"Bill Putney" <bputney (AT) kinez (DOT) net> wrote

I disagree with both of you.

A complete FSM can easily fit on a CD and can be in Adobe PDF (which
has been reverse engineered to the point that today it need not cost a cent
to create PDF's) and of which free readers exist on every computer OS in
service, not to mention freeware exists to convert PDF to PostScript so it
can be printed. PDF will be around as a standard for the next 50 years at
least, if not longer. Not to mention the factory already distributes CD's
with
service documents to the dealerships on a regular basis.

CD pressings in the volumes the automakers do can be had for pennies per
CD, and a factory pressed CD has a lifespan longer than the car will exist,
and can easily slip in a pocket underhood, and is immune to underhood
temperatures, or could be included in the back of the vehicle owners manual.

And for those that would argue they must have a paper manual and it would
cost more to print the manual from CD than buy it from the factory, well
the factory can certainly keep selling factory paper manuals for you. I
suspect
that most professional mechanics these days aren't using paper manuals
anymore, I certainly don't see an entire library in most garages I see, and
it is only a matter of time before the demand for paper manuals is so low
that it becomes uneconomical for them to be printed.

Of course, the factories COULD actually just post the PDF's of the manuals
on their websites for anyone to download - but such forward thinking I
certainly
don't expect from the world's automakers.

Or better yet, the OBD-II standard could be revised to allow for file
retrieval
from the engine computer, so that if the automakers bothered to put it
there,
any scan tool could then download a copy of the manual directly from the
engine
computer and pass it to a desktop computer which could then print it - but
of course, this is Science Fiction to the worlds' automakers.

Ted

Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
Well, Ted, the cost of distribution is only one part of the cost of the
FSM. I would guess a very significant cost is the cost of paying the
technical writers and engineers who provide information to the technical
writers. Giving away the resulting documentation means that this cost
must now be recovered by increasing the price of all vehicles. Their is
not free lunch. Why do you think MS charges for its software on CD? It
certainly isn't just the cost of replication...


Matt

Daniel J. Stern wrote:
Do you mean ASCII or EBCDIC or etc.?

I was thinking that the ECMA file interchange standard is almost there, but
still a little young.

--
Rickety

Matt Whiting <whiting (AT) chilitech (DOT) net> wrote


You mean to say you didn't write:

??

If not, I apologize. It clearly appeared as such (at least to me) in
two different newsreaders.

--Geoff

"Daniel J. Stern" <dastern (AT) 127 (DOT) 0.0.1> wrote

Well, if the lack of a standard can itself be *considered* a standard
(by default, I suppose) -- then you are correct. But this is kind of
like calling "black" a color in the sense of the what can be found on
the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, is it not?

We're talking about machine-readable data, here, Dan, not the contents
of the corner newsstand. Just because your human eyes and brain can
read it and reliably make sense of it does not mean the same is true
with computing machinery. That being said, it certainly is possible
for a computer program to "make sense" of plaintext information --
under carefully controlled circumstances. But this is hardly the same
thing as a 'standard', you would surely have to agree. Further, not
everything emitted by a computer can be described as having conformed
to any sort of standard--at least in the sense that its format is
widely agreed upon and/or used.

So I'll see your pithy reply and raise you a wordy one. You're up,
old man.

The point is this: we don't have 50 years of history to rely upon in
order to predict what will and won't be a lasting standard fifty years
hence. I submit that the technology we're talking about seems to defy
such prediction. That is not to say that some (presumably) antiquated
PDF documents will not exist in 50 years -- this will happen by
accident, if not design -- but to say that PDF will be the operative
*standard* in 50 years is rather optimistic at best, and sheer,
uneducated, hyperbolic folly at worst. (I leave it to the reader to
best determine where Mr. Mittelstaedt tends to fall along the spectrum
between those two extremes.)

By the way, is it just my filtering at (or not at) work, or did Nomen
Nescio's recent absence seem to reverse itself when Ted reappeared on
the scene?

--Geoff

To be fair to Dan, ASCII, EBDIC, UNICODE, etc., are not really "file"
standards, per se, they're character encoding standards; ways in which we
impose order on bits to designate the symbols used in written human
language. But your point is well made: interaction with files on a
computer system implies the interoperability of standards on several
different levels -- character encoding, file formatting, various drive and
media standards, etc. The miracle of technology is such that it is
difficult to behold and truly appreciate on all of its myriad levels. I've
spent 24 years living and breathing computer software to date; I think I
could spend another 50 (!) or so more, and still not know half of everything
there is to be learned about it, and that doesn't even begin to account for
all there is to learn about hardware, networking....

By the way to *which* ECMA file interchange standard are you referring?
They've got a boatload of them, from what I can see.

--Geoff

Geoff Gariepy wrote:

Yes, I did write that. I just didn't see it in your message. Either my
eyes missed it or my newsreader did.

Matt

"Daniel J. Stern" <dastern (AT) engin (DOT) umich.edu> wrote


I agree with Dan. The FSM is the best way to go. I just wish they
didn't cost so much. When I bought my first FSM for my 1964 Valiant,
it was only $5. When I bought one for my 1986 Caravan, it was $40. Now
they are $90, unless a used one can be found. The CD versions are the
same price as the printed ones.

-Kirk