Unrelated: I still get an unreasonable bit of joy whenever I see a picture of the manuals for Turbo Pascal and Turbo C.
(Which you can read online if you're so inclined: https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_borlandturReferenceGuide1988_19310204)
@zigg Would you believe I have a shelf of old computer manuals, including the Atari Basic manual and tutorial from my first computer?
Something powerful about those old manuals.
@craigmaloney Oh, I would totally believe that. These are formative things, they left an outsized impression on us.
I’ve flipped the pages on occasion and am transported back to learning hex so I could create sprites…
@craigmaloney 35 years. Wow.
@craigmaloney My parents were in their twenties yet. _I_ barely remember my twenties. 😁
@zigg Yeah, my mind boggles at that.
I think the only things I remember about my twenties were working at WSU (which was awesome), moving to Ford, and finding Linux). Oh, and finding JoDee too. :)
@zigg @craigmaloney as a Brit, I similarly remember those for the BBC/Acorn computers and the ZX Spectrum (although to be fair *all*
These manuals seemed to be better written those days, often served as tutorials as well as just documentation and consider that its likely we were then all young teenagers..
@zigg @vfrmedia Yeah, the manuals were really well written back then. I've picked up a lot of Sinclair manuals / books and they're still a joy to read compared with today's terse and serious manuals.
There was a sense of joy in those manuals, as though someone was about to begin teaching you something they truly enjoyed.
@craigmaloney @zigg there was a bit missing from my toot which was supposed to say "*all* the manuals of that era" were readable and usable i.e including American ones (in spite of language differences), Although the associated machines were less common here - USA companies often put a price premium on 230V/PAL models of computers that were capable of being be used with TV-sets as display (perhaps not totally unreasonable as it often did mean significant design changes were required)
@craigmaloney @zigg And the haunting refrain, "This page intentionally left blank."
Seriously, though, manuals in 3-ring binders so you could add/change chapters as things updated? How cool.
I think part of the reason I get that feeling was because these things were so expensive. But they contained so much power.
But then again I would still get that feeling looking at a GCC manual.
I'm probably weird.
@craigmaloney Nope, this is totally relatable 😊
Of course _I_ am weird so maybe I’m not the best judge 😉
@zigg Let us sit on the ground and tell great stories of weirdness. ;)
@craigmaloney I've been really nostalgic for Turbo Pascal lately, and in part because of the manuals.
We need Free Pascal manuals done in that style.
@satchmoz Funnily enough I booted up Free Pascal in a fit of nostalgia, but it wasn't the same.
I totally think a metric shelf-ton of manuals would totally sell it for me. 😁
@craigmaloney I'm still thankful that my highschool dropped Pascal a year or two before I started. I don't think I would have become a programmer.
@nobody Funnily enough my college was well into the throes of teaching pascal / Ada when I went there. Had they started teaching me C I might have bailed (though I wish they would have put more focus on that).
@craigmaloney I still have the tattered TI Extended BASIC manual on my shelf that I learned to program with when I was 5-6
I don’t think I’ll ever let it go, even though the computer itself has been lost