Re: Digital delivery of documentation?

["Gene Kim-Eng" <techwr -at- genek -dot- com>]

During my days in the semiconductor fab industry (mid-late 1990's) we 
tried some pilot programs delivering user docs in soft form to beta 
customers.  The feedback from US customers was that it would be 
desirable if the information was on the system controller, task oriented 
and context sensitve, but not if it came in whole document form. And, of 
course, there would still need to be one copy that did not require the 
system to access.  Our overseas customers, on the other hand, had an 
almost religious attachment to printed documents, to the extent that 
some were of the opinion that we might not even be able to get the 
products certified for import without them.

Gene Kim-Eng


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Al Geist" <al -dot- geist -at- geistassociates -dot- com>
> Do you document software or hardware? I do both, but the primary 
> products
> are expensive and complex standalone and cluster wafer bonding systems 
> that
> are used in Class 100 level clean rooms worldwide. Personal laptops 
> are not
> allowed in those rooms and an alternative to online has to be provided 
> in
> the event of a system failure (thus no computer to display the 
> manuals). My
> manuals are printed on clean room paper (very expensive) and, judging 
> by the
> feedback I've been getting from service and customers, they get 
> extensive
> use. They are also provided on the system disc shipped with each 
> product,
> but they are not accessed as much because the systems are usually in
> production. (Stopping processing for five minutes costs the customer
> thousands of dollars. Many don't want to take the chance of locking up 
> the
> computer system by opening a large PDF.)
>
> I'd like to move from "cellulose based" delivery methods to "1s" and 
> "0s,"
> but it don't look like it will happen anytime soon.

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