Big, useful manuals scare neophytes. As such, the awesome schematics included on a lot of early systems were removed along with nearly the entirety of the manua

Big, useful manuals scare neophytes. As such, the awesome schematics included on a lot of early systems were removed along with nearly the entirety of the manual because they just added bulk for the majority of users. Also, as boards have gotten more and more integrated, the value of those schematics for someone just getting into hardware has diminished. The boards are now 8+ layers, which means most of the traces are now hidden from view, and the components themselves tend to be little more than a fairly simple power regulator, big huge monolithic chips with hundreds of pins, a few filter capacitors, and a few pull up/down resistors. There's too much "there" there to really be useful for the beginner. However, this is where the arduino is very useful. It's a small chip, and a small number of components, which would increase the value of having a schematic that people can trace, and keep in headspace what the various lines are doing. More than a bit of me thinks that the ARM chips that are starting to squish the 8/16 bit micro market from above may be useful here. A decent number of pins, decent speed, and something you can hack that does more than blink pretty lights. Perfect for giving a schematic that kids can follow and get to really understand what's going on.