TOS DVD available via torrent

[Dave Hicks]

Yeah I gave a detailed explanation years ago on the old forum. Since then I believe the only change is that I told the owner of TOS that the only way this would be changed was if his contact at HP would tell my contact at HP that things were changed, but he responded that his contact at HP was "unresponsive".

I have a theory. It's purely my theory, and I can tell you that when I worked at Intel I used to read people's theories about Intel on the internet and they were often laughable. And then sometimes someone would get one right, but then no one else would believe it anyway.

But with that humongous caveat, my theory goes like this: A lot has happened to calculators at HP over the years. They moved to different groups. Moved to different states. Moved to different countries. And for a while, didn't exist at all. (Possibly more than once.) HP's leadership and corporate culture have also gone through large changes. Back when I asked for permission to scan the manuals, HP still prided itself on making decisions at the lowest possible level. By contrast, a few years later I asked a question and it was forwarded up and up and I finally got an answer: From Carly Fiorina. Only it wasn't really to the question I asked. I suppose if you are answering all the questions asked of HP, you kind of have to skim them. (My original point of contact told me that this sort of answer to not the question asked was common in the then "new HP".) More recently I asked another IP permission question - something I thought was well within the spirit of my original permission from HP, though not in the exact letter. I was told that HP is very different now and this would have to run through HP legal again and things were so different that not only would they probably say no to the new request/clarification, they could easily rescind the old one. Thus it was suggested that I not poke the bear. (And I didn't.)

So I think that someone somehow somewhere got a permission from someone somewhere at HP that is/was not recorded/respected/believed/liked??? by the calculator management that existed at some other time/place. And thus, no one wants to talk to either of us. Thus some time ago someone asked me to not allow people to link to certain stuff in the forum and I complied since my continuing permission to redistribute manuals requires a friendly relationship. The above is just a theory but I think it's plausible. But if someone that I recognize as an HP calculator manager (or whoever makes the decisions in today's HP) tells me that's not needed anymore, that's cool too. Not to mention easier. (I have requested such a statement in the past. Maybe it's still being forwarded around HP ;-) Maybe it's on Carly's laptop. ;-))

In any case, since people have gone out of their way to spell it out, I'm going to go ahead and close the thread. "TOS" by contrast seems to do a fine job of flying under the radar.