Roy J. Tellason's Web Pages

Home Page -> Business -> Excess Documentation

I used to run a service business. We did a lot of musical electronics, computers, and some other odd stuff, and relatively little consumer electronics by comparison. Which is probably a good thing, as consumer electronics is where there's the most downward price pressure, and the fastest movement toward "throw it away and buy a new one instead of fixing it" which is the sort of economic considerations that eventually resulted in us closing the shop and ceasing operations.

The regular retail end of our operation, then known as T & D Tech Services, ended in April of 1992, coming up on 16 years ago as I (originally wrote) write this. I've still worked on stuff from time to time, but lately it occurs to me that I have an awful lot of service data here that I'll never use. Hence this page...

For a look at a pile of them having just arrived here, look at this picture. The rest of them can be seen just having arrived here and here (all images are 1024x768).

The following lists a lot of what I have that I'm willing to part with. Feel free to email me if you want to get a hold of any of this stuff. My first question to you will be "what's it worth to you?" -- beyond simple postage and such. I can use all the help I can get! :-)

For whatever it's worth, I ran across one site that allows you to download electronic versions of this stuff and print it out yourself (and I don't know how they cope with the big foldout diagrams) and they charged either $20 or $35 the last time I looked.

A zip code (or postal code) if you're in the US will help me give you an idea of what it'll cost to get it to you as well.

Please do NOT email me asking for photocopies or scans of this stuff. I simply don't have the time, and I'm not interested in making a target out of myself with regard to companies that are into the idea of protecting their intellectual property rights, I am only interested in getting as much of this material as possible into the hands of folks that can use it.

Note that this is all original factory printed material, excepting in some cases where all I have are photocopies, which is noted in the chart below. In some instances, that's all I have. In some other cases, there are more than one set of something, and perhaps one or more of the sets is photocopies and some are original prints. This is noted in the chart.

Further, a lot of these manuals have a bunch of foldout pages which would be difficult to photocopy or scan, and board layouts are often grayscale or multiple colors. A lot of the Yamaha manuals for example include big foldout schematics with a lot of detailed info that would be a real bear to tape up after such copying, and without a real need on my part I'm just not inclined to go there.

What I started out with here (on March 13, 2008) was a very partial list. It's pretty well complete now in terms of what I have, but changes fairly frequently as stuff goes out of here. So if this is of interest to you feel free to bookmark this page, pass it along to others that might be interested, and check back from time to time, as things will continue to be updated in terms of what I add to it, and more importantly what I end up removing from it as it passes to other hands.

A bunch of this material, particularly the Altec, Bogen, Rauland, Raymer, and Strom stuff, is very much oriented toward installed sound systems in schools, hospitals, and similar situations. Some of that deals with school-specific and hospital-specific functions, such as nurse-call etc. It's all also very much 1950s-1970s tech, with a lot of transformers driving solid-state output stages, a lot of "constant voltage" transformers on speaker outputs, a lot of uncommon speaker impedances in things like the intercoms (45 ohms for example), lots of plug-in transformers for input networks, lots and lots of screw terminals for connections, and a lot of use of parts that are not common any longer or no longer available at all.

A lot of the rest of it is oriented toward musical instrument repair, particularly keyboards, and the associated amplifiers and effects and such stuff that goes along with that. A business that changed drastically over the years, and which, like a lot of electronics, became much more oriented toward people replacing rather than repairing and thus economically unviable. So how do you fight that?

I have, in addition to the material listed here, a lot of sales literature for some of these products. If you are a collector and this is of any interest, let me know and I'll eventually get around to listing that stuff, too.

So far: many expressions of interest in some of these items, and 245 completed transactions. :-)

I change that number above only after I've gotten paid and shipped it.

A bit of clarification on the above: That's not completed transactions total, ever. That's completed transactions on these manuals, since I put this page up.

I have actually 16 loose-leaf binders full of service orders that refer to work I did when we had the shop, and a card file with ~1000 or so cards in it from before that, so there are a lot more than it might appear at first glance.

I've sent stuff, so far, to Alabama (1), Alaska (1), Arizona (3), Arkansas (1), California (22), Colorado (2), Connecticut (6), Delaware (1), Florida (4), Georgia (2), Illinois (6), Iowa (2), Kansas (1), Kentucky (1), Louisiana (3), Maryland (4), Massachusetts (2), Michigan (4), Minnesota (2), Missouri (2), Montana (1), Nebraska (3), Nevada (1), New Jersey (3), New York (8), North Carolina (4), Ohio (9), Oklahoma (1), Oregon (3), Pennsylvania (3), South Carolina (3), Tennessee (1), Texas (4), Virginia (3), Washington (6), Wisconsin (2), British Columbia (4), New Brunswick (1), Ontario (4), Quebec (1), Australia (4), Denmark (2), Finland (3), France (4), Germany (1), Hong Kong (1), Kuwait (1), Japan (1), Malta (1), The Netherlands (3), New Zealand (1), Norway (1), and The UK (9).

Some recent comments in email:

Roy, Thanks a ton! Great detail and factory fresh document at a great price. I highly recommend this retailer for hard to find original factory manuals.

and:

...I got the Photofacts on Monday. They arrived in perfect shape and I am thrilled with them. Thanks for your help.

and:

I just received the service manual. I can't believe the great condition it's in. If you ever need a testimonial to back up your word on sending anything out you have my email. Thanks a million.

and:

Thank You very much for your prompt service. I will recommend you if ever I get the opportunity.

and:

Roy, Thank you so much. I got the manual today. I now have what I need. It was a pleasure doing business with you.

and:

I received the manual in yesterdays mail. It has helped me quite a bit to narrow down my problem. Thanks so much.

and:

I received the manual yesterday, and just wanted to thank you for your quick responses and shipping. It was a pleasure doing business with you!

and:

I appreciate the prompt service. I will certainly use you again when I have future needs for service manuals.

and:

Received. Exactly what I wanted. Pristine documenation! Thanks Roy!

and:

I just got the service manual in the mail. It is exactly what I was looking for, and has a few pages that I didn't even know existed! I cannot thank you enough, not only for the manual, but also for your willingness to provide advice on that component question.
If I find myself in need of any additional documents for anything else, I will be checking your inventory first.

(Watch the chart on this page gradually shrink. :-)

If you are or were a service business and have bulk manuals to get rid of, please feel free to email me. I can't offer payment for them, but I can at least keep this stuff out of the landfills and hopefully get it into the hands of folks that can use the material!

Photofacts? If you don't know about those, then have a look here, which should explain what they are, or email me and I'll explain it to you.

(Added later) As of the first week of June, 2015 I have acquired a LOT of "Sams Folders" (Photofacts), which are more oriented toward consumer electronics. As in five file drawers full. These will be have been added to this page.

Note: If you see something like (2) in the last column after whatever else is in there, that means I have 2 of them (or whatever the number is). I'm finding duplicates of a nontrivial amount of this stuff.