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The strangest computer manual ever written
- somat 4y agoPorpoise http://www.thecodelesscode.com/case/66 http://www.thecodelesscode.com/case/66
- lelandfe 4y agoGosh I’m so bad at these. Is this implying that the icons are …porpoisefully bad, to encourage people to read the manual carefully?
- somat 4y agoIt is implying that adding odd mysteries to the documentation would engage the readers curiosity and make them read it more carefully than they otherwise would With the trick being that the odd structure may not be solvable and it's only reason for inclusion was to make the reader take interest. The enlightenment comes when you spot the trick and realized you now know more about an otherwise boring subject than you would have had you only skimmed the manual.
- mypetocean 4y agoThe fish are _red herrings_ – even the dolphin.
- nonbirithm 4y agoEven more interesting is it did in fact make me re-read the entire story twice, after which I understood the message.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoSame here, and curiously as to how GP phrased it, I did skim it the first time - only upon reading the ending I was prompted to re-read the whole story properly.
- kwhitefoot 4y agoWe need more of that sort of thing!
- anfilt 4y agoIt would be a breath of fresh air for sure.
- nsxwolf 4y agoNothing is fun or whimsical anymore. Everything is super slick, on-brand, and boring.
- kergonath 4y agoIt’s a shame that there aren’t really anyone in the same vein as Douglas Adams (clever, witty, enthusiastic when he wants and cutting when he needs, and overpoweringly nerdy). Reading some of his articles the other day (written for MacUser), there was no negativity, no angst, no flame war (but a healthy dose of irony); just pure enthusiasm about the cool new things we could do with the cool new computers and assorted gizmos. We could use more of that.
- zabzonk 4y agoflicking through the article i saw mention of the "reset" button on the keyboard - this was my least favourite feature of the 8-bit computers such as the apple ][ and the bbc micro - one slip of your finger often meant lost work. actually having a reset button was a good thing - just don't put it on the keyboard.
- johndoe0815 4y agoOn the original Apple ][, the reset key was indeed just a regular key that was easy to press. On later models (the ][ plus, I think) Apple used a spring for the reset key that required a higher force to depress it. Finally, on the Apple //e, you had to press Control+Open Apple+Reset to reset the machine... but I have no idea if Franklin did anything special to the reset key on their Apple clone.
- convolvatron 4y agoit was a separate momentary with a red square plastic cap. I think it was under the keyboard? or on the side?
- duskwuff 4y agoOn early Apple II systems, it was part of the keyboard, on the rightmost side of the number row. It wasn't made separate until later models.
- convolvatron 4y agoI had a Franklin .. I remember the switch, it was something I kept when I finally scrapped it. definitely think it was under the keyboard bevel
- dhosek 4y agoIt was just ctrl-reset for the reset button. Ctrl-open apple-reset was a hard reboot. But since open apple was aliased to one of the paddle buttons, you could accidentally trigger a hard reboot if you happened to have something sitting on top of the paddles that you weren’t using.
- Waterluvian 4y agoI sense, possibly, that while this manual is weird and charming to us, it might have been highly frustrating to the audience it thought it was writing for. I’ve sometimes found that there’s a big difference between a “beginner” and “an engineer’s idea of a beginner.” That might explain all their “tone down” changes in the later version.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bhickey 4y agohttps://scsh.net/docu/html/man.html https://scsh.net/docu/html/man.html
- Animats 4y agoSomeone should write an iPhone manual like that.
- moab9 4y agothis was my first not HP-41c computer and i really liked this manual.
- dhosek 4y agoThe Apple manuals also had a sense of whimsy about them as well. I learned “defenestrate” from the glossary at the back of one of the Apple ][ manuals. I also seem to remember other jokes scattered throughout the manual including the index.
- zabzonk 4y agodon't know defenestrate is so funny - throw someone out of a window?
- dhosek 4y agoIt is funny in the context of a glossary otherwise composed of computer terms. Their definition, incidentally, was “to throw something or someone out of a window.”
- kadoban 4y agoIt's also just, on its own, a ridiculous thing to have a word for specifically throwing someone out of a window.
- rjsw 4y agoThe word came from a specific [1] event, people were not getting randomly thrown out of windows. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defenestrations_of_Prague
- kergonath 4y ago“Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window” is a famous Woz quote. It is not really surprising to have something along those lines in an Apple ][ manual. Defenestrate works for objects as well.
- Sunspark 4y agoAlso Russian oligarchs.
- uxp100 4y agoOne of the Netscape Navigator manuals was fairly entertaining as well. Had to explain what the internet was as well. I mainly remember a Northern Exposure reference.
- 29athrowaway 4y agoAt least it is written in proper, grammatically correct English.
- _a_a_a_ 4y agoThere should be more of this.
- markus_zhang 4y agoIt must be fun (and also profitable) to design a microcomputer back in the 80s. You can feel the love poured into even a copycat product. The early gaming consoles too I guess. Nowadays only a few companies can afford that pleasure. I wish modern 8/16-bit machines could bring back the homebrew glory but apparently they are still quite niche. I'm going to add that I don't think Rpi is a good substitution for 8/16 bit machines. It's difficult to go to the bottom of things (except for Pico) and when you do go to the bottom it is too complicated to wrap your head around it. 8/16-bit machines such as NES/Apple/SNES/8086 are easier to "digest". I read on HN that some good console programmers can map the whole memory into his brain. Resource constraint is really a boon, not a curse.
- dekhn 4y agoYou can have all sorts of fun with an ESP32 or Teensy. They're cheap 32 bit microcontrollers with very high clock speeds and can emulate an 8 bit microprocessor but also have a nice SDK and run a real OS (FreeRTOS). Also https://mega65.org/ https://mega65.org/
- markus_zhang 4y agoIndeed. I'm planning to purchase two 80486/80386 machines for my kid. Start from DOS as I did many years ago.
- tiahura 4y agoThat was my goal too. But as soon as they touch a smartphone, they’re spoiled.
- markus_zhang 4y agoYeah, but at least, if they want to learn programming they get to start from the bottom. It's fine if they quit.
- 4y ago
- forinti 4y agoIt reminds me of a couple of books: First Steps with your BBC Micro and Second Steps with your BBC Micro. They are filled with cartoons and jokes.
- Daub 4y agoFor another example of a manual that employs humor, check out the Tigerfibel. This is the users manual for the Tiger tank, and is easily one of the most effectively designed books ever. As well as humor, it employs comic book style drawings next to photos, poetry, analogy and even a bit of nudity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigerfibel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigerfibel https://archive.org/details/Der-Generalinspekteur-der-Panzertruppen-Die-Tiger-Fibel https://archive.org/details/Der-Generalinspekteur-der-Panzer...
- izzygonzalez 4y agoThis is what I aim for when writing documentation. It’s more fun to make and people are more likely to read it!
- nosianu 4y agoThere are lots of great little training films from the past. In WWII especially they had to bring in a lot of people with little experience with the sophisticated new technologies that were often only developed during the war. Search Youtube for phrases like "world war II training films". Some examples: https://youtu.be/gwf5mAlI7Ug https://youtu.be/gwf5mAlI7Ug - (Mechanical Computers) U.S. NAVY BASIC MECHANISMS OF FIRE CONTROL COMPUTERS MECHANICAL COMPUTER INSTRUCTIONAL https://youtu.be/s1i-dnAH9Y4 https://youtu.be/s1i-dnAH9Y4 - (Mechanical Computers) Basic Mechanisms In Fire Control Computers https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9cQ2Ddo6YCwNcDh15h2IheFHzXiHH8QF https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9cQ2Ddo6YCwNcDh15h2I... - Mechanical Computers (navy series) https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI https://youtu.be/yYAw79386WI - Around The Corner - How Differential Steering Works (1937) https://youtu.be/ezRP1h6x2GE https://youtu.be/ezRP1h6x2GE - Vintage training film - Manhandling - 1962 https://youtu.be/-34vk-rahPk https://youtu.be/-34vk-rahPk - BODY SEARCH | Spy Training Film (Vintage, ca. 1942-1945) https://youtu.be/acGXBJv6AT4 https://youtu.be/acGXBJv6AT4 - Vacuum Tubes 1943 Training Film (The TRIODE) Signal Corps Army Air Force Radio https://youtu.be/0OmOQs0ziSU https://youtu.be/0OmOQs0ziSU - 16 Inch Gun Training Film (1955)
- Daub 4y agoAgreed. These are beautiful, and so very clear.
- rietta 4y agoI remember the Turbo C++ manual being interesting and something about Frank Borland on a beach.
- Starwatcher2001 4y agoI recall there was a whole paragraph written about the sound command and that 20Hz was the resonant frequency of a chicken's head, discovered empirically. Borland did seem to be a playful company in contrast to Microsoft, their main rival.
- geenew 4y agoReminds me of some early Bungie games, which would have files called 'DONT_EVER_READ_THIS_FILE.txt", or something to that effect. The files, of course, were the readme files, named that way to trick people into reading them.
- rietta 4y agoIt seems to me some of this whimsical creative writing might have been for copyright protection purposes!
- drewg123 4y agoThe Franklin Ace 1000 was my first computer. I already used Apples at school, and it was just an Apple clone. Between that and the general "if all else fails, read the instructions" attitude that my Dad had already passed on to me, I don't recall recall looking at the manual very much.
- hallarempt 4y agoHeh, we had a Franklin Apple II clone in high school (in the Netherlands). It's what the pupils who had graduated from using the Newbrain class computers were allowed to use. Not that we got access to the manual, of course. At first, computer lessons were, of course, given by the maths teachers, but they got bored with the things, and then Dutch language teachers took over, with rather more success. (I ended up writing a school results tracking database for the Franklin computer, and after that, the computer was moved into the office, and I never saw it again.)
- hota_mazi 4y agoFYI, hit ESC as soon as the page loads and you can read the full article without the annoying "Please log in to keep reading" modal dialog.
- User23 4y agoUS copyright law still explicitly permits copying programs you lawfully acquired for backup and use. Frankly it’s not clear to me how that interacts with the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA, but most software licenses are based on an outright lie: that you need a license to load the program into memory and execute it after having legally acquired the code.
- plorkyeran 4y agoDefining Terrine Maison as meatloaf is actually a great low-key joke.
- m3galinux 4y agoI seem to remember one of the TRS-80 Basic manuals being a bit silly too. A lot more so than you'd expect from Radio Shack, anyway. Found it: https://archive.org/details/Getting_Started_with_TRS-80_Basic_1981_Tandy/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/Getting_Started_with_TRS-80_Basi...
- iamtedd 4y agoOn page 10, there is a suggestion to enter "STUERBPORAIYSIES!", then enable double-size mode. I can't find any reference for that anywhere. I wonder what it does?
- zu03776 4y agoIt looks like in double-size mode, every other character is dropped. The manual text hints at the result. "Something strange? Well, just for fun, press CLEAR then type STUERBPORAIYSIES. Now press SHIFT ->. Surprised?"
- iamtedd 4y agoOh, I see. The characters get dropped in the transition between normal and double-sized mode.
- don-code 4y agoThe North American owner's manual for the BMW E30, which being an 80s car would have been contemporary with the Franklin Ace, has a similar humorous admonition: > Caution: Although the ABS is very effective, always remember that braking capability is limited by tire traction. Always adjust your driving speed according to the road and traffic conditions. Do not let the extra safety afforded by the ABS tempt you taking extra risk. The ABS cannot overcome the laws of physics.
- walrus01 4y agoWatching Seattle people who own "4WD" cars/small SUVs without winter tires slide down hills is a good reminder that 4WD does not mean four wheel stop.
- klyrs 4y agoEvery car has 4 wheel stop. The problem is that stopped tires resemble skis once you overcome static friction...
- wyager 4y agoEven the crappiest cars have 4 wheel stop. Most cars' 60-0 is faster than their 0-60.
- ravi-delia 4y agoI shudder to imagine the car for which this is not the case- wouldn't want to drive that monstrosity in the snow
- ASalazarMX 4y ago> The ABS cannot overcome the laws of physics. Is this the cute part? My car's manual from 2015 has practically the same wording, and it looks more like a fact than a joke or reference.
- userbinator 4y agoThose sections on copy protection and EULAs certainly feel like they were going for a Benjamin Franklin theme. The last category of crooks is under the heading “Us”: I wonder if the capitalisation "US" was also a deliberate reference.
- didgetmaster 4y ago> Terrine Maison - Meatloaf I had no idea what the singer's real name was before now.
- schoen 4y agoA very strange computer manual that I had and enjoyed as a kid is The Secret Guide to Computers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Guide_to_Computers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Guide_to_Computers Weird illustrations and humor and pretty eclectic and very opinionated coverage, from hardware to different operating systems to CS concepts, and the author said you could call him at home for free tech support if you bought the book. (I never tried that part, though.)
- gwerbret 4y ago> And then, on page 40, there is a chapter called “The Ancestral Territorial Imperatives of the Trumpeter Swan.” That’s a really strange chapter to put in a computer manual. The real joke of ‘Territorial Imperatives of the Trumpeter Swan’ was in its acronym.
- rottc0dd 4y agoA programming book that I loved: https://poignant.guide/ https://poignant.guide/
- DwnVoteHoneyPot 4y ago"Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby" definitely needs to included in this conversation. Not only is the text strange, there is a crazy amount of comic book illustration and sidebars with it.
- tus666 4y agoBack when hiring artists and writers meant going to actual creative writing and fine arts graduates from college. Also why games from the era were so much better.
- npteljes 4y agoWhat games do you have in mind?
- tus666 4y agoAll of them.
- Semaphor 4y ago> Also why games from the era were so much better. Hard disagree.
- anthk 4y ago>Back when hiring artists and writers meant going to actual creative writing Not always. In the 80's,a lot of people in my country, Spain, were self-taught. They loved computers but they also loved reading books and lots of comic books. In the 90's if you were into computers it wasn't weird to be a fanfiction writer or manga sketcher to copy some Dragon Ball drawings.
- bmitc 4y agoAs general commentary, I don't mind a bit of humor and personality in manuals, but I do mind when manuals become overly cute so as to start obfuscating or taking away from the concepts. A manual is there for me to learn how to do something, and it shouldn't be an opportunity for the author to force their creative writing on users.
- nigamanth 4y agoThey would've thought that the main customer was losing interest in the manual, but what they don't realize is that the people who are reading the manual require knowledge - not humor or useless information.
- veltas 4y agoThere has always been a tendency of authors to inject a lot of themselves into technical content, which is charming to some and anathema to others. And I would guess in the 80's people felt subversive and "not square" writing like this, too. There's a lot of it. Starting FORTH is like this, and I love that book, but I can see how it would have irritated a lot of people from the era it was written in.
- bmitc 4y agoI like Starting Forth. I think it strikes a good balance, but it is more of a tutorial than a manual or reference. Although, a good manual should probably contain tutorials.
- TeMPOraL 4y agoThat's you, today. What about back then? Those early ACEs and the Apple's lawsuit were before my time, but then I live in a former USSR satellite state, so we were 10-15 years behind, tech-wise. Growing up in the 90s, I've seen plenty of similar humor and illustrations in various computer books, and I believe the reason for them was the same as in the US in the 80s: personal computers were new. Computers were a completely new category of appliance, never seen before, alien. Most people in the market for them were first-time buyers, who didn't know anything about these machines, or what to do with them - at best, maybe they had a friend at local university or in some office that worked with them. Those people (or, perhaps in most cases, their kids) had to learn not just the operating basics (where the power button is, where you plug peripherals in), but completely new abstractions and conceptual frameworks - files and folders, data vs. code, CLI interfaces, later GUI interfaces. Clicking. Double clicking. It was overwhelming, and whether learning was worth it wasn't obvious. Thus, all these cutesy drawings, all that humor and personality and conversational tone, served a critical function: to defuse the apprehension people had. To make the reader feel safe. "Sure, the computer seems like a complicated beast, but it's more of a friendly, if a little silly, pet you'll want to befriend. Yes, it's often frustrating, we feel that too. But look, now you know how to use it, and nothing broke. Wasn't that hard, was it?". The generation of my parents needed that. My generation grew up exploring them on our own. The next generation was born to a world in which computers were ubiquitous, and learned from osmosis. So the manuals could go back to their usual, boring, utilitarian style we all love when we're not deadly afraid of the once-in-a-lifetime conceptual framework shift.
- remoquete 4y agoA related conversation on old computer manuals: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30365800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30365800
- hoseja 4y agoNo, they were not the crooks, weirdly software-copyright-friendly substack author. This seems weirdly relevant still and should be taught to people (maybe without any overly Franklin-specific technicalities).
- tapanjk 4y ago> It’s a little late to bring it up now, but a good rule of thumb to keep in mind is that you shouldn’t buy a computer unless you know of at least two things that you can use it for BEFORE you buy it. I guess this should also be a question to ask anybody looking to buy a high end computer today: "Sir, before you buy this, please name two uses of this computer which cannot be done by a $400 PC." PS: I am joking.
- abricot 4y agoI have kind of set that rule for myself. I'm not going to buy a 3D printer until I have 10 projects ready to print. I'm still thinking about the first.
- somat 4y agoI too have a hard time coming up with examples of oddly shaped plastic I would really like to have. On the other hand I am always coming up with bent pieces of metal I really want. With the conclusion that a sheet metal cutter would be far more useful than a 3d printer, so that is what I am going to get.
- stavros 4y agoThat's a very wrong mindset, in my opinion. Before I bought a printer, I had zero things I wanted to print. Now that I know how to design and print things, you can't walk two steps around the house and not find a 3D printed thing. It's not just baubles, either, each thing improves my life somehow. To the holder of the falling toilet seat, to the toothbrush holder, to the sink sponge case. And the argument of "couldn't you go to the store to get some of those things" is the same as saying "couldn't you go to the laundromat to wash your clothes"? Yes I could, but once you're used to the convenience and speed, you'll never go back.
- GuB-42 4y agoI actually thought the same thing, and then I found a really cheap printer ($75 all included) at my local big box store. I am way passed the 10 projects mark (not counting benchies and 3D printer parts) and bought a more capable printer. Most of what I print are publicly available models, but some of them I did myself. What I have done: shower head support, various boxes, curtain hooks, phone stand, drain filter, novelty dices, etc... Most of these I would never have thought of before I got my printer, and yet, these are actually useful stuff. For example, for the curtain hooks, before I had the 3D printer, I had to buy some that didn't quite fit because the original one that broke are not available anymore, and sometimes, they fell. The new ones I printed to measurements fit perfectly. That's the idea, you need something, you print it. Of course, there are many things you can't print or it makes no sense to, but it really is useful. Also I originally underestimated PLA, it is actually quite strong. There are even ways of making it heat resistant (regular PLA starts to deform at around 60C, which can happen in a hot car). That being said, it is still a hobby. 3D printers, especially the cheap ones are far from consumer friendly and you need to be familiar with its workings and how to setup your slicer. And there is the big one: CAD. You can limit yourself to printing others people models, but you would be missing on a lot of potential.
- rkagerer 4y agoReferring to programs that actively resist being backed up: This may be a user's manual, but when it comes to some programs that you buy off the shelf, you're more in a position of being used than you are of being a user. Reminds me of the modern "you are the product" adage, and shows user-hostile software was already a thing 40 years ago.
- neilv 4y agoIn the 1980s, there were a lot of microcomputer books heavy on cartoons and jokes and gentle introduction. As an adult, I've learned there was also (what seems like) a large intersection with counterculture, hippies, etc. Another interesting thing was how unpolished and DIY some of the documentation. For example, I got a vintage (circa Apple II?) Anadex dot matrix printer at a yard sale, and the manual included instructions for how to select the kind of serial interface (between, e.g., RS232 and closed-loop): by cutting a PCB trace inside. Not even a DIP switch, but they were fine telling customers it was OK to start permanently mangling a circuitboard to get it to work with their computer. Edit: This might've been the one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/143078871954 https://www.ebay.com/itm/143078871954
- julian_sark 4y agoThis is right up my alley. I'm known for writing documentation that is useful AND, let's say, entertaining. Or, depending on your inclination, sed 's/entertaining/hilarious/g' Besides docu and Wiki pages (what unfortunately counts for docu in many companies), I've written man pages and shell scripts with more jokes than a longint can probably count. Once had a shell script that did something really, really impactful and asked the user in increasingly aggressive prompts if he is sure, then delved into existentialism and how he can even be sure that he is so sure. Another prompted the unfortunate victim to validate that gravity, in fact, still works. Long story. Some have deemed that "unprofessional", especially management. I am elated to see that this has precedence in print, and shall use this to make my case. Oh, I have writing samples available. If anyone wants to hire a guy to write funny manuals or some other stuff, ping me :D
- csdvrx 4y ago> Once had a shell script that did something really, really impactful and asked the user in increasingly aggressive prompts if he is sure, then delved into existentialism and how he can even be sure that he is so sure Please share! > Oh, I have writing samples available. If anyone wants to hire a guy to write funny manuals or some other stuff, ping me :D Would you consider doing the same for a fun free software project that just aim to share knowledge about how http works?
- julian_sark 4y agoSorry, I left said shell script at a company I have now departed from. As for the other thing, not at this time. Again, truly sorry! I'm a bit overwhelmed in my life right now, maybe some later time. But can you send me a link to the project nonetheless, if there is one?