The Archive is a document library that is available to active forum members. All manner of items related to vintage electronics can be found in there.

How it works

The forum permissions are different to the rest of the forum:

• The forums and posts can be seen by anyone, but only qualifying members who are logged in can download the attachments.
• Any member can start a thread in any section of The Archive, but only staff members are able to reply.

The idea is to keep The Archive free from discussions as it is solely a document repository. So if you have a PDF or similar that you wish to upload, then great! But please don't place "wanted" requests in The Archive - it's the wrong place for that, and no-one will be able to reply anyway.

Similarly, please don't place links to other websites in The Archive. Websites come and go, after all. Instead, place a link in the "Everything Else -> Websites" forum.

Please note that the threads are listed in alphabetical order, unlike elsewhere on the forum where they are listed in chronological order. This is to make it easier to browse for the item you are looking for.

Once you have made 15 posts on the forum, you will automatically be granted access to files in The Archive. There might be a short delay (no more than 20 minutes) after making your 15th post before you are able to download items from The Archive. You will know when you have been promoted because your title changes from “New User” to “Technical Assistant”.

Copyright

Regarding copyright:

• Don't upload an item if it is copyrighted.
• We have permission to upload Trader sheets, providing you own the sheet and scan it yourself.
• Do not upload a scan that has someone else's watermark or copyright notice unless you have permission (make that clear in the post).

Terms of use

We trust our forum members to use the material respectfully - in other words, DO NOT distribute our files. Remember that it takes a lot of time to scan and clean up old documents, and it takes significant resources to host large files on the internet.

We offer The Archive as a free service to active contributors to our community - as described above, "active" in this case means that you have made 15 or more posts, and continue to contribute to the forum. User accounts that suddenly "go quiet" after the requisite 15 posts may have access to The Archive withdrawn. Likewise, if you have not visited the forum for 12 months or more, access may be withdrawn. If you find you no longer have access to The Archive, please contact a member of staff so we can review your account.

Sorry, but we can't "bend the rules" for individuals, no matter how nicely you ask! Please understand that our current policy has been arrived at after years of thought and experimentation. It's a fine balance; we know from experience that if we open up The Archive for all, the increase in traffic results in our hosting costs rising dramatically. We also found that if we restrict access to members only - but with no minimum post requirement - then we spend an inordinate amount of time activating accounts that become dormant almost immediately, only to be deleted as part of routine maintenance several months later - all of which requires significant effort from the staff. Ultimately, other forums that offer similar services have to fund it in a variety of ways (e.g., take advertising or donations, or have a subscription model), and all of these methods have problems which we are keen to avoid.

Do not upload files to The Archive if you are unhappy with our terms of use.