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I would go with your first option. It's not cool to leave those things
undocumented. IMO, that looks like an error and makes me wonder about what
else is missing from the docs.
Sally
On Thu, Aug 5, 2010 at 9:35 AM, McLauchlan, Kevin <
Kevin -dot- McLauchlan -at- safenet-inc -dot- com> wrote:
>
> In documenting a hardware product that uses a chassis
> common to several other of your company's products,
> how do you refer to unused physical features like (say)
> an electrically live USB port or a specialty port that
> doesn't have a function in the current product.
>
> My default reaction is to just stick arrows and letters
> on such items in the diagram, and then in the call-out
> list say (for items "e" and "f" in this case):
>
> a. ....framistan
> b. ....doohickey
> c. ....thingamajig
> d. .... network ports 0 and 1
> e. (Not used in this application - do not connect)
> f. (Not used in this application - do not connect)
> g. Hot-swap power supply 1
> h. Hot-swap power supply 2
> i. ..........
>
> There's no danger of loss or damage. If you connect something
> to those ports, simply nothing useful happens, and whatever
> you thought might happen... probably doesn't, not even a bad
> smell... probably.
>
> OR
>
> Is it cool to have curious little items like that simply
> ignored? Not acknowledged in the docs at all? (I vote "no"
> on that, but I would be happy to learn counter-arguments.)
>
> Kevin McLauchlan
> Senior Technical Writer
> SafeNet, Inc.
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