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List:       classiccmp
Subject:    Re: databooks (was Re: MC14500 / was Re: ENIAC ....)
From:       ard () p850ug1 ! demon ! co ! uk (Tony Duell)
Date:       2011-01-30 15:08:35
Message-ID: m1PjYtK-000J3yC () p850ug1
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> 
> > Despite there being prices printed on the covers of some databooks,
> > customers didn't buy them. =A0The sales reps and distributors all but for=
> ced
> > them onto customers.
> >
> > The prices were what other people such as hobbyists paid.
> 
> I doubt there were many hobbyists that actually purchased those
> databooks. Everyone I knew back in the databook era would make up a
> phony company name, and then get flooded with databooks, industrial
> periodicals, and best of all, samples! Yes, all those tech reps knew
> that they were phony companies, and most of what they were handing out
> for free would yield nothing, but they also knew that a few of those
> freebies might pay back in a big way.
> 
> I still get junkmail with the company name I came up with 28 years ago!
> 
> Basically, only fools paid the cover price for databooks or the industrial =
> rags.

If you don't stop calling me a fool, I am liable to LART you...

I think thisis something that (as ever) varies by country. Over here it 
was much harder to get free copies of databooks. I know that uniersity 
departments didn't get them for free in many cases (because I had to 
justify wanting to spend money on some). I also know they were not given 
out free to all companies (my father, who worked for a large UK company, 
albeit nothing to do with electronics, tried to get databooks for me when 
I was still at school (and thus when \pounds 20 or whatever was a 
significant amount of money) only to be told -- on several occasions -- 
that the company he worked for was not an electronics company, so 
databooks would not be supplied free of charge).

Its also worth noting that the large trade elecrtronc component 
suppliers, who at the time didn't sell to hobbyists, sold databooks in 
their catalogues. Presumably enough people bought them to make them worth 
stocking. 

-tony

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