As a collector and user of old computers, I'm also constantly looking for old books and documentation. I guess I'm a bit weird, but I collect the stuff. I like to read it, and I like using the old software that much of it describes.
Books are relatively easy: I go to Amazon, search, and buy used. It's amazing what you can get for $.01 plus $3.99 shipping. And it's amazing how many old computer books from the '60s, '70s, and '80s are out there. I buy Unix and CP/M related books, and books about old programming languages like Fortran, Lisp, Pascal, and Snobol.
More recently, I've been getting back into running CP/M, both on real hardware (a Kaypro 4) and emulation (SIMH Altairz80). I also sometimes play around on a TRS-80 emulator running TRSDOS or LDOS. These are fun old systems and there's a ton of old software for them in various archives around the net. I have large archives of stuff for both systems.
If there's a problem, it's mostly with documentation, especially for the more complex packages like programming languages, text editors, word processors and the like. Often the documentation is out there, but it's in pdf format, when I really wanted it as a real book. Forgive me, but for me a real book that I can touch and even smell, is oh-so-much better than a pdf file.
Enter Lulu! Lulu is the creation of Bob Young, who you might remember as the founder of Red Hat. Lulu is a self-publishing service. Authors can upload content, have it printed and bound in small or large quantities, and shipped to purchasers. It's a turnkey service. You can create your book and sell it directly from the Lulu.com service.
Here's what Lulu says about itself on the About page:
Lulu is changing the world of publishing by empowering authors to publish their work themselves for free with complete editorial and copyright control. Lulu.com has truly become home to a new economy. Millions of registered users and two million site visitors each month as well as offices in Raleigh, London, Toronto and Bangalore, enable Lulu customers to reach the globe.
Lulu eliminates traditional barriers to publishing and enables authors to sell their work directly to their particular audience – no jumping through hoops to find a publisher who is likely to reject their work. Using Lulu’s simple publishing tools, they format and upload their digital content. Then they can take advantage of Lulu’s global marketplace, social networking and author services, free customized online stores and retail listings on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and much more. Lulu’s lucrative 80/20-revenue split empowers authors to profit from their work.
My company uses Lulu to publish the users manuals for its software. My personal use is more mundane. I upload old manuals that I find archived on the net. They were generally scanned from the originals and saved as pdf. Then I print and bind them for my own use. A 300 page manual might cost me $15 shipped to my door. I don't have to use any laser toner or a ream of paper. I don't need to buy a binding machine or three ring binders. The books are professionally done with covers of my own design.
My latest Lulu creation is a Microsoft Fortran-80 manual. This one is from 1977, and the scan was pretty good. I uploaded the 11MB file to Lulu, created the book in a couple of minutes, ordered and payed with Paypal, and had the book in hand in less than a week. Now, when I want to sit down and do some Fortran programming, I can have the manual in front of me just like in the old days.
It's all good!
If you're not familiar with Lulu, I'd encourage you to go take a look at lulu.com. They provide a great service to authors, and to collectors of old stuff!
