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(Some detail) Acorn manuals always had a good reputation. They usually contained a tutorial section, a reference section, clear appendices with all sorts of ex
by Kim_Bruning 6y ago
(Some detail)
Acorn manuals always had a good reputation. They usually contained a tutorial section, a reference section, clear appendices with all sorts of examples and details, and a very solid index. I haven't quite seen other manuals that were quite as good.
As a really neat example: the Acorn Midi Card manual for the Archimedes went all the way from high level "what is midi" down to bits and bytes and assembler-level API calls. As a kid, it allowed me to understand midi. Compare that to the manual for my synthesizer at the time, which really didn't explain anything at all.
I found it quite interesting that a document aimed at a musician could be so technical and obtuse while the document for the computer person was so clear and enlightening!
- timthorn 6y agoI understand (from a friend who was at the school at the time) that at least one of the authors for one of the manuals was a teacher at Netherhall, the school round the corner from Acorn. The BBC Micro was the reference point for the Computer Literacy Project, so developing understanding was a key goal.