tabs.  Now you're talking, I thought, and went to our print 
shop for a price.

Then I went back to Dylakor and accepted their $75 offer.  Turns out printing 
hard copy is expensive.

Nowadays I can save hundreds of manuals on a single flash stick, and search 
them for a few key words in minutes.  I like this system better.  (Though I 
still miss the HTML search function.)

---
Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313

/* Leadership is getting someone to do what they don't want to do in order to 
achieve what they want to achieve.  -Tom Landry */

-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of 
Tony Harminc
Sent: Friday, May 6, 2022 13:16

No - IBM stopped being a paper publisher around ten years ago.
Obviously they still print some marketing stuff and the like, but to my 
knowledge nothing with a manual number is available on paper anymore.

This makes sense for most pubs, but you'd think there'd still be a small market 
for things like reference cards, or - something I was looking for a decade ago 
- APL keyboard stickers, either SC33-0604-00 or GX20-1783-02.

--- On Fri, 6 May 2022 at 11:36, Phil Smith III <li...@akphs.com> wrote:
> Jeez Louise, the PofOp is 2,124pp and the "green card" is 118pp! (Yes, 
> still in green card-sized pages.) I wonder if this is still 
> purchasable in print format, and if it's coil-bound or perfect-bound 
> if so. Not that I'm about to buy a copy.

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