Looking for Grapevine Publications books on HP 48

[fvanzeveren]

Hello,

I am looking for two books in PDF format from Grapevine Publications:
- Algebra and Pre-calculus on the HP 48G/GX
- Calculus on the HP 48G/GX

I found some ebay offers, but at ridiculous high prices.

Does anyone know if a pdf scan exists on the web?

Thank you.

François

[Thomas Okken]

Why not buy the paper books on Amazon and scan them yourself?

[fvanzeveren]

(02-24-2018 07:49 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  Why not buy the paper books on Amazon and scan them yourself?

Maybe because prices are ridiculously high? Or maybe because sellers asking more decent prices do not ship to Belgium... who knows...

Anyway, I start to believe these books have never been scanned... Not a single pdf found on the web...

[Thomas Okken]

A quick look at Amazon found me both books, for about $30 combined.
But yes, they were both Amazon Marketplace sellers, and those typically don't ship outside the U.S.

[paul0207]

I think I have copies of them, but does anyone know if the author or publisher, Dan Coffin or Grapevine Pub., have ever authorized to publicly distribute them?

Thanks,

Paul

[fvanzeveren]

(02-24-2018 10:42 PM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  A quick look at Amazon found me both books, for about $30 combined.
But yes, they were both Amazon Marketplace sellers, and those typically don't ship outside the U.S.

Hi, from amazon.fr, the lowest I found is 85 euros combined, including postage, but in a questionable state...

Even for me, who spent regulary money on books, sometimes buying the printed version after having bought the e-book version just because I am not confortable with "everything digitalized" (have a look on the comic "Bug" from Enkil Bilal ), these prices are too high for second-hand (or more...) books.

Quote:does anyone know if the author or publisher, Dan Coffin or Grapevine Pub., have ever authorized to publicly distribute them?

I doubt they explocitelly gave their consent, as much as I doubt they really care today

Regards

François

[pier4r]

Some questions:

- I read about this publisher, Grapevine Publications, over and over and it seems located near to the old place of the HP calc division. Is that a coincidence? Does someone know more?
- Does someone know a list of the books (not only Hp related) of the Grapevine publications? I was unable to find it.

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(02-25-2018 10:36 AM)pier4r Wrote:  Some questions:

- I read about this publisher, Grapevine Publications, over and over and it seems located near to the old place of the HP calc division. Is that a coincidence? Does someone know more?
- Does someone know a list of the books (not only Hp related) of the Grapevine publications? I was unable to find it.

Hi Pier, some more info, address, etc.

You can find a list of their publications in your USB key by MoHPC, on page 251 of An Easy Course In Programming The HP-41C.

[fvanzeveren]

(02-25-2018 10:36 AM)pier4r Wrote:  Some questions:

- I read about this publisher, Grapevine Publications, over and over and it seems located near to the old place of the HP calc division. Is that a coincidence? Does someone know more?
- Does someone know a list of the books (not only Hp related) of the Grapevine publications? I was unable to find it.

I found this on open library

Also found this, with a description of the foundation of the company

Seems it is not active anymore since at least 11 years...

Regards

[pier4r]

Hi Massimo, thanks for the info!

Anyway a small rant. I understand that for such small publisher the cost to release "not anymore printed books" in ebook format may be high, but in general since the spread of ebook formats (especially pdf, epub ) , multifunction scanners (that eats a non-binded book quite quickly) and digital stores (amazon); I don't really understand why the sea of books not anymore in print do not get just digitized and available to everyone at "reasonable" costs. For a book that is, aside for few people, out of market, I would expect some 20$ for the digital version.

Even a tiny bit less $$ if one avoids to go through the time consuming process of checking that the scan of the book is of high quality. Slightly rotated pages, missing corners and similar stuff are ok, so one can sell the digitized version for 10$.


edit. Collecting here the info about the Grapevine publishing, since it may get lost elsewhere.

Quote:Grapevine Publications, Inc, was formally founded in May of 1983 in Corvallis, Oregon, by Chris Coffin, Ted Wadman and Bob Bloch. But its true beginning traces back to a dinner conversation on September 29, 1982, when Chris and Ted scribbled down the outline for Grapevine's first book, "An Easy Course in Programming the HP-41." Chris and Ted wrote the text over the next 6 months, with Ted hand-lettering the final version and Bob illustrating it. Since then...well, one book has led to another: 2001 will see the advent of our 60th product. Our company is named Grapevine for several reasons. First, although most of our early publications were technical non-fiction, none of the founders wanted the company to have such a limited scope ; any prospective name was not to imply merely "tech books." Also, since the company started with exactly zero capital--and since its charter was ( and still is ) publication of materials good enough to talk about--its name describes its primary marketing plan. Finally, thinking a little more symbolically, grapevines are hardy but friendly plants, with deep roots--both literally and literarily--and its fruits are good either fresh or distilled over time. Those all seem like good values for a publishing company to aspire to.

[pier4r]

(02-25-2018 11:02 AM)fvanzeveren Wrote:  I found this on open library

Seems it is not active anymore since at least 11 years...

Regards

This would raise an interesting question. Suppose the publisher is out of business, and the author is not easily reachable (ex: his actual email address is not know or so) or does not answer. Would it be legit to digitize a book and share it "until it is known whether the copyright owners care" ?

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(02-25-2018 11:09 AM)pier4r Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 11:02 AM)fvanzeveren Wrote:  I found this on open library

Seems it is not active anymore since at least 11 years...

Regards

This would raise an interesting question. Suppose the publisher is out of business, and the author is not easily reachable (ex: his actual email address is not know or so) or does not answer. Would it be legit to digitize a book and share it "until it is known whether the copyright owners care" ?

Hummm... dunno: copyright laws are an ugly beast.

[pier4r]

(02-25-2018 10:57 AM)Massimo Gnerucci Wrote:  You can find a list of their publications in your USB key by MoHPC, on page 251 of An Easy Course In Programming The HP-41C.

Thanks to this hint I just realized the naming convention of files on the usb disk.
Well, great for a 8.3 file system. One would need something like nextcloud to find the documents quickly (or rename them with a lot of patience).

Now I am trying to find the mentioned document since 15 minutes (I do not have content search at the moment), I'll find it eventually and I will post here which name has. It is quite interesting to check files around, serendipity at its best.

\\192.168.1.12\raid1_900gb\mohpc_dvd_backup_2017\data\cd12\books\41easypr.pdf

And yes page 251 has some books from the publisher but not all, for example not those with the 48 (I guess because the book is not that new).

[rprosperi]

(02-25-2018 01:56 PM)pier4r Wrote:  Now I am trying to find the mentioned document since 15 minutes...

You don't need to search for files manually, just open start.htm in the root of the document collection, which is an html page listing all the documents, very similar to the document list on the MoHPC website. It contains links to open every document, but of course you can also simply see (or copy) the path to the subject doc. from the link.

If this is news, I think I just greatly improved your appreciation of the set...

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(02-25-2018 02:39 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  

(02-25-2018 01:56 PM)pier4r Wrote:  Now I am trying to find the mentioned document since 15 minutes...

You don't need to search for files manually, just open start.htm in the root of the document collection, which is an html page listing all the documents,

Yep, that's the way (I like it)! ;)

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(02-25-2018 01:56 PM)pier4r Wrote:  And yes page 251 has some books from the publisher but not all, for example not those with the 48 (I guess because the book is not that new).

Well, who cares about RPL after all? ;) (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

[pier4r]

(02-25-2018 02:39 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  If this is news, I think I just greatly improved your appreciation of the set...

Yes it is!

I am used to, due to various unorganized collections, to focus on the filetype. A book would be mostly in pdf, so I search for pdfs while expecting somewhat useful names in the document path. I did not even check the index. Thanks a lot.


@Massimo. You know well that if one tries to collect historical documents about a topic, one should not ignore part of the topic. (Should. It means that if one really wants to, one could do it. The collection would be less complete though)

Also aside from RPL, what is interesting in some books, even if they use a casio or a ti (I know, you are shivering) , is the main topic. In this case algebra, calculus and what not.

If It would be "how to use the 48G", it would be valuable, but I could understand the "who cares about RPL" from your side.
But ignoring also the math part, why? At the end if one ignores the math part can almost ignore the calculators as well, as they are designed for math operations. (disclaimer: in this case I am presuming that a person that likes calculators due to their appearance rather than their functionality, is very rare)

Last but not least, I know that from your link in the sign, you may not own a 49-50 series, but I am pretty sure you (a) own several 48 and (b) you even want to try newRPL. So your RPL disdain should be less intense as it appears.

[Massimo Gnerucci]

(02-25-2018 04:22 PM)pier4r Wrote:  @Massimo. You know well that if one tries to collect historical documents about a topic, one should not ignore part of the topic. (Should. It means that if one really wants to, one could do it. The collection would be less complete though)

Also aside from RPL, what is interesting in some books, even if they use a casio or a ti (I know, you are shivering) , is the main topic. In this case algebra, calculus and what not.

If It would be "how to use the 48G", it would be valuable, but I could understand the "who cares about RPL" from your side.
But ignoring also the math part, why? At the end if one ignores the math part can almost ignore the calculators as well, as they are designed for math operations. (disclaimer: in this case I am presuming that a person that likes calculators due to their appearance disregarding their functionality, is very rare)

Last but not least, I know that from your link in the sign, you may not own a 49-50 series, but I am pretty sure you (a) own several 48 and (b) you even want to try newRPL. So your RPL disdain should be less intense as it appears.

Gee, you know what a smiley and wink, wink, nudge, nudge mean, do you?

Once more, as if we needed another proof, you show how much you presume and how little you know (about me, at least).

Whence you derive the idea that I do not own a 49-50 series? Rest assured that I own at least one specimen of every HP handheld calculator they ever marketed, even if I didn't participate in your poll.
And, as you pointed out, I even bought a couple machines just to try newRPL.

Am I entitled to dislike RPL? I think I am. Are you entitled to dislike my posts about it? Of course you are.

I tried to like it, I really tried. At first when I got a 28S in '98 as a substitute for my aging 41C: I studied the manuals, printed and read docs about User and SysRPL but no, I simply couldn't swallow it.

Remember: I don't like RPL, not the person I am replying to.
Also, from time to time, we like to have fun at each other about personal preferences on calculators. No offence meant, no offence taken (usually).

Oh, and about Grapevine's publications: the greater part of them were about "An easy course to..." so more a kind of how to use manual than a mathematical essay.

However, since it seems we experience some difficulties in communication, I will simply refrain from answering to your posts, from now on.

Be well.

[pier4r]

(02-25-2018 08:41 PM)Massimo Gnerucci Wrote:  Am I entitled to dislike RPL? I think I am. Are you entitled to dislike my posts about it? Of course you are.

Sure! I did not want to mean that you cannot dislike the RPL. I wanted to emphasize that since here and there you try/show (few) RPL calculators, it may be (may be, not is) that you post often "RPL boo" more as banter than anything. Anyway other readers may not notice this (source: private discussions).
For my side, I am amazed by RPN, RPL, MCode and whatever, although I am not so fluent in RPN with 4 registers (I use 2, max 3 registers, and when I try to use T without thinking, I screw up).

And I do not dislike the banter, only I used it as pointer to expose my idea above that was not using you as "you" rather as a representative of the generic idea "I don't mind that this type X of documents would be included". (where X can be RPL, because not RPN, RPN because not RPL, 35 because I couldn't buy it, etc..)

"Whence you derive the idea that I do not own a 49-50 series?". Was "you may not own" and not "you surely don't own", so more like "As a guess, I'd say he doesn't have a 49-50 since he does not talk about them". But that is, it is a guess.

"I tried to like it, I really tried. ... I simply couldn't swallow it" . I do not see the problem. Picture me trying to don't mess up the register T. It is more like I have to put the blanked on the bed, and I get trapped by it. At least sysrpl/RPL are vast, I am lost trying to use 4 registers instead of 3 ( + 1 for mistakes).

"Oh, and about Grapevine's publications:..."
Ok I expected this, anyway when they have the math topics in the title I would also expect some theory and some practice examples. That is, whatever the calculator one has, the book would be still somewhat useful.

Now back on topic. Has anyone an idea about the copyright problem posted above?

[rprosperi]

(02-26-2018 12:27 AM)pier4r Wrote:  Now back on topic. Has anyone an idea about the copyright problem posted above?

Speaking generally (always dangerous) when a publisher is still selling titles, which Grapevine is, they usually do not explicitly allow arbitrary copying of their titles, including those not still for sale, as doing so can be interpreted as relaxing their rights under copyright law, which may be used as a precedent for also copying the works still for sale, thus depriving them of fair revenue.

That said, Grapevine has granted the MoHPC permission to distribute copies of selected titles:

An Easy Course In Programming The HP-11C and HP-15C
An Easy Course In Programming The HP-41C
An Introduction to HP 48 System RPL and Assembly Language disk contents
An Introduction to HP 48 System RPL and Assembly Language

but not general permission for anything post HP-41. (e.g. the contemporary book for the 12C is NOT included, as it's still available for sale).

So I would conclude it's not OK to freely copy and/or distribute copies of other books from Grapevine without securing written permission. It seems they can still be reached, so whoever wants to do so should try to reach them. Who knows, maybe they no longer care and this would verify and document so.