How I miss the missing manuals

Forget wikis, YouTube videos and Q&As, application support was so much better in the days of printed manuals

@bazzacollins In 1993, Amstrad launched the NC200 – a wonderful little laptop that I hoiked off to university with me. It looked like it could have been made by Fisher-Price: if you wanted to open the word processor you pressed the red button, for “diary” you pressed blue. In other words, it was almost insultingly simple to operate. And yet it came with a 460-page manual that was as chunky as the laptop itself. The first 50-page section of that manual, according to the foreword, was written by none other than Alan Sugar. And even if – like me – you struggle to believe that Sugar sat there for hours pounding out an instruction manual, it’s written in that gruff, no-nonsense style that at least sounds a bit like him.…

You're reading a preview of

PC Pro (Digital) - 1 Issue, February 2025

DiscountMags is a licensed distributor (not a publisher) of the above content and Publication through Zinio LLC. Accordingly, we have no editorial control over the Publications. Any opinions, advice, statements, services, offers or other information or content expressed or made available by third parties, including those made in Publications offered on our website, are those of the respective author(s) or publisher(s) and not of DiscountMags. DiscountMags does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, truthfulness, or usefulness of all or any portion of any publication or any services or offers made by third parties, nor will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information contained in any Publication, or your use of services offered, or your acceptance of any offers made through the Service or the Publications. For content removal requests, please contact Zinio.