danglerb

The ones off ebay, is the .pdf an image, or is it text that can be selected and searched?

The first manuals that were on the free UK site for download were images scanned from a fiche, not text except for maybe a table of contents.

The bittorrent is a copy of Jim's work, scanned and ocred to text.

****************

Link to my long thread on Pelican asking people to report or flag bootlegs.
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsc...port-them.html

Part of my argument is the pervasive nature of all the Craigslist and Ebay manual sellers catching new owners or potential owners and diverting them from US the best resource. As long as bootleggers make a profit, they will continue to plaster their product all over, so more and more casual owners will never find our community. The only way to stop them is to remove the profit, flag and report.

Adrian_

The stuff currently available for download from the UK site has a file called "Table of contents with links", where you can click on a certain chapter and jump on any of the other pdf's of the manual, provided they are saved in the same directory on your machine. All the volumes are regular pdf's, so they are searchable.

I also have a 2CD set purchased off ebay way back when I had my first 928 (some 8 years ago, I don't even know if rennlist existed at the time). This set consists strictly of microfiche scans in tiff format, divided in 17 directories (engine, engine diagnostics, transmision aso). Perhaps one of Jim's early works, honestly I only remember I paid almost nothing for them, maybe 10$ or so, but not other details (like the ebay user I bought them from). They are very hard to use, and the quality of the source microfiche was rather bad (many scratches), but back in the day they did the trick.

Didn't bothered to do extensive comparations, but the info quantity seems similar.

Sailmed

Don't bogart that joint!

Fogey1

If it's from Porsche, it will have a part number and it'll be available from a dealer, probably at a slightly lower price. The PET was that way (Teilenummer: 00004340005).

I hope somebody who bought the $30 CD will post a part number if there is one.

jcorenman

I bought one of these, on the presumption that it was an original Porsche document-- based on their use of the Porsche crest and "Porsche" name with the trademarked font. We have an original manual set, I was hoping for a better working copy without the scan defects.

It is however identical to the copy that be downloaded from the cannell.co.uk website-- for example the scan-defect below appears in the upper-right corner of page 10 of the 1990 wiring diagram of both documents.

I'll be sending it back, the use of the crest and logo implies that it is an official Porsche publication which it is not. Since we bought it through Amazon I am not expecting any argument.

M. Requin

Good work, thanks for this post. A confirmation of many suspicions.

ROG100

The discs from the JM set are available seperatly.
The WSM and PET6 Disc are $40.

Adrian_

The guy selling this for $30 on Amazon should be reported to the proper authorities. My 2 p.

jim morehouse

Ok, guess I'll chime in. First, if you want to determine if the cd you have is the one I did, it will have a pdf file called "Table of Contents w links". As far as I know, this is unique and I'm not aware of any other version out there except the "image only" pdf that Andrew did. Chances are you have one or the other.

I did this shortly after getting my first 928 because I'm a novice mechanic, an information junkie, and I'm retired so I had the time. I thought the hard copy was a bit hard to use...the organization can be confusing. So I paid around $900 to have the hard copy professionally scanned and OCR'd so it'd be text searchable...is it perfect? No, but it's pretty good. The wire diagrams were a challenge and I opted for the split pages to increase legibility since I couldn't get a good scan of the large hard copy pages. Then I spent some time trying to make it easier to use...thus the "Table of Contents w links" that lets you pretty much find what you need w two mouse clicks (Repair Group, then a line from the detailed T of C that appears at the front of each volume). Took quite a bit of time and my hope was that I'd break even. At this time, if you could find a hard copy, it was anywhere from $300 plus to over $700 later on. I didn't want to rip anyone off, thus the $40. The response was much greater than I anticipated. Porsche was pretty vigilant about ebay sellers but that seems to have stopped and I'm frankly amazed that Amazon is letting this go on.

I'm not exactly in a position to be morally outraged at the people selling copies. Of course I'm disappointed, but the support I've received from the people on rennlist has been very gratifying. I've even had folks who found out they had a copy of the cd I did contact me wanting to "square up" and I'm very pleased that so many have found it useful.

The 3 cd set I call Technical Publications was another matter. I bought,borrowed and searched long and hard for every tech manual I could find then scanned them myself and ocr'd a lot of them to shrink the size and increase the legibility and usefulness. Didn't do it for a big profit but because it interested me and I thought it'd be my 'contribution' to the knowledge pool. I haven't seen anything rivaling it for any other car, although I haven't looked that hard, and I'm pretty proud of it. Relative to the time and expense, the price was pretty low. Another reason it was low is that I couldn't have done it w/o the help of many on this list. I sent out a free update to version 2. I've got a version 3 update almost ready (but I'm lagging on finishing) that includes the owners manuals...again, the intent is to distribute free to current owners. If someone wants to 'host' the owners manuals and some of the other V3 updates, let me know. The hard disk crash really set me back, not only on the version 3 update, but on the work on a Euro version of the FWSM (sorry John). Couple that w a waning enthusiam, my obsession w golf and my recent purchase of a Harley and I'm not sure when I'll get it done.

To those of you who believe this work is a 'rip off' and/or unethical, you're obviously entitled to your opinion. To the many others who have been so encouraging, thank you, it's meant a lot to me.

-Jim

Adrian_

Jim, this means that your version is now available for download on the UK site. I recently downloaded all the 928 stuff you can find there and among the pdf's was the "Table of Contents w links" you mentioned.

You might want to contact the owner of the site, the very least he can do is to offer you some credentials.

The only thing available there is the WSM.

Gtaebr

During the long search for "my" 928. I found several versions of the WSM online around the world including those mentioned here. I combined parts to make 1 big searchable PDF which works well. Got a full working version of the PET and other files.

Overall I have wound up with most of the contents of Jims cd.

I found this process long but enjoyable as it gave me a good foundation for owning a 928.

Of course this pouring through the web for months is not everyones idea of a good time. So I would endorse supporting Jim. Time is money and he definitely did the work.
If anyone wishes to do the work for their own personal use I have no problem. I do not like the fact that others outside of the enthusiast group are wanting to profit from what is essentially free information.

Just my 2c ymmv

dr bob

More than a couple years ago now, I (and a few others) had an opportunity to discuss the manuals situation with parts distribution manager from PCNA. They were acutely aware of the problems with the paper manual costs and sporadic (at the time) availability. They also said that they had given the production rights and the copyright for the manuals to their manual supplier. So PCAG from that poiint had no copyright to defend. That's very likely the reason why there has been no giant hand sweeping down and slapping the casual WSM pirate. For the Amazon item, PCAG (thru PCNA) has a right and an obligation to protect the name and trademark info shown on the item. It may be as much an issue of making sure that a poor quality item isn't represented as coming from the factory. Hopefully the hand-slap fro that won't include the JM product and the sources we know.

Take a close look at what JM has done. First off, I purchased a paper WSM from a local dealer very early in my stewardship period. Read it cover to cover to cover, everything that applies to my car and much that applies to others'. I also recently bought the JM CD set, mostly for the extra stuff in the set. It really is faster for me to search the paper manuals and drop the page on the copier here for garage use, vs a search/lookup on the PDF WSM set and print a page. That's a local logistics issue though, and many have just the CD set. Doesn't make any difference.

My advice: If you need a CD set, buy a copy of Jim's work from Jim or from Roger. Why? First off, you get a lot more than just the WSM's. Most importantly, we support the folks who support us. Jim went through a lot of effort to put these things together. I consulted with him on production options early in his decision process. We talked about a distributed community effort getting the scanning done for instance. Impractical, and any OCR would be inconsistent at best. I want to support the efforts of those who support us. I buy parts from the major 928 suppliers, the same folks who host/sponsor our events directly and indirectly. The folks who keep 928 parts on the shelf so I can stroll in and buy what I need when I feel like it. I have no loyalty to an Amazon vendor, since this would at best be a one-time purchase. Of course I could slide the disk into my duplicator and spin out a dozen copies to give away to friends, saying that I'm no more wrong than any of the other pirates, but that's hardly a way to rationailize a wrong into a right.

Think 'Golden Rule' as you make a purchase decision.



My too sense.

Hilton

So did anyone who ordered the CD in the topic of this thread receive it yet?

JoeTaylor

Hi Hilton,

I have recieved my copy of the CD from Amazon, but I have been afraid to mention it on the board.

I didnt realize how many "scacred cows" I would unearth here by mentioning the availability of a 928 manual on Amazon. (Geez....)

BTW, the manual looks fine to me, but I have no other ones to compare it to. But for $30 vs. $300 for a paper manual on Ebay, it works for me.

VTY,
Joe

Adrian_

Compare it to the one here (scroll down a bit) http://www.cannell.co.uk/Manuals.htm