Schematics Archive (II)

[Tony Clark]

> It could be also wise to put online the data sheets for the main active
> components of each
> schematics. It would be especially useful in case of "bugs" in the schemo,
> coz checking the
> datasheet is very often the only way to figure out what's going on...
> Links to manufacturers sites might not be enough : I wonder how long they
> will keep online
> datasheets for discontinued / obsolete parts... Although you might need
> permission from them
> to include their documents on your site...

   Well I might add that schematics with discontinued or obsoleted parts 
are really not good designs to be building, even if you have the parts!  
It would be far better to get a more updated design.
   Datasheets are extremely easy to come by, in my experience.  I'm not 
sure it will be a very productive effort to try to have a datasheet for 
every critical part (there are a LOT of them!).  However, there are those 
few oddball pieces which should be put on the net!
 
> I also think that one should agree on some "quality standards" for schem
> publishing, like pdf
> documents (for instance) and (above all !) high quality scans (there's
> nothing worst that
> wasting time downloading documents with such poor quality that they're just
> unusable).

   I agree with your sentiments about bad scans.  That is why I have 
guidelines for schematics that are submitted to my archive (at least 
stuff that is being scanned).  Schematics that have already been scanned, 
well, there's not a whole lot anyone of us can do except try to track 
down the paper originals and rescan (and I have seen some terrible 
originals, BTW).
   Personally I think it is great that _any_ of this stuff has been 
scanned at all!  I know it takes me quite a bit of time to do just the 
image manipulation on stuff that is submitted, never-the-less to spend 
the time to scan it in!
   PDF's are great, but there are good and bad ways to do it.  The bad 
way is to just include only scanned images.  HUGE files!  The better way, 
of course, is to do a capture on the material to get the best 
optimization of image and text.  Of course it takes a lot more time to go 
through all of the unrecognized elements...
   I am currently working with Acrobat and will start doing conversions 
of schematics on my site when I have become comfortable with the 
program.  Of course anyone is welcome to start before me... ;)

> When there's an article and/or a component list associated with the schemo,
> they should always
> be included in the same document (and not only in the same folder).

   I definately agree with this.

   There are some good ideas floating around.  I wish I had more time to 
apply my efforts to such a grand scheme, so someone with the time should 
give it a go.  :)  There can _never_ be too much information on the net, 
just too little.

   Tony, wishing someone would devote a web site to vintage effects unit 
information.

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I can't drive (my Moog) 55!         |     The E-Music DIY Archive
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Tony Clark -- clark at andrews.edu     | aupe.phys.andrews.edu/diy_archive
http://aupe.phys.andrews.edu/~clark |     Contributions welcomed!
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