Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!elroy!cit-vax!tybalt.caltech.edu!woody
From: woody@tybalt.caltech.edu (William Edward Woody)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Motorola manuals
Message-ID: <6001@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: 2 Apr 88 01:09:08 GMT
References: <5473@spool.cs.wisc.edu> <104700019@uiucdcsp> <1294@iscuva.ISCS.COM>
Sender: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu
Reply-To: woody@tybalt.caltech.edu.UUCP (William Edward Woody)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 36

In article <1294@iscuva.ISCS.COM> jimc@iscuva.ISCS.COM (Jim Cathey) writes:
>In article <104700019@uiucdcsp> gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>>Motorola is very poor at documenting their chips.
>Motorola documents them well, so far as I have seen.  Of course you have
>to _get_ their documentation.  We have no trouble finding these manuals.

Did you _call_ Motorola themselves?  One day about a year ago, I wanted
to get my hands on the 68020 and the 68881 manuals.  So after calling all
the bookstores in town, I called Motorola.  (Got their number from OpAmp
Technical Books here in LA.)  When I called, I remember the conversation
being something like:

me:  "I'd like to get my hands on any programming manuals for the 68020 and
the 68881 processor chips."
them: "No problem.  I need your name and address."
me:  Giving them my name and my (at that time) Caltech mailing address.
them: "Thank you.  You should get it in a few weeks."  --click--
me:  "Don't you wan't any of the usual payment information???"  (The phone
     is dead at this point.)

And a few weeks later, I recieved the "MC68020 32-Bit Microprocessor User's
Manual", the "MC68881 Floating-Point Coprocessor User's Manual", the
"MC68851 Paged Memory Management Unit User's Manual" (which I didn't ask
for but certainly appreciated) -- all for free, along with about a half-inch
of promotional material for the MC68020.  (You know, the flyers which
usually appear in magazines promoting how nifty their stuff is.)

Some days I just get lucky.  But it _does_ pay to call around...  ;-)

(And no, it wasn't a billing problem; the invoice was marked _paid in full_,
with payment due being $0.00.)

Maybe they thought I was a student (a correct assumption) or a researcher?

  -  William Edward Woody
     woody@tybalt.caltech.edu                   (Mac>][n&&/|\)&&(MacII>AT)
Disclamer:  I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about...