Sparcom Mathematics Pac manual (48) - Need me to scan mine?

[Dave Britten]

I have a Sparcom Pocket Professional Mathematics Pac card for my 48 with a pristine manual, and was wondering if I should temporarily uncoil it and put it on the scanner. I don't want to pointlessly repeat work, but I couldn't find a PDF copy floating around with a quick search. If there's already a good scan archived somewhere, I won't waste the effort on it though.

[rprosperi]

(12-15-2020 05:09 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  I have a Sparcom Pocket Professional Mathematics Pac card for my 48 with a pristine manual, and was wondering if I should temporarily uncoil it and put it on the scanner. I don't want to pointlessly repeat work, but I couldn't find a PDF copy floating around with a quick search. If there's already a good scan archived somewhere, I won't waste the effort on it though.

I have the Sparcom Calculus Pac Manual PDF, but I suspect these are different products.

[Dave Britten]

(12-15-2020 08:58 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  I have the Sparcom Calculus Pac Manual PDF, but I suspect these are different products.

Most likely, as I didn't see much calculus in mine.

I'll try to make some time to scan it soonish, if nobody turns up with an existing PDF before then.

[rprosperi]

A PDF copy is available from Samson Cables, but it's $9.95 (emailed).

That may or may not be worth it, depending on manual size and how much you like to fight with the scanner. Probably the right price IMHO; everyone ponders it for at least a short while...

[Dave Britten]

(12-16-2020 12:20 AM)rprosperi Wrote:  A PDF copy is available from Samson Cables, but it's $9.95 (emailed).

That may or may not be worth it, depending on manual size and how much you like to fight with the scanner. Probably the right price IMHO; everyone ponders it for at least a short while...

Interesting, did they actually purchase/negotiate the rights to the Sparcom catalog? Freely disseminating old manuals is one thing, but selling new copies always makes me wonder.

Scanning isn't too hard with my setup. I usually uncoil the book if it's coil bound, and use NAPS2 to quickly capture each page into a PDF. It's mostly a question of whether or not the book will fit on the glass of my not-very-big scanner. Fortunately calculator manuals tend to be small enough.

[Eric Rechlin]

I have a large collection of scanned manuals but I haven't seen a PDF of that floating around.

I have a pretty good scan setup; I run everything through my ADF, scan at 600 dpi, clean up the images with a combination of scripted tools, tools I wrote myself, and manual effort, and then downscale to 300 dpi or 400 dpi (depending on the book) to make PNGs that I convert to OCR'd PDFs.

If you scan it and can provide me with original TIFFs or PNGs (preferably not JPEGs), I can do all the processing for you.

[rprosperi]

(12-16-2020 02:24 PM)Dave Britten Wrote:  Interesting, did they actually purchase/negotiate the rights to the Sparcom catalog? Freely disseminating old manuals is one thing, but selling new copies always makes me wonder.

No idea, but as Sparcom closed in the late 90's it is likely moot, as there is no existing copyright holder to grant (or deny) permission. IANAL, but I'd say it's likely OK to do this under the circumstances and if they were able to reach Mega to ask, he'd likely say it's OK.

Please - no legal opinions from non-Lawyers. I'm not approving or condoning what is happening, only observing and commenting.

[Eric Rechlin]

I did some more searching and I finally found this manual. I will try to get it posted on my manuals site in the near future.