Gary Lewis Posted March 10, 2022 Share Posted March 10, 2022 Your explanation of how the MPC works is spot on! I'm pretty sure Gary's copy of the MPC has been OCR'd to make it easily searchable rather than having to develop a sense of how those catalogs were originally organized. Back in the days of paper a good counterman could crack that big binder and have you a part number in seconds, but those days are mostly long gone. Interesting! I wasn't aware that anyone had the MPC available for download free, so I'm pretty sure you didn't find the links here. But that is a great find and we need to document that. Let me think about how best to do it. But are those OCR'd as the name implies? If so that is wonderful. Yes, my copy of the two documents have been OCR'd, which makes things MUCH easier. And as Jim said, your description of how to use it is spot on. Find the generic part number and then find the specific. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taskswap Posted March 10, 2022 Share Posted March 10, 2022 Interesting! I wasn't aware that anyone had the MPC available for download free, so I'm pretty sure you didn't find the links here. But that is a great find and we need to document that. Let me think about how best to do it. But are those OCR'd as the name implies? If so that is wonderful. Yes, my copy of the two documents have been OCR'd, which makes things MUCH easier. They're on archive.org, that site that caches old copies of other sites and content. I'm not sure where they originally came from, but I'd definitely suggest that anybody that wants a copy get them quick (there's a small download button on each page, you'll find it) because stuff like this has a pattern of disappearing over time. Gary, these are originals pubs and there may be some "issues" around reposting them here, but if we all work together I'm sure we can brainstorm some "workable options". It's not like they're actively sold service manuals, the risk is pretty low. At the very least you know at least one guy with another copy. :) (Maybe linking them to a OneDrive or Google Drive backup copy instead of directly posting them might be a good start?) They are OCR'd, but I would say the recognition wasn't super great. If you cut/paste things from them you get all kinds of crazy results, like E9TZ-12345-AA might copy out as E*@!LM345A or whatever. But the OCR is good enough to make them searchable, and the group numbers appear to mostly have come through with high accuracy. I've used them to find part numbers for a ton of things... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orkea6 Posted March 10, 2022 Author Share Posted March 10, 2022 Interesting! I wasn't aware that anyone had the MPC available for download free, so I'm pretty sure you didn't find the links here. But that is a great find and we need to document that. Let me think about how best to do it. But are those OCR'd as the name implies? If so that is wonderful. Yes, my copy of the two documents have been OCR'd, which makes things MUCH easier. They're on archive.org, that site that caches old copies of other sites and content. I'm not sure where they originally came from, but I'd definitely suggest that anybody that wants a copy get them quick (there's a small download button on each page, you'll find it) because stuff like this has a pattern of disappearing over time. Gary, these are originals pubs and there may be some "issues" around reposting them here, but if we all work together I'm sure we can brainstorm some "workable options". It's not like they're actively sold service manuals, the risk is pretty low. At the very least you know at least one guy with another copy. :) (Maybe linking them to a OneDrive or Google Drive backup copy instead of directly posting them might be a good start?) They are OCR'd, but I would say the recognition wasn't super great. If you cut/paste things from them you get all kinds of crazy results, like E9TZ-12345-AA might copy out as E*@!LM345A or whatever. But the OCR is good enough to make them searchable, and the group numbers appear to mostly have come through with high accuracy. I've used them to find part numbers for a ton of things... Thanks again to all y'all for the help in figuring out the parts numbering and helping me keep my old trucks going... snagging the MPC bits now. Super helpful Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted March 11, 2022 Share Posted March 11, 2022 Gary, these are originals pubs and there may be some "issues" around reposting them here, but if we all work together I'm sure we can brainstorm some "workable options". It's not like they're actively sold service manuals, the risk is pretty low. At the very least you know at least one guy with another copy. :) (Maybe linking them to a OneDrive or Google Drive backup copy instead of directly posting them might be a good start?) The page shows who uploaded the files: Uploaded by SteveROntario on March 23, 2020 So it has been almost a year and they've not been taken down. And, I don't think they will because there aren't any identifying things on the pages that I can see that tell who's CD it is that he uploaded. However, to put those pages up there is legally questionable. I hired an intellectual property lawyer about a year ago to discuss what I can, can't, and probably shouldn't do on the website. And hosting large documents like the MPC for people to download fell into the "probably shouldn't" category. The issue is that Ford licensed people to scan and sell the document, so buying one of their CD's and then making the file available to everyone at no cost would probably be illegal. And I'm staying away from anything that looks like it might not be appropriate. As for being "actively sold", both HiPo Parts and Forel Publishing sell them through various outlets. That is probably a HiPo version as Forel puts a watermark on theirs and this doesn't have that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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