3 ms·

ASCII by Jason Scott

223 points by bookofjoe 6mo ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20260501220231/https://ascii.textfiles.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260501220231/https://ascii.tex...

crtasm 6mo ago
Latest post: Manuals Plus: The Wrap-Up — May 10, 2026
- EarlKing 6mo ago
  We'll have to take your word on that since it looks like it's being hugged to death. I can't even get an archive of it to take the pressure off.
  - textfiles 6mo ago
    There's a bad setting on my virtual host. I'm in conversation with the support team about getting it tuned up.
embedding-shape 6mo ago
> Just a little over ten years ago [...] a collection of 13,000 manuals now lives on the Internet Archive That's a crazy amount of time, with a nice amount of manuals now publicly available, about ~3.5 manuals PER DAY, for a decade! Few people are as dedicated as Jason Scott when it comes to making sure information stays free and available, thank you a lot for what you, Archive Team and Internet Archive is doing for all of us!
- zozbot234 6mo ago
  > a collection of 13,000 manuals now lives on the Internet Archive Why are we even doing this? This is just humanity giving free extra training to its future robot overlords. /s
  - qingcharles 6mo ago
    Hopefully they'll be able to write better manuals.
  - kev009 6mo ago
    Most of that was vintage test equipment AFAICT. It is nice to be able to query an LLM and say "how do I fix this boat anchor with these symptoms". These tools have been quite helpful for retrocomputing hobbies for me.
- stavros 6mo ago
  I follow him on Bluesky and he routinely raises money to buy things on auction and scan them/digitize them and upload them for free. One-of-a-kind concert tapes, obscure software floppy disks, random manuals, videotapes of random shows, anything old, he digitizes it and imports it into the Internet Archive. Really doing great work preserving stuff that would otherwise be lost to time.
bityard 6mo ago
Jason Scott is one of the good guys.
- ethagnawl 6mo ago
  Indeed. His podcast, _Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It_, is an entertaining, informative and (often) touching listen, too.
  - tibbon 6mo ago
    For those able to contribute a bit monetarily, he's also got a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/textfiles https://www.patreon.com/textfiles I love his podcast, and was able to back it for about a year.
  - MollyRealized 6mo ago
    https://textfiles.libsyn.com/ https://textfiles.libsyn.com/
- Triphibian 6mo ago
  I had the good fortune of being able to hang out and watch him and some vintage Apple enthusiasts recover some source code for an old game. I have a lot of admiration for his dedication.
xipho 6mo ago
He's streaming live "right now". https://www.twitch.tv/textfiles https://www.twitch.tv/textfiles
- textfiles 6mo ago
  I'm the guy in the shirt!
ethanhawksley 6mo ago
The current archive link is outdated, https://web.archive.org/web/20260515155930/https://ascii.textfiles.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260515155930/https://ascii.tex... is more up to date with the May 10 post
NooneAtAll3 6mo ago
Maybe I missed it, but what were the manuals for? What appliances? Or was it textbooks, or what?
- bityard 6mo ago
  See for yourself: https://archive.org/details/manualsplus https://archive.org/details/manualsplus
rhgraysonii 6mo ago
Jason’s work output is so prolific. Over the past 4-5 years he’s digitized the lifetime collection of magnetic media I acquired in a series of odd interesting events. So much slice of life nyc and weird cool music stuff that would have never been seen otherwise. Over 1300 tapes! All here https://archive.org/details/markpines https://archive.org/details/markpines He is also just an absolutely delightful person to hang out with. Textfiles was one of the first websites I ever visited and getting to do this was a meet your heroes thing that actually went very nicely.
- drowntoge 6mo ago
  He's just awesome.
- toomuchtodo 6mo ago
  I’ve worked with Jason processing physical collections and he is one of my favorite humans. +1
woolybully 6mo ago
Where can I read about his stalker and a different person trying to unalive his family. He alludes to these in passing on the linked blogpost, but I can’t find more.
dcminter 6mo ago
Ha! This is so delightful. I vaguely remember chipping in some paltry sum on some early plea for donations for this, and getting a random manual duplicate in the post as a perk. Since then I've occasionally wondered how it's going, but never quite got around to looking it up properly. Somehow ten years passed. Amazing work.
selectedambient 6mo ago
a king among men.
Sarkie 6mo ago
Met Jason Scott. Absolutely uniquely good person.

223 points by bookofjoe 6mo ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20260501220231/https://ascii.textfiles.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260501220231/https://ascii.tex...

crtasm 6mo ago

Latest post: Manuals Plus: The Wrap-Up — May 10, 2026

EarlKing 6mo ago
We'll have to take your word on that since it looks like it's being hugged to death. I can't even get an archive of it to take the pressure off.
- textfiles 6mo ago
  There's a bad setting on my virtual host. I'm in conversation with the support team about getting it tuned up.

embedding-shape 6mo ago

> Just a little over ten years ago [...] a collection of 13,000 manuals now lives on the Internet Archive That's a crazy amount of time, with a nice amount of manuals now publicly available, about ~3.5 manuals PER DAY, for a decade! Few people are as dedicated as Jason Scott when it comes to making sure information stays free and available, thank you a lot for what you, Archive Team and Internet Archive is doing for all of us!

zozbot234 6mo ago
> a collection of 13,000 manuals now lives on the Internet Archive Why are we even doing this? This is just humanity giving free extra training to its future robot overlords. /s
- qingcharles 6mo ago
  Hopefully they'll be able to write better manuals.
- kev009 6mo ago
  Most of that was vintage test equipment AFAICT. It is nice to be able to query an LLM and say "how do I fix this boat anchor with these symptoms". These tools have been quite helpful for retrocomputing hobbies for me.
stavros 6mo ago
I follow him on Bluesky and he routinely raises money to buy things on auction and scan them/digitize them and upload them for free. One-of-a-kind concert tapes, obscure software floppy disks, random manuals, videotapes of random shows, anything old, he digitizes it and imports it into the Internet Archive. Really doing great work preserving stuff that would otherwise be lost to time.

bityard 6mo ago

Jason Scott is one of the good guys.

ethagnawl 6mo ago
Indeed. His podcast, _Jason Scott Talks His Way Out of It_, is an entertaining, informative and (often) touching listen, too.
- tibbon 6mo ago
  For those able to contribute a bit monetarily, he's also got a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/textfiles https://www.patreon.com/textfiles I love his podcast, and was able to back it for about a year.
- MollyRealized 6mo ago
  https://textfiles.libsyn.com/ https://textfiles.libsyn.com/
Triphibian 6mo ago
I had the good fortune of being able to hang out and watch him and some vintage Apple enthusiasts recover some source code for an old game. I have a lot of admiration for his dedication.

xipho 6mo ago

He's streaming live "right now". https://www.twitch.tv/textfiles https://www.twitch.tv/textfiles

textfiles 6mo ago
I'm the guy in the shirt!

ethanhawksley 6mo ago

The current archive link is outdated, https://web.archive.org/web/20260515155930/https://ascii.textfiles.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20260515155930/https://ascii.tex... is more up to date with the May 10 post

NooneAtAll3 6mo ago

Maybe I missed it, but what were the manuals for? What appliances? Or was it textbooks, or what?

bityard 6mo ago
See for yourself: https://archive.org/details/manualsplus https://archive.org/details/manualsplus

rhgraysonii 6mo ago

Jason’s work output is so prolific. Over the past 4-5 years he’s digitized the lifetime collection of magnetic media I acquired in a series of odd interesting events. So much slice of life nyc and weird cool music stuff that would have never been seen otherwise. Over 1300 tapes! All here https://archive.org/details/markpines https://archive.org/details/markpines He is also just an absolutely delightful person to hang out with. Textfiles was one of the first websites I ever visited and getting to do this was a meet your heroes thing that actually went very nicely.

drowntoge 6mo ago
He's just awesome.
toomuchtodo 6mo ago
I’ve worked with Jason processing physical collections and he is one of my favorite humans. +1

woolybully 6mo ago

Where can I read about his stalker and a different person trying to unalive his family. He alludes to these in passing on the linked blogpost, but I can’t find more.

dcminter 6mo ago

Ha! This is so delightful. I vaguely remember chipping in some paltry sum on some early plea for donations for this, and getting a random manual duplicate in the post as a perk. Since then I've occasionally wondered how it's going, but never quite got around to looking it up properly. Somehow ten years passed. Amazing work.

selectedambient 6mo ago

a king among men.

Sarkie 6mo ago

Met Jason Scott. Absolutely uniquely good person.