Jnc: Another place to accumulate useful URL's

2026-10-06T17:27:14Z

Another place to accumulate useful URL's

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'''DEC manuals''' were accumulated by [[Digital Equipment Corporation|DEC]] over several decades. Dating, as it did, from the early days of the industry, and originally catering primarily to engineers, who were able to repair and modify their DEC machines, it always had the habit of making available extensive documentation on its machines.

Many have now been scanned, and are available on/through the Internet; this is a huge benefit to the museums and many collectors who now keep, maintain and run collectable DEC gear.

==Identification/numbering system==

Similar to [[DEC engineering drawing numbers]], DEC manuals all had an identification 'number' (it included letters). There were two different systems: one in use up to about April, 1975; the other, thereafter.

In the first, they had the form 'DEC-ww-xxxxxx-y-z'; 'ww' was a number which indicated which [[List of Programmed Data Processors|line]] the manual was for/associated-with (e.g. "10" for the [[PDP-10]], "11" for [[PDP-11]]'s). The rest were all letters; 'z' indicated the revision level of that particular manual, so the first one had an 'A'.

In the second, they had the form 'ww-xxxx-yy-zzz'. 'ww' was an alphabetic code (similar to [[DEC engineering drawing numbers#Drawing codes|DECdrawing codes]]), which indicated what class of document it was. The following codes are known:

* AA - Software documentation
* AD - Addenda
* AE - [[Software Product Description]]
* AV - Reference cards
* DS - [[DEC Alpha|/Alpha]] CPU/Chipset documentation
* EC - Alpha system component documentation
* EK - Hardware Documentation
* EY - Educational Services

The next field, 'xxxx', indicated which type of system/module the manual was for. 'yy' indicated the type of manual it was; the following typs (again, similar to drawing codes) are known:

* MM - 'Maintenance Manual'
* OP - 'Operator's Manual'
* TM - 'Technical Manual'
* UG - 'User Guide'

The 'zzz' was a number indicating the revision level of the manual at hand; it started at '001'.

==See also==

* [[DEC engineering drawing numbers]]
* [[:Category:DEC Documentation|DEC Documentation]]
* [[DEC Unique Product Identifier]]

==External links==

* [http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/ DEC] - the primary online collection is at [[Bitsavers]]
** [http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/catalog/MaintenancePrintPNs.txt Maintenance Print list]
* [https://manx-docs.org/ Manx] - Manx indexes many online collections of manuals
** [https://manx-docs.org/about.php About Manx]
* [https://vaxhaven.com/Documentation Documentation]
* [https://wwcm.synology.me/scanned.html Main Scanned Document List] - at Wilber Williams' Computer Museum
* [http://chiappa.net/~jnc/tech/FMPSOnline.html 'Missing' Digital Equipment Corporation Field Maintenance Print Sets Online]

[[Category: Digital Equipment Corporation]]
[[Category: DEC Documentation]]
[[Category: DEC Naming/Numbering Schemes]]

DEC manuals - Revision history

Jnc: Another place to accumulate useful URL's