Preserve contents of large pile of manual disks?

koshy

1096

« on: 13 / April / 2022, 21:05:24 »

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On the CHDK Google Drive we have a Manuals folder in English and German. I considered getting rid of a whole pile of Canon CD-Roms and figured I'd first salvage any manuals missing from that collection for that assembly. Sadly the manual disks are named crypticall.

Once at it I found the European ones to be structures of a plethora of languages. Maybe 200 or 300 MiB per Camera so by today's standards not a big deal to keep that. The question I have is do we want to? Even if it's a "why not" I'd just copy the discs into a by camera folder structure keeping their inner workings (linked PDFs) so whoever can just pick what they'd like in the future. Some of these PDFs do get lost on-line over the decades and places that offer copies are sometimes dubious enough that I prefer not using them.

2nd: Is there any reason I should keep any of the Canon Software disks, I never used one for anything - does anybody?

disks.jpg (116.25 kB, 764x461 - viewed 14 times.)

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Koshy had a little ELPH which wasn't white as snow but everywhere that Koshy went the ELPH was sure to go. (actually an SD, but that detail ruins the rhyme...)

koshy

1096

Re: Preserve contents of large pile of manual disks?

« Reply #1 on: 31 / July / 2022, 16:32:45 »

So, I take it they can all go, or do we want to add stuff to the google drive?

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Koshy had a little ELPH which wasn't white as snow but everywhere that Koshy went the ELPH was sure to go. (actually an SD, but that detail ruins the rhyme...)

reyalp

14000

Re: Preserve contents of large pile of manual disks?

« Reply #2 on: 31 / July / 2022, 18:29:44 »

Quote from: koshy on 31 / July / 2022, 16:32:45

So, I take it they can all go, or do we want to add stuff to the google drive?

I not personally interested in putting effort into doing anything with them, but FWIW, the Internet Archive does host disk images and manuals. For example they have a Canon manual collection: https://archive.org/details/manuals_canon?&sort=-week&page=2 and their software section contains a lot of Canon driver / manual disks https://archive.org/details/cdromsoftware?query=Canon

I'm not clear what the logistics and legalities are, but if you did want to make a permanent archive, that seems like good direction.

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Don't forget what the H stands for.

koshy

1096

Re: Preserve contents of large pile of manual disks?

« Reply #3 on: 31 / July / 2022, 19:47:19 »

Quote from: reyalp on 31 / July / 2022, 18:29:44

I'm not clear what the [...] legalities are

Browsed around a little bit there.... Disk images like this
https://archive.org/details/adobe-photoshop-elements-9
Become plain warez with their supplement texts like:
https://ia904605.us.archive.org/4/items/adobe-photoshop-elements-9/mac/info.txt
That is not a shade of gray anymore. They will get into trouble with that some time.

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Koshy had a little ELPH which wasn't white as snow but everywhere that Koshy went the ELPH was sure to go. (actually an SD, but that detail ruins the rhyme...)

reyalp

14000

Re: Preserve contents of large pile of manual disks?

« Reply #4 on: 31 / July / 2022, 23:49:32 »

Quote from: koshy on 31 / July / 2022, 19:47:19

That is not a shade of gray anymore. They will get into trouble with that some time.

That would certainly by my IANAL reaction. My guess is stuff gets taken down and uploaders get banned when they get complaints. That's just a guess though, and if correct, it's not obvious whether it's sufficient to keep IA out of trouble in the long run. Not my circus, not my monkeys

In practice, I suspect no one cares much about 12 year old software that was widely bundled free by OEMs. The PowerShot CDs seem like they would be even less of a concern, but again, IANAL.

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Don't forget what the H stands for.