4 ms·

Yes, did that a few times as well: not for an OS (but an antivirus product, so close-ish...) and not with Egghead but mostly with CompUSA and Fry's (both now al

Yes, did that a few times as well: not for an OS (but an antivirus product, so close-ish...) and not with Egghead but mostly with CompUSA and Fry's (both now also long gone, I think?). This was at a time when it was theoretically already possible to try/buy software over the Internet, but the resulting clogging of our connection lead to too many complaints, so a road trip it was! Other than the bugs/extreme performance regressions they turned up in our product, the most interesting takeaways from these exercises were that: 1. most consumer software is really, really bad; 2. good package design is really, really hard. It may be hard to imagine now, but unboxing software used to be quite exciting. How many manuals? How good? Early software releases had pretty good documentation: I still fondly remember the first editions of Microsoft's developer tools as well as their Office suite, which came with a full set of printed decent-quality manuals. That practice went out of the window for good shortly after, though, and online documentation has IMHO never reached the same quality. But that may just be the nostalgia speaking...

bombcar 3y ago
There was a sweet time from the early 80s to just before Internet distribution of programs took off where you could "gauge" the quality and value of a software package by lifting the box. If it was heavy, you knew there was an impressive manual inside, and if they took the time to make and print a manual, they probably took the time to develop the software well. Here's Lotus 1-2-3: https://www.ebay.com/itm/283699892988 https://www.ebay.com/itm/283699892988 SimCity 3000 was perhaps the last game with a big printed manual: https://www.ebay.com/itm/354226256399 https://www.ebay.com/itm/354226256399 There were exceptions in both directions of course (for example, shareware-distributed Doom; random clip-art compilations with a crappy "editor" that came with a printed book showing each one), but if you were browsing a shelf it wasn't a bad rule of thumb. Shortly after that everything went to small box with a CD/DVD in it (and a manual in PDF form, if any) and then even those mostly disappeared and now everything is online help. It spawned the whole Missing Manual series, and there's something lost that interactive help can never replace - the manuals had a journey and a theme and you'd often find things you never even knew you wanted by reading them. I still sometimes pick up old manuals at thrift stores just to read.
- dghughes 3y ago
  I have a small pile of old manuals like Windows OS manuals, Corel, some MS Office manuals, a three volume IBM set (I think for 5150?); Disk Operating System, Operations, BASIC. I hate to throw them out.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Some of them go for relatively decent prices on eBay.
- juujian 3y ago
  I tend to ignore manuals, but two exceptions stand out to me. The Civilization series always continued making decent in-game manuals, or maybe 'wikis' is the more appropriate term. And while I would say that the manual for bash and python are decent, if inconsistent --- I wish bash manuals would prioritize frequently used arguments or flags --- R has really taken things to another level. R is probably the only software where my first instinct is not to google it, but to actually look at the documentation, because it is integrated so seamlessly, and because it is well organized: parameters at the top, examples at the bottom. And R's cheat sheets are also something else: https://posit.co/resources/cheatsheets/ https://posit.co/resources/cheatsheets/ . I had some of those laminated, because they are just such a joy to look at and browse.
- ctrlGsysop 3y ago
  Working at Egghead was great. Commission was basically based on the size of the box. Miss you PageMaker.
  - xoxxala 3y ago
    I worked at Egghead when Windows 3.1 was released. We pushed that hard because the spiff for it was $25, iirc. My sales bonus that month was something like $2,000. (And Egghead was how I met the people that got me into software dev at Interplay when Egghead changed owners and went downhill.)
- ilyt 3y ago
michaelcampbell 3y ago
Fry's is gone. We had a really nice one near where I live and my son and I spent some quality bonding time in it. Was very sad to see it die, as it went slowly, aisle by aisle being decimated, ever decreasing employee quantity and quality with the electronics area (eg: what you used to buy at Radio Shack; diodes, LEDs, breadboard, resisters and the like) the last vestige of people who knew much of anything about what they were selling.
layer8 3y ago
I remember that Word 4.0 (for DOS) came with at least four thick binders of manuals, similar to the WordPerfect manual here (but even thicker IIRC): https://www.ebay.com/itm/324124151292 https://www.ebay.com/itm/324124151292. It was fun and convenient to browse through them.
egypturnash 3y ago
Ah, manuals. Lately I have been learning Moho, an animation program that's been around since 1999. It's got two PDF manuals - one that's specifically ~300p of tutorials, one that's ~600p of reference - and they are both fabulous. Gorgeously laid out, lucidly written. I'm in heaven. Fuck context-sensitive help, fuck video tutorials, here's everything I need to know to get started with this power tool. From the rawest beginner concepts to "here is how a .moho file is structured in case you need to read/write one as part of some convoluted multi-app workflow". Sadly if you buy a physical copy you just get a DVD. I think I need to take these two PDFs down to Office Depot and get them printed out, sharing the computer screen with the program or putting it on a tablet just isn't cutting it.
omoikane 3y ago
> unboxing software used to be quite exciting In addition to the manuals, I remember Ultima also came with a map and a shiny coin. It was worth buy some games back then just for the physical toys.

bombcar 3y ago

There was a sweet time from the early 80s to just before Internet distribution of programs took off where you could "gauge" the quality and value of a software package by lifting the box. If it was heavy, you knew there was an impressive manual inside, and if they took the time to make and print a manual, they probably took the time to develop the software well. Here's Lotus 1-2-3: https://www.ebay.com/itm/283699892988 https://www.ebay.com/itm/283699892988 SimCity 3000 was perhaps the last game with a big printed manual: https://www.ebay.com/itm/354226256399 https://www.ebay.com/itm/354226256399 There were exceptions in both directions of course (for example, shareware-distributed Doom; random clip-art compilations with a crappy "editor" that came with a printed book showing each one), but if you were browsing a shelf it wasn't a bad rule of thumb. Shortly after that everything went to small box with a CD/DVD in it (and a manual in PDF form, if any) and then even those mostly disappeared and now everything is online help. It spawned the whole Missing Manual series, and there's something lost that interactive help can never replace - the manuals had a journey and a theme and you'd often find things you never even knew you wanted by reading them. I still sometimes pick up old manuals at thrift stores just to read.

dghughes 3y ago
I have a small pile of old manuals like Windows OS manuals, Corel, some MS Office manuals, a three volume IBM set (I think for 5150?); Disk Operating System, Operations, BASIC. I hate to throw them out.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Some of them go for relatively decent prices on eBay.
juujian 3y ago
I tend to ignore manuals, but two exceptions stand out to me. The Civilization series always continued making decent in-game manuals, or maybe 'wikis' is the more appropriate term. And while I would say that the manual for bash and python are decent, if inconsistent --- I wish bash manuals would prioritize frequently used arguments or flags --- R has really taken things to another level. R is probably the only software where my first instinct is not to google it, but to actually look at the documentation, because it is integrated so seamlessly, and because it is well organized: parameters at the top, examples at the bottom. And R's cheat sheets are also something else: https://posit.co/resources/cheatsheets/ https://posit.co/resources/cheatsheets/ . I had some of those laminated, because they are just such a joy to look at and browse.
ctrlGsysop 3y ago
Working at Egghead was great. Commission was basically based on the size of the box. Miss you PageMaker.
- xoxxala 3y ago
  I worked at Egghead when Windows 3.1 was released. We pushed that hard because the spiff for it was $25, iirc. My sales bonus that month was something like $2,000. (And Egghead was how I met the people that got me into software dev at Interplay when Egghead changed owners and went downhill.)
ilyt 3y ago

michaelcampbell 3y ago

Fry's is gone. We had a really nice one near where I live and my son and I spent some quality bonding time in it. Was very sad to see it die, as it went slowly, aisle by aisle being decimated, ever decreasing employee quantity and quality with the electronics area (eg: what you used to buy at Radio Shack; diodes, LEDs, breadboard, resisters and the like) the last vestige of people who knew much of anything about what they were selling.

layer8 3y ago

I remember that Word 4.0 (for DOS) came with at least four thick binders of manuals, similar to the WordPerfect manual here (but even thicker IIRC): https://www.ebay.com/itm/324124151292 https://www.ebay.com/itm/324124151292. It was fun and convenient to browse through them.

egypturnash 3y ago

Ah, manuals. Lately I have been learning Moho, an animation program that's been around since 1999. It's got two PDF manuals - one that's specifically ~300p of tutorials, one that's ~600p of reference - and they are both fabulous. Gorgeously laid out, lucidly written. I'm in heaven. Fuck context-sensitive help, fuck video tutorials, here's everything I need to know to get started with this power tool. From the rawest beginner concepts to "here is how a .moho file is structured in case you need to read/write one as part of some convoluted multi-app workflow". Sadly if you buy a physical copy you just get a DVD. I think I need to take these two PDFs down to Office Depot and get them printed out, sharing the computer screen with the program or putting it on a tablet just isn't cutting it.

omoikane 3y ago

> unboxing software used to be quite exciting In addition to the manuals, I remember Ultima also came with a map and a shiny coin. It was worth buy some games back then just for the physical toys.