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Simplicity manuals on CD


Brent_Baumer

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If a dealer can buy one CD he should be able to buy another. To keep this legal how about if the dealer "sells" his extra copy tranferring usage rights to Tom for a dollar. Then Tom "sells" that copy to Dick for a dollar, again tranferring all rights. Dick in turn "sells" the copy and rights to Harry for a dollar, Harry sells the CD to you for a dollar. Now you have the CD. You copy what you need from the CD and sell it to another person. I know this sounds strange. would it work?
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I suspect that if an individual cannot buy the CD from Simplicity then a dealer would not be allowed to sell it either. The woman at Sim. Pub. must be off for good friday today. Just got her voice mail all three tries. I'm envious of the deere guys in this respect only. That CD my friend has is pretty nice. All the tractors, attachments, weed wackers, mowers, etc at the click of a mouse. Brent
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Almost 2 years ago I posted the question below about Simplicity manuals on CD. My JD loving buddy was looking up Sam's ebay grader blade on his Deere CD yesterday and got me thinking about it again. Does anyone know if Simplicity has since come out with something similar? My dealer has some sort of parts database on his new computer, but still looks up diagrams on microfiche. I know I'd be willing to pay $75 like the Deere guys if they had a CD for sale.[A href='http://www.simpletractors.com/clubhouse/ShowMessage.asp?MsgID=1724&mode=short&startwith=0']http://www.simpletractors.com/clubhouse/ShowMessage.asp?MsgID=1724&mode=short&startwith=0[/a]
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Brent, As Sam stated, "Simplicity is in the business of selling manuals.... " Maybe Deere is more into the business of selling equipment, and realize the pump has to be primed. Some manufacturers will supply manuals free or for a small handling fee, others won't. What Simplicity does is their business. However, I will critcize how Simplicity markets their manuals. If you don't have a product number the publications gal doesn't want to talk with you. I'd probably buy a lot more from Simplicity IF I knew what was available. How hard would it be for Simplicity to post a web page with every manual they have for sale? If they really wanted, they could even offer on-line ordering.
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One more thing. Does anyone know what happened to Jeff Nemes? Don't think I've seen him post or reply for a long time.
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Cub Cadet has manuals for everything including exploded views of parts. The CD's are nice but I instead purchase microfiche. They are relatively fast to operate and with a good viewer the pictures of parts are totally usable. I buy manuals for everything I own. Makes good reading at lunch and in the john...MadManX
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Brent, If permission was granted by Simplicity we could build our own CD. It would be offered by the club and I'm sure would help in the moneys needed to keep our club going. Just on the surface, if each of us scanned one manual, then pick an unsuspecting soul to compile and burn the cd( probably more than one) we would have a reference source at low cost. I know from past experience that this would be a J.O.B. !! Possibly anything pre-1980 would be allowed, I don't know. This would be a good wintertime project ! Steve
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Simplicity is in the business of selling mauals for obsolete equipment via Simplicity Publications(262)284-8519. If they are out to make money on the printings I doubt a CD compilation would be condusive to that goal. One of you guys could give them a call and see if a CD compilation is available. SmilinSam
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I had buyers remorse when I bought my manuals for my 717 Broadmoor.I had never bought manuals for tractors before I bought the one for my Massey Ferguson MF12.The parts manual cost me like $12 new.That manual covered the tractor,motor,all attachments,and accesories.Must have about 200+ pages.The manual for my 717 barly covered the tractor and is probably only 8 pages and cost about $8.It was then I learned that I had to order a manual for each attachment I have if I want part #'s. Sure wish they would do like Toro.If I go to Toro.com and view the Master Parts Veiwer I can punch in my model # and get exploded veiws of any part of my tractor or attachment.Even my uncles tractor which is from the late 60's. Sure comes in handy to look up your own part #'s.I have had so many dealers tell me parts are no longer avalible.Then after I go and make my own or find a good used one and pay as much as a new one I find that it really is avalible. mowerman1193
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Simplicity DOES have them on CD for the dealerships as I worked at one last summer, to my knowledge they were only sold to dealerships as maybe no one had an interest in buying them, the ones we had had movies on them too,-BradW
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On the Wheel Horse Club someone did this and was selling them for 10.00 each I belive.He had ordering instructions on the club and I was going to order one and all of a sudden the information on how to order was gone.I posted a message on the club about it without a single reply.My guess is he got into some copyright law trouble or something. Sure would come in handy though.You could look up what you need and print it off and not worry about getting your manual dirty ect. mowerman1193
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Hi, The CDs that we dealers get are provided by ARI, trade named PART SMART. To get them you pay 240.00 per year base charge. Then you pay from 60.00 to 180.00 per year for each vendor you want single user version. Multi user adds 100.00 per chair. The CDs quit working every 3 months and you get a new one, which you have to load, so you can't just drop the service and use the CD you have like you can with micro-fiche or books. I believe we pay 360.00 per year for the base plus Simplicity. We actually pay 900.00 a year plus for parts look up software. Plus we pay another 240.00 a year to ARI to electronically order parts from Simplicity. Just thought that you might be interested. Every one of these things you have to purchase is that many more parts you have to sell. If you figure being open about 2300 hours a year this is about .50 cents per hour of overhead just for one station. Just some thoughts from a dealers point of view. Good luck, Al Eden
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Hi, Something I forgot to mention, We still buy the manuals also, and keep the micro fiche up, because we still have to go to micro-fiche sometimes. Part Smart still has some shortcomings and errors. It is gettting better every year, but the cost of transferring all of the data that needs to be there is not in any of the companies 1 year budget. There are days I cuss Part Smart, but most of the time I like it. Good luck, Al Eden
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How about Neal Pierce, you're a Simplicity dealer, no? Do you have/can you get a CD? If so, would you get into trouble for making copies? Paul
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Hi Paul, Al is correct. Burning a cd for you would do no good because of all the license rights, and updateing. Another problem we have ran into with trying to use the cds with the old part numbers is that they do not exist on the newer cds. I think simplicity does not do this because there are not many older parts out there to warrant putting them on a cd. We use are old paper manuals all the time to help out customers on assembling decks or whatever. It is quicker for us to show them in the book, and or make a copy than to do it on the computer. I know it sounds funny, but when your used to using a book, you can usually flip to the page needed. If you have problems or need to cross a number, just e-mail us or call (507) 534-2431. We will help you out in either case. We also would like to have an old part number reference (on cd). I do not think simplicity will have this. If this sight could write simplicity to do this and get it through, that would be great! Hope this helps, take care. Neal
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I would say you can't copy the manuals since the copyright notice is printed on the manual with a date. My large frame manual is copyright dated 2001. Simplicity obviously cares about whether you copy the manual. It's not so on some of my other manuals so without the notice I might take a chance. With the new software laws you are asking for major trouble copying CD's or software. Minimun $100,000 per INCIDENT, ten copies could cost you a million bucks and it's not a minor crime, it's a FELONY. Remember my stand on patents is totally different... Be careful..MadManX
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