Subj : Re: Meeting Michael Tomczyk
To   : paulie420
From : boraxman
Date : Thu Oct 27 2022 22:43:43

 pa>  bo> Thanks!  I would have loved to have been part of it, but timezone
 pa>  bo> differences meant I missed it.  One thing I really liked about the Vi
 pa>  bo> 20 was the manual. The manual was informative, and well written.  Tha
 pa>  bo> is something you don't get with computers today.
 pa> 
 pa> Yea, I didn't ask questions or talk at all - but it was really cool to
 pa> see the interactions of a legacy C= group (TPUG) and one of the original
 pa> devs.
 pa> 
 pa> Dude, I miss so many of the old manuals... the ones I most remember are
 pa> the IBM three ring boxes - omg... so great. You had the disks in the
 pa> front and a literal man page printed out. :P
 pa> 
 pa> 
 pa> 

Was Jim Butterfield part of that group?  I recently saw his tutorial on the C64.

I didn't actually have any computers in the 80's, too young, so sadly I
missed what was to me probably the most interesting part of the evolution of computers, the microcomputer.  I loved getting books from the library about them, reading up on the different models, about programming, machine code.  I borrowed the book Big Basic Computer Games or something like that, tried some of them. This was the era where people would submit their programs to magazines, where cool technical information about the low level details were readily available and discussed, as if everyone would be interested.  And yes, proper manuals!  There is something to be said about the tactile experience of actually having a manual, everything there a page flip away, and that manual detailing the machine you are using (accurately).  Discovering all those little corners, capabilities, things you can do.

Do computers come with manuals anymore?  What do you get with your new iMac?

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