Customer Reviews

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

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I,am a little bit frustrated.
First, i was waiting about three month...
Second, it's only a Floppy Disk...
No Pics, No other Stuff..
What's with the CD-Rom Version????
That's sooo disappointing for me :-(((
Here in Germany, there is no Chance to get further Information about an Porsche 912 Motor overhaul.
Crab..

Bought both ABC's and the Inner Circle books by Harry Pellow over twenty five years ago. The man is a legend. He knows the old Porsches. Wish I could afford a 356 now. Are his books actually that rare that someone actually thinks anyone will pay $999 for one? I still have the two in very good condition. These books give great insight into older Porsches. At times I do see a few 356s still driven around here in Boca-Delray area of Palm Beach county. That's the way it should be, not cocooned forever in storage.
The best Porsche mechanic I knew was the late Uwe Buehl, who had a garage in Norristown, Pa. area at one time.