Gianni Becattini has authored a number of PDF books in the past and now has several published books and print-on-demand booklets. His books provide a closer look on the 300, 400, 500, 5000, 7000, and 11000 series with beautiful pictures. He also has a restoration guide. His booklets cover a wide variety of specificinstruments. He also has books on other vendors and technologies. An excerpt from his posting on TekScopes:

My work on these books has always had a single goal: to turn an activity I pursue purely out of passion into physical books, printed on paper, meant to be held, studied, and experienced as real objects.

To pursue this goal, over time I decided to collaborate with publishers—first Elektor Books and, more recently, Edizioni C&C, which will shortly publish my first book in Italian.

To support the publishers—who necessarily have to make real investments—I have always worked on a purely honorary basis (i.e., without ever requesting any compensation) and, in order to protect those investments, I have progressively withdrawn the PDF versions from circulation.

This led me to turn the books not taken on by publishers into Print On Demand (POD) editions, which require additional hundreds of hours of work and also a modest personal investment, while removing the downloadable versions. The only exception is The Great Hewlett-Packard, which I had decided to donate to the HP Memory Project (not on an exclusive basis and for which a printed version is nevertheless planned).

This is how Quacktech Editions came into being, and how POD books replaced the former PDF versions.

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