Old Databooks worth anything?

Going through my garage, I found a stash of old data books from the 80's and

90's: Burr Brown, TI, National, and others. Considering most of these can be gotten on CDs today, are these old paper books worth keeping, or should I recycle them?
Reply to
greysky
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It is possible that you may have the last copy in existence of one or another of these.

Can you post a list?

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Homer J Simpson

Reply to
Prajit

They are infinitely valuable. Because if you need that datasheet for an obsolete part, they will likely be the only place to look, unless someone has scanned in their old datasheets.

Of course, the later they are, the less value they are since they will still be common.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Black

I still use my data books (especially the app-notes books!) that date back to the late '70s. They're valuable to me because they go back to when a lot of really popular chips & transistors were brand new on the market, so they cover strengths, weakenesses, suggested configurations & app's in a lot more depth than you see in modern documentation.

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Reply to
Lionel

That's the point generally with technical books. When something is new, the detail is quite good, because they are explaining it as a new thing to everyone. Later, there is often an assumption that "everyone knows" so the coverage of that topic gets truncated, to make room for newer material. Yes, you need the newer material, but that leaves the older topics lost to the newcomer.

When I see old databooks (and technical books for that matter), given taht they are likely to be at used book sales and carry a very low price, I'll generally buy them. My attitude is that I may not need them now, but if I do, they won't be available at that point unless I grabe them when I have a chance.

The sad thing is that some of my oldest and most used books are starting to fall apart.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Black
[Followup posted to sci.electronics.misc, and an E-mail copy was sent to greysky.]

In article , snipped-for-privacy@sbcglobal.net (known to some as greysky) scribed...

If you have not already been convinced by others to keep them, please give me an idea of how many there are, weight-wise. If it's not a quantity that would give me a hernia to lift, I would be happy to pay shipping to collect them.

Alternatively, if you are located in the Bay Area, I can request that a friend of mine in San Jose pick them up.

Note: Several portions of SBCGlobal address space have been blocked out of our server due to spam problems. If your E-mail bounces, please reply here.

Thanks.

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Reply to
Dr. Anton T. Squeegee

All,

Sorry to hijack someone else's thread, but I, too, have been pulling out some of my unused electronics-related books & magazines. They are from college and second-hand, so articles may be missing and they may be marked up a bit.

I have compiled a list here: http~:~//~home~.~sport~.~rr~.~com~/~kuhlmann~/~j~/~elecbks.txt (without the tildes)

If anyone would be willing to take some of them for the cost of shipping, please let me know. I am located in the Southern U.S., 71105 zipcode. I hate to take them to the book recyclers if someone can make use of them. My e-mail is: j~kuhlmann~at~sport~.~rr~.~com (without the tildes).

If I was supposed to start a new thread, please let me know. I am a long-time lurker, but have never posted to this newsgroup.

J
Reply to
j

Wow, nice collection. I wish I could give them a good home for you.

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Reply to
Lionel

You should start a new thread, because some people kill a thread if they aren't interested in the subject. Also, some anal retentive types love to make a big deal out of it and there is no reason to give them anything else to whine about. :)

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Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

I remember seeing a program on PBS

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that said IIRC for less than a 3 percent difference in cost, http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:bzZyiBgHzwsJ:
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*-readily-available-at-comparable-cost+slow.fires+acid+Last.Update+2002+heritage all the books made with newsprint-quality[1] paper could have been made with acid-free paper and would have had essentially infinite lifetimes instead of crumbling to dust as they are. (Doesn't count rough handling of covers/spines.) . . [1] Now THERE's an oxymoron.

Reply to
JeffM

http://66.102.9.104/search?q=cache:bzZyiBgHzwsJ:

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*-readily-available-at-comparable-cost+slow.fires+acid+Last.Update+2002+heritage

Actually, the pages are in good shape, even books fifty years old (though that 1951 "Radio Engineering" started with pages that I suspect wouldn't stand up to constant use, they just seem flimsy). But through use, the cover comes off, and then pages start coming off because the cover is no longer there. Or in some cases (ARRL books), the spine splits, and then the pages start coming off one by one if I'm not careful. When the front cover comes off, then you start losing the index (or in case of an old ECG replacement guide, part of the cross-reference).

Obviously, we are talking paperback books. In some cases, I've found used copies years after I bought them new, and have grabbed them because of the low cost, as backups. These aren't books that I've mistreated, they are books I've used, and they just weren't designed in the first place for heavy useage (though to offset that, their cost wasn't high to begin with).

I can't think of a TAB book that has fallen apart, but the limit there seems to be that I never put them through too much use, so they stay in almost as good shape as the day I bought them decades ago. The Howard Sams books have stood up well, but my copy of Don Lancaster's "CMOS Cookbook" has lost its front cover.

I realize the trick is to do something when the initial problem comes up, ie when the spine breaks or the cover first comes off. I sort of put it off, wanting to do a proper job, and then the matter is compounded by pages coming off. I can think of cheap and easy ways of fixing the books, but they would hardly keep the books in "like new" condition.

Michael

Reply to
Michael Black

Michael Black wrote:

Upon receipt, the libraries put transparent plastic (like contact paper) on the cover/spine of each paperback and they do much better.

Reply to
JeffM

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