The ABC'S (and 912's) of Porsche Engines or Porsche Engines and The Future of the Human Race [Perfect Paperback]

Harry C. Pellow (Author)

Product Details

• Perfect Paperback: 652 pages
• Publisher: Hcp Research; Revised edition (1981)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941210049
• ISBN-13: 978-0941210041
• Product Dimensions: 3.6 x 3.4 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,171,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars CD edition improves on both print and floppy version, May 14, 2003

By 

Chris S. Markham (Felton, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The ABC'S (and 912's) of Porsche Engines or Porsche Engines and The Future of the Human Race (Perfect Paperback)

First off, some disclosure. I'm Chris Markham, past webmaster of the 356 Registry and editor of the "ABCs..." ver. 3.56www edition. This latest incarnation of the seminal work of the late "Maestro" Harry Pellow creates a true "e-book" of "The ABCs...", reviving the pictures missing from the floppy disk version, reconstructing the tables of data and correcting the myriad errors introduced to the text when the floppy disk version was created by scanning the paper version. The back story of the floppy version and why this new CD version exists is that the photo plates from the version 3.56 were lost in a flood and when the book went out of print the floppy was created by scanning and OCR-ing an unbound paper copy. Lost in this process were all the photographs that were in the v3.56. In addition, the Optical Character Recognition technology of the time was simply not up to the standards needed by a technical book and many typographical errors (of critical measurements!) were introduced as a result.

In 1999 I began an 18-month project to convert the ABCs from the electronic form to a modern CD delivery, and to Adobe PDF format. This new edition now includes all the photographs from v3.56 and indeed improves even on the book edition by locating the photgraphs close to the referring text.

Other improvements include use of modern, proportional fonts and italic emphasis (the Pellow books are famous for their monospaced typewriter font with ALL CAPS used by the author for emphasis). Tables were reconstructed and OCR typographic errors corrected. (This editor takes no responsibility for technical errors or omissions which were extant in the original print text; no improvements in content were done for this alternate format publication of the 3.56 edition.)

On the CD edition, there is included a screen version with "pages" wider than tall, using fonts optimized for screen viewing. Each chapter is also presented in a "print" version, which is formatted for desktop printing on 8.5" x 11" paper, using fonts optimized for print output. There is a navigation screen, some introductory help on how to use the CD edition, scans of the books' photographs provided independently of the book versions--which are necessarially scaled small to fit within the pages--in high-res format.

The screen version is one complete PDF file, allowing for easy searching of any word, so an index--a great lacking of the print edition--is rendered unnecessary. Links from the first page of each chapter of the screen edition take you to the same chapter of the print edition to make printing that one or two pages for the workshop an easy proposition.

Harry Pellow was kind enough to allow me this undertaking and ammended the preface introducing the new edition. This, the Polizei car pictures, and my allowed colophony chapter on the production details for the CD-ROM version are the only additions since the v3.56 print edition.

I will leave it to others to comment on the content and value of this book; the fact that I undertook the conversion for the good of the 356 community tells where my opinions lay. Suffice to say that in the CD-ROM form, the book has never been more useful, and certainly anyone with only the floppy-disk version owes it to themselves and their 356 to get this the latest edition.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you own a 356 or 912 Porsche, you need this tome..., May 26, 2000

By 

A friend of Mr. Speed (\United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The ABC'S (and 912's) of Porsche Engines or Porsche Engines and The Future of the Human Race (Perfect Paperback)

Harry Pellow, aka The Maestro, has written, without a doubt, the most authoritative and interesting book on Porsche 356 and 912 engines ever written. You get "hands on" knowledge on how things work, humor, politics, and a whole lot more. If you care about your 356 or 912, you need this book in your library. Even if you don't own a Porsche, this book makes for a fine read.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This is the second book you should buy, March 8, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The ABC'S (and 912's) of Porsche Engines or Porsche Engines and The Future of the Human Race (Perfect Paperback)

Don't be surprised when you get a very small package from amazon! This is not a book, it is a two floppy disc set of unformatted ASCII text.

I rated this book with four instead of five stars because I expect a top notch book to be edited - these are far from edited - miss spellings galoar, bad punkshuashun, impropper gramer, edsedera, edsedera.

Iffin you think he is a college-edumacated writer - he's not, but he is a good mechanic and he knows where all the nuts and bolts go on this motor.