http://rayrayburn.com/rca/RCA_manual.pdf

I'm guessing the copyright is for the photograph.

Otherwise, how would you copyright a major corporation's historic documentation?!?! 

:-)

I see you made to the bottom of at least one of the pages.


best,
mike

My first job out of grad school in the early 90’s (actually my second, but the first one only lasted 2 months and that's another story) was with an American company that had recently been broken up in a sale to a Japanese company.  My job was formulating B&W photographic developers for the graphic arts and medical X-ray industries.  I knew nothing about the industry or the related chemistry and essentially got into an industry in its death throes.

When the company was broken-up, a bunch of antiquated file cabinets had been moved to the new facility where I was employed.  It was kind of neat because the cabinets contained a bunch of WWII era formulation / data / spec sheets for developers and fixers.  The developers and fixers were to be used with the high speed film associated with state of the art, high speed cameras (i.e., aerial surveillance).  It was the kind of information necessary to transfer technology from the lab bench to manufacturing.  When you looked at them, they looked like props for an old spy film; they were marked “Top Secret” and “Eyes Only”.

The RCA document (which goes far beyond just ribbon mics) reminded me of those old manuals in its layout and I did end up perusing beyond the first page.

I like the blue prints at the end with the cross section of the disc.

:-)

Mike I loved it. I downloaded all of it and went right through the whole thing. I just love the meticulous detail they go into. So much information. I felt right at home looking at those circuits. Now you get a sense of how old I am! In my electronics engineering days I would have to work on things that I was unfamiliar with and I worried the manual would not be good enough. I hoped the manual would have enough info in it for me to troubleshoot something. When I saw that manual I will filled with joy at the prospect of having so much information available if I had to work on one of those things.

Each component part of the studio. That gear so beautifully made. Even the cable looms under the chassis in the pictures is perfect. It reminded me of the Williamson class A valve amps that I built in the 70's for my Hi Fi system. I spent hours laying out those looms underneath. Making them look perfect and pretty. 

The microphone info at the start is fantastic, There are some good miking tips in there. I love the way the null point of the figure 8 is facing the camera for minimum spill. 

Love the mixing desk schematics, amplifiers, tone control circuits and that loudspeaker was amazing. And of course top it all off with the playback and recording gear at the end. Now there was some gear to be able to adjust there I am sure. That stuff would have sounded great. Amazed at the year as well.