[R-390] Additional Y2K Manual update info

[Barry Hauser]

Hi Perry

Perry wrote:

> The tentative title is Y2K-R3 Beta.  It will be posted on Al's web site 
> for all to peruse, make  suggestions and corrections.  One new chapter 
> will be Scott Scheickel's gear rebuilding pictures and data.

The gear train rebuild could use some additional annotations.

<snipped>
>One change is that this is not going to be a searchable PDF manual unless 
>someone else does it.  My reasons are that it makes  for larger files, is 
>IMHO of >marginal value, and I don't know how to do it.

I don't understand.  The first stage of the whole Y2K project five years ago 
was to go to the trouble of OCRing it so it would be true text --  
searchable, edit-able and more compact.  200-300 pages of bit imaged pages 
pulled into Acrobat would be no improvement over the other (mostly Army) 
manuals that had already been done.  Not edit-able and not searchable in 
that form. Some of those are around 43 megs due to the inefficiency of 
capturing and storing text pages as bit images.

Both original and first revision of the Y2K manual are searchable as-is. 
Most of the text that are part of illustrations and the whole parts list is 
searchable as well.  For example, I just searched on "C553" and acrobat 
found six instances within a few seconds.  It works well in the text body 
and parts list, however seems to highlight too many elements of the 
annotations in the drawings.  If somehow you're coming up with an 
unsearchable version, sounds like a problem and potential giant leap 
backward.

(Is the text still text?  Did you start with the RTF files and inputs 
supplied by Al Tirevold?)

The entire Y2K Rev 2 is about 17 megs.  There is a placeholder for the 
improved gear train illustrations on existing page 6-91.  I think that's the 
best place for Scott's photo sequence to be inserted.  I did a test compile 
into acrobat and figured it would add abou 2-3 megs.  That would bring the 
whole file to about 20 megs -- maybe one or two more with other edits.

>  Many forget Edison's
> comment:  It is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.  There 
> is considerable heavy lifting involved.

Yup, been there, done that.

>
> When the vast majority of errors are corrected (it's never "finished") It 
> will be re-posted on Al's site.  It will be both in Word 95 and Acrobat 5 
> PDF as one large file.

> I will also break it down into as many 10 Mbyte files for those of us who 
> have dial-up.

Shouldn't be more than 2 files that way. 10 meg files may not be small 
enough.  The existing Rev2 is available by chapter.

>I will mail a CD with all the finished files, plus the entire 5 year 
>mailing list edited files, and other miscellaneous R390A downloaded data 
>that I can fit on the CD for $5 including postage.  I will print the manual 
>ONLY on a duplex B/W laser printer and mail for $10.  Get both for $12. DO 
>NOT
> SEND ME ANY MONEY UNTIL REQUESTED!!.

I suggest you doublecheck your arithmetic including media mail (rates 
increasing) for the likely weight.  Paper may be cheap but it's generally 
2-3 cents per page in toner for a high capacity/loose toner copier at 5-15% 
coverage.  If using a laser printer with toner cartridge, the cost can run 
much higher per page -- and counts per side, not per sheet.  Might be OK, or 
you might be shortchanging yourself.  Anyway. you're right -- it's way 
premature for anyone to get involved printing or burning CD's for others.

Another factor -- much of the Y2K is in color.  Not sure how some of the 
photos come out in b&w.

Hope some of this helps.
Barry