Stepan, wrote...

HP is enforcing their copyright over manuals, even for old
unsupported equipment. Look at this:

http://bama.sbc.edu/images/Letter%204-18-05.pdf

I see the BoatAnchor Manual Archive public-service site has
complied, http://bama.sbc.edu/hp.htm removing masses of valuable
documentation for ancient hp instruments from public availability.

That letter from Agilent's counsel is going to bring a massive
response from me as director of a Harvard University research
laboratory, directed to the relevant authorities at Agilent to
get the policy changed. It's dramatically counter-productive to
their own business interests, and it's manifestly unfair to the
owners of old HP / Agilent equipment who for one reason or another
no longer have an operating or service manual, and who cannot get
one from Agilent. For Agilent to close them off from a solution
to their problem is to render their bought and paid-for equipment
useless. It also means Agilent is capriciously denying the implied
warranty of merchantability for their older products; the product
can hardly do what it is supposed to do if the owner doesn't know
what button to push, or how to interpret the panel reading. And
it means Agilent is denying the owners' right to his own self-help
in repairing something he purchased fair and square. Moreover, it
takes a big step toward removing from the public weal the value of
old instruments, no longer manufactured, which in many cases are
not replaced by newer instruments performing the same function.


--
Thanks,
- Win