I've found engineers tend to be squirrels. A number of times they've said to me "I'll look in my files". They will often either scan it for me or let me borrow the original informally so I can Xerox it locally.
IMO, going through Sales or making an "official" request costs a bunch and ir rarely successful. It's also worth asking "do you remember any major customers of this unit?>" -John =============== > Hi > > At least for us the process goes like: > > 1) Customer wants more than what's in the card file on in the electronic > record system > 2) Decision is made about how bad they want it > 3) Engineer (not a tech) is assigned to dig the paper data up > 4) A *guess* is made about which of many thousands of boxes *might* have > the info in it > 5) A request is put in to retrieve the most likely dozen boxes from off > site storage > 6) The boxes are gone through looking for the information > 7) loop through steps 4,5,6 how ever many times needed > 8) The data is re-formated so it's readable and rational > 9) Out it goes > > The whole process runs 1 to 4 weeks depending ... > > Bob > > > On Oct 24, 2010, at 12:02 PM, J. Forster wrote: > >> I buy a lot of 10-20 year old test and other gear. When I try to get >> info >> on some things the reaction is usually, "Oh, we havn't made that thing >> for >> AGES now. It turns out "ages" is anything over about 3 months. "We now >> have the xxxx model which is SOO much better than that old POS, and it's >> only $25,000 more w/o options". >> >> At that point I ask to speak to the oldest engineer or srevice tech. >> >> SIGH!!! >> >> BTW, I have started and joined a number of Yahoo Groups because sharing >> and pooling info is now easy electronically, and in many cases is the >> only >> source of information, other than suppliers of scanned or copied >> manuals, >> like Artek Media. >> >> FWIW, >> >> -John >> >> ================ >> >>> On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 02:44:51PM -0700, J. Forster wrote: >>>> Very true, except it's more like 5-10 years. >>> >>> These days John is absolutely right... likely none of the >>> developers, none of the equipment, perhaps not even the corporate >>> shell of the division or department that designed the product and >>> wrote the software survives. Probably the source code was thrown >>> out with the old servers that were sold for scrap... or just carted off >>> to be shredded with all the other paper and electronic records... >>> >>> Horror stories abound about organizations that need to make some >>> minor patch or change to source code of a popular product for some >>> important customer even just a few years after its release and nobody >>> can find the right source code or the right build environment >>> (compilers, libraries, OS etc and the hardware they ran on) or if they >>> can be found it takes many many hours of expensive time and talent to >>> reconstruct the right stuff to actually make a code image that matches >>> what is shipping. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Dave Emery N1PRE/AE, [email protected] DIE Consulting, Weston, >>> Mass >>> 02493 >>> "An empty zombie mind with a forlorn barely readable weatherbeaten >>> 'For Rent' sign still vainly flapping outside on the weed encrusted >>> pole - >>> in >>> celebration of what could have been, but wasn't and is not to be now >>> either." >>> >>> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] >> To unsubscribe, go to >> https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts >> and follow the instructions there. > > > _______________________________________________ > time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe, go to > https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts > and follow the instructions there. > > _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
