RE: System Handbook v4r5?

[Jeff Bull <Jeff.Bull@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey Jim, are you sure you're not on the IBM payroll ? :-)

Your points are well taken.  

As a consultant with clients who still have Fxx models (and a few even
earlier models), there are times that old manuals come in very useful.  In
particular System Handbooks, Operator's Guide.  I once had to de-commission
a System/38 and had to rely solely on memory on how to power it up, back it
up etc etc, not my idea of fun.

It is coming up to Christmas, and my letter to Santa will have a rather
strange request in it ...

Kind regards,

Jeffrey E. Bull
OS400 Software Support Consultant

IBM Certified Systems Expert, iSeries Technical Solutions
IBM Certified Systems Specialist, AS/400 System Administration

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-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Damato [mailto:jdamato@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: 09 December 2003 23:35
To: 'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'
Subject: RE: System Handbook v4r5?


>Jeff Bull:
>Web page content management - are you kidding?  Setup costs yes,
>I agree, but then leave it alone, redecorating a website is not 
>necessary.  Readers, whether its the IBM Library Reader, Adobe 
>acrobat, or HTML are not necessary if you only enable manuals
>and readers to be downloaded by the visitors.

No, I'm not kidding about content management.  Managing a website such as
IBM's is a major undertaking.  But I see what you're saying -- set up the
old documentation and leave it alone.  A company would have to be
comfortable with leaving a legacy website out there, outside of their
standard of care for the rest of their content.

And what happens when Book Manager becomes obsolete?  Do you still leave the
old book files out there and the reader, even though it only runs on
obsolete versions of Windows?


>I do not perceive that we need search engines that rootle 
>through the old manuals, just one that helps you locate 
>the manual(s).

My point is that search engines have bots to create search indexes.  The
search indexing happens automatically.  I'm describing a consequence of
leaving links to many versions of old documentation.  If Google, for
example, indexes the archive site then it poisons your ability to perform
easy searches for content.  You're going to get hits on a Google search for
"interactive feature" for every scannable occurrence of the old
documentation.  Likewise, IBM's internal indexing would have to be
programmed to skip the archive areas, or else a search on IBM's page would
come up with dozens of extra hits.


>As I said in my last posting, I am not suggesting that 
>ALL manuals end up in the archive, though under my schema 
>that would only equate to increased disk space.

I'm not saying that all manuals would be archived either, but think about
what you're saying.  Who is going to decide which of the hundreds of manuals
per release are the critical manuals?  That requires time and thought.  And
multiply that by the number of hardware and software products IBM supports
or has supported.  There are Jeff Bulls out there wishing they had old
Domino, mainframe, RS/6000, Tivoli, etc. documentation as well.  If you're
running a de-supported machine, you're going to have to run the older
de-supported software as well.

>...I believe that IBM have a moral obligation to give 
>more support to the users of the older systems.

"Moral obligation" and "more support" are subjective terms.  I don't
disagree, but I think that IBM has fulfilled their moral obligation by
keeping releases back to V4R1.  But you might recall my discussions with Al
Barsa over the library list extension.  My feeling is that running without
support should be considered to be largely "at your own risk".

If I were still running a V4R1 system I'd be downloading everything from
IBM's site right now, if I didn't still have the documentation on CD.  That
way I'd be prepared if IBM rolled the documentation offline.  I think that
the moral obligation starts with the owner of the system.

>If there is sufficient demand from S/36, S/38 S/390 etc etc
>users for a similar archive, then 'demand' should indicate 
>the need for a supply.  If IBM will not do this for free, 
>then perhaps another organisation can provide it on a site
>subscription basis.  This shouldn't be rocket science.

It's not rocket science but there is a considerable effort in organizing the
demand for every major IBM product.  I would agree that a third party might
develop a business off a subscription service.  Then the effort would be
financed by the end user.

I'm sorry to beat this into the ground.  Having archived documentation would
definitely be a benefit. It just seems much, much larger than laying out
some files on a web server.

-Jim
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