I know many people may be thinking "just throw it out". But you don't understand - you may be faced with system that is in one of those manuals and some previous genius decided that when they cleaned their office to toss that manual.
Or even come into possession of one of those systems and have no idea how to use it. If google hadn't crawled the manual for certain products I would have thrown away a number of electronic paperweights.
Those are manuals for 40-80 year old technology, something second year EE student could explain to you in their sleep. The only value they posses is historical.
This is incredibly naive. Many second year EE students today will not even know what a vacuum tube is, much less be able to explain how a device using them works.
Even if you're used to looking at discrete transistor circuits (and even that is getting rare these days), a device with tubes can look like magic of the highest order.
Seconded. Another factor is that looking at a device won't tell you why it was designed the way it was. A good technical manual will be invaluable for telling you things like valid ranges, service or environmental limits, etc. which would otherwise need to be reverse-engineered. If you're trying to replace an old system or studying the history, know what does and doesn't matter can save a ton of time.
(This goes double if the manual was annotated by a good operator)
Tubes are history, so you pretty much agree with me? :) I didnt say those manuals are unimportant and should go into the landfill, I pointed out they are of historical nature, not something you would actually use today.
The Thunderstrike exploit for EFI required knowledge of the option ROM, which is a little bit of legacy tech left over from the original IBM PCs. Check out this[0] overview. Hacking a modern machine using, in part, information taken from the Intel 8088 architecture reference manual!
Also, my EE studies largely skipped over the analog world entirely. There were two courses on linear circuits, but they talked very little about analog (not a single mention of a vacuum tube to be found). Your assumption that a second year EE student could explain this to you is no longer correct in 2015 as most programs are similar to what I went through.
That wasn't what I meant at all in my original post, and apologies for not expressing myself clearly. But it's good that those manuals are preserved, as they capture the original context of the system's use.
I have another post on this thread where I talk about some uses I've had for old manuals. That's the sort of thing I'm getting at. The GE engine manuals, for instance, aren't arcane in the context of CH-46 maintenance, but in the broader context of printed material they are extremely arcane.
Or even come into possession of one of those systems and have no idea how to use it. If google hadn't crawled the manual for certain products I would have thrown away a number of electronic paperweights.