Re: Cardisc

[Thomas Washburn <thomasw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> Date: Wed, 28 May 2003 11:14:33 -0700
> From: "Greg Steinke" <GSTEINKE@domain.elided>
> Subject: Cardisc
> 
> Here's an idea -
> Used/refurb laptops are readily available for a few hundred dollars.
> Being older, they would have Win98 or something like that. And being a
> relatively small laptop, one could keep it in the garage and not have to
> worry about getting greasy fingerprints on the nice new machine. One
> could probably even get an overlay for the keyboard to protect it. The
> biggest drawback is that the older laptops tend to have relatively
> low-res screens (like 800x600 or so) which could impact the visibility
> of the diagrams. But it's worth looking into. IBM and Dell sell refurbs
> on their web site, also there's stuff available on Ebay, or a local
> surplus computer store (of which there are plenty here in Silicon
> Valley).
> 
> Greg

Or one could just buy a printed manual.

Don't get me wrong, machine-readable can be great, but CarDiscs don't 
take advantage of any of the benefits of being machine-readable.
The text is neither searchable nor cross-referenced, the data format 
is a secret, the software is not portable and the media is not 
particularly cheap.  

And on top of all that, most of the wiring diagrams are unreadable.

In this day and age, the complete text of Alfa's service manuals 
ought to be available 24 hours a day from http://www.alfaromeo.com.

-Tom
thomasw@domain.elided
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