>   Just to confirm, is QP905-GZ the complete number or is there something
>like "EK-" prepended to it? If it is complete, it's understandable that
>it's no longer available. I think DEC had two types of documentation parts:
>tangible ones that were actually stocked somewhere and sold in the same way
>as hardware, and ordinary papers (the EKs) that could be stored in
>electronic form indefinitely.

I ordered the kit from DEC a couple of years ago and there was no prefix
before the model number.  It was an "archival product", meaning that what I
got was a semi-legible single-sided copy, so I suspect that it was already
in an on-demand state where they don't bother with any stock until someone
orders, which leads me to wonder why it's no longer a good part number since
presumably keeping it on the list costs them nothing (I remember checking it
within the past couple of months and it was still valid then).  Since the
name of the package is "programmer's doc kit" that probably explains why
the part # looks like a software manual set (Qxxxx-GZ is typical for those)
rather than a hardware manual.

>   Do the three manuals that you have listed constitute the whole kit? Is
>there anything in there beyond these three manuals?

Those three manuals are it.  You can also look up patent # 4,449,182 on
IBM's patent server (patent.womplex.ibm.com I think) but it's more of an
overview and doesn't give you enough information to do anything, it's all
better covered in the doc.  If the doc really isn't orderable any more,
maybe it's time to write a very carefully worded web tutorial or something --
my understanding is that raw information is not copyrightable, only a
specific expression of the information, but you'd have to tread pretty
carefully to describe the protocol that's in the manual w/o stealing DEC's
wording (how many ways can you draw a box showing the fields in a packet
of longwords?).  The phone company always seems to print copyright notices
on each page of the phone book so presumably they think their lawyers could
chase people out from behind the law, why can't DEC's lawyers too!  Although
I thought the copyright law made a specific exception for things where there's
only really one obvious way to express something.  A friend of mine pointed
out how stupid it was that the BEEP.COM (?) executable that came with Norton
Utilities contained only four instructions and a copyright notice -- you could
change the order of the first two instructions (MOV AH,02 and MOV DL,07 if I
remember right) w/o breaking the program but that's really it, it's the most
obvious way to send a ^G, so it's stupid that Norton thought the program was
copyrightable.

John Wilson
D Bit