#amstraddocumentationtrove — Public Fediverse posts

Another Amstrad document recovered for posterity!

The English language user guide and tutorial for MASTERCALC, a 1985 spreadsheet program for the #Amstrad #CPC464, as far as I can determine.

I've uploaded it to https://archive.org/details/mastercalc-first-edition-soft-905-soft-1905-1985.

I took the liberty of cropping the pages quite tightly, because many pages had been photocopied sloppily, so there was no consistency in page layout.

There is a Spanish-language version in existence at https://www.cpc-power.com/index.php?page=detail&onglet=notices&num=5007

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

I'm faced with this quite a bit while evaluating this trove of Amstrad documentation. I have a poor-quality photocopy of a document that's already been scanned by someone else from a very clean original.

I'm sorry, but my crufty photocopy is going straight in the paper recycling bin.

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

Last shout out for the physical object of "Amstrad BASIC: The Complete Technical Specification". Does anyone want it?

(I've archived the document at https://archive.org/details/amstrad-basic-the-complete-technical-specification-1984-soft-157.)

If there are no takers, it's going in the recycle bin, the same as the other documents in the trove of which I found scanned copies online.

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Okay, SOFT157, "Amstrad BASIC: The Complete Technical Specification" has been uploaded to https://archive.org/details/amstrad-basic-the-complete-technical-specification-1984-soft-157

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Two more binders to go on the Amstrad trove. I'm not sure I'll have any time to work on them at the weekend.

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

I'm making decent progress here. I've just got the 172 pages of the main body of the document to scan. I'll do them in batches of twenty.

I'm using natural light here, so I've a couple more hours to get the work done. It's taking me about half an hour per twenty pages, so it won't all be done today.

#AmstradBasicTechnicalSpecification

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Help me out here please, #Amstrad #retrocomputer folks.

I have this slightly rubbish photocopy of what seems like an essential document for Amstrad fans, "Amstrad BASIC: The Complete Technical Specification".

I expected his to be well treasured and multiple copies to be available on the web. But apparently not. Can someone confirm or refute this?

Thank you!

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

Recovering this trove of old computer documentation and learning resources is really a strange experience. It's bringing me back into the mindset of the 1980s.

In the collection are photocopies of the first six parts of an eight-part series on learning how to program Z80 machine code.

They were published between - get this - December 1985 and August 1987 in the quarterly Maplin Magazine. That's a span of 21 months between the first part and the last.

Plenty of time to practice what you were learning! Good luck having your questions answered or your misunderstandings and frustrations addressed in the intervening months! This way of learning is so foreign and remote from how we learn today.

Learning's never been easy; we pretend it's easier now, with access to endless resources, but it really isn't. We still have to put in the hard and sometimes frustrating work of engaging deeply with the material and practicing, practicing, practicing.

Part 1: https://archive.org/details/maplin-magazine-198512198602-n-017/page/57/mode/2up
Part 2: https://archive.org/details/maplin-magazine-19860305-n-018/page/n37/mode/2up
Part 3: https://archive.org/details/maplin-magazine-19860608-n-019/page/43/mode/2up
Part 4: https://archive.org/details/maplin-magazine-19860911-n-020/page/n51/mode/2up
Part 5: https://archive.org/details/maplin-magazine-198612198702-n-021/page/15/mode/2up
Part 6: https://archive.org/details/maplin-magazine-19870305-n-022/page/n39/mode/2up
Part 7: https://archive.org/details/maplin-magazine-19870608-n-023/page/41/mode/2up
Part 8: https://archive.org/details/maplin-magazine-19870911-n-024/page/23/mode/2up

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

I'm continuing to work on scanning the trove of mostly #Amstrad #retrocomputer documentation I received from @[email protected] aka @[email protected]. Thanks, man, it's been a really interesting journey!

I'm not scanning everything; as I mentioned before, almost everything in this trove is photocopied; the creator of the trove was a resolute and diligent pirate! However I'm scanning the photocopies if I can't find an identical copy on the web. (I'm working on the assumption that if a scan is somewhere on the web, but not findable, it might as well not exist.)

I've already uploaded a complete scan of an 'issue 1' of the manual for PROTEXT WORD PROCESSOR MAIL MERGE AND SPELLING CHECKER at https://archive.org/details/protext-word-processor-mail-merge-and-spelling-checker-gs-ebook and an early version of the manual for Romantic Robot UK's RODOS: https://archive.org/details/romantic-robot-uk-ltd-rodos-manual

Just now I was examining the bundle of pages of James S. Coan's classic "Basic BASIC Second Edition". This one's at the other end of the publishing line! It's the twentieth printing, and includes a page addressed "To the Student" that's not in the ninth printing available at https://archive.org/details/Basic_BASIC_2nd_Edition_1978_Hayden_Book_Company/

I'll upload just these pages soon, but meanwhile I thought the message deserves to be shared. It's typical of the way pedagogues of computing addressed learners at the time.

> To the Student
>
> You are about to embark on an exciting adventure. This can be all the more exciting, if you will look upon the computer as something to be mastered and not as something to be feared or something that might master you. You should take care to evaluate the results that the computer produces and not accept them as faultless. That is not to say that the computer is going to make many mistakes. In fact, under normal conditions, the computer will execute your instructions exactly. Mistakes in the results of a program RUN are usually caused by errors in the instructions written by the programmer. However, it is possible to write apparently correct instructions that give incorrect answers if the instructions carry the computer beyond its capacity.
>
> Learning to program a computer is a complicated process. You will find that a combination of experience and “book learning” will serve you well. There are certain things that you cannot possibly know without being told and there are things that you will probably leam more easily, if you can learn by experience. A good plan might be to read some text, until you think you have enough to write a program, write it, and try it on the computer. Then with this experience, reread that text and read further until you think you can write another program. You will find that each new program will make the text more understandable and as you continue reading, the writing of the next program will come more easily.
>
> I hope that you are stimulated by your work in programming to bring to the computer your own new and exciting problems to be solved. Above all, to be successful, you will have to give of yourself.

> GOOD LUCK!

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

The magazine "Amstrad Professional Computing" doesn't appear to be archived online anywhere that I can find!

I've scanned a short two-page introductory article on assembly language programming, which I found among the trove of Amstrad documentation I received.

https://archive.org/details/1986-09-amstrad-professional-computing-magazine-getting-into-machine-code-don-thomasson

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Would any #Amstrad #retrocomputing aficionados like a copy of BEEBUGSOFT "TOOLKIT Basic Programmer's Aid" for #CPC464, #CPC664 or #CPC6128, as shown in the linked toot?

https://oldbytes.space/@fluidlogic/117077917642919778

The staples are corroded. See the attached snaps.

A quality scan is available at https://www.cpcwiki.eu/imgs/2/29/Toolkit_%28Beebugsoft%29_Manual.pdf.

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

#digitalhoarder and #digitalarchiving folks:

Who's got a good command-line incantation to run on Linux to compress PDF files of scanned images of text, while retaining legibility?

Examples using ghostscript provide terrible results and qpdf barely compresses.

These are mostly scans (of photocopies!) which have been processed to make them high-contrast. Example attached. The second image is at maximum zoom showing the pixels.

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

#Amstrad #Retrocomputing experts: can any of you tell me what I'm looking at here?

Specifically, what's the bizarre reference to "john disc filename fred" at the top of the document?

I found this sheet among a trove of photocopied Amstrad software documentation that appears to have been used by a Cork (Ireland)-based business during the mid 1980s.

(I'm an Atari aficionado, so not au fait with Amstrad idioms.)

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Here's what's next to scan: the manual for a Locksmith program by BEEBUGSOFT, a UK software publisher, for Amstrad CPC platforms.

I have no idea if this has any relationship to the Locksmith program outlined by @LaineNooney in "The Apple II Age".

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

It appears that none of the software used by the business (whose little trove of documentation this comes from) was original.

It seems reasonable to assume that if all the documentation was carefully photocopied and neatly stored in binders, the software was also copied.

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

Another little gem for the archive: an eight-page manual seems to be all that remains of a suite of small business management tools written in BASIC by N. van Bradder in the early 1980s, and distributed in the UK by ABACUS BUSINESS SYSTEMS.

https://archive.org/details/abacus-business-systems-purchase-sales-ledger

#retrocomputing #earlyAdopters #britishSoftware #BusinessSoftware

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

Next up, the manual for the1986 version of Arnor Ltd's PROTEXT: Word Processor, Mail Merge and Spelling Checker for Amstrad PCW8256, PCW8512 and CPC6128. The material I have to work with is a photocopy of the original manual, but it's coming out looking quite legible.

This is the kind of software that interests me the most, concerning the personal computer 'revolution'. What was the truth of the marketing claims made about what you could accomplish with these machines? By 1986, the claims were starting to match reality. Word processing was a reasonable use of a computer in a small business context, in terms of the value gained for the business from the effort expended in learning a package.

#AmstradDocumentationTrove

A detailed spec sheet for the Hitachi 3-Inch Compact Floppy Disk Drives HFD305SX and HFD305D for Amstrad CPC128 and CPC6128:

https://archive.org/details/hitachi-3-inch-compact-floppy-disk-drives-hfd-305-sx-hfd-305-d/Hitachi%203-inch%20Compact%20Floppy%20Disk%20Drives%20HFD305SX%20HFD305D%20%5Bcrop%5D.pdf

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I received a box of retrocomputing documentation from @stevanikof, only some of which is already up on archive.org. I aim to fix that!

Here are the spec sheets and a user guide for two #amstradcpc464 add-on boards, the HoneySoft Limited HS-RX1 ROM Expansion Card and the HS-P1 Parallel and Centronics Expansion Card.
https://archive.org/details/honey-soft-limited-hs-rx-1-expansion-rom-user-guide-ocr

https://archive.org/details/hs-p-1-parallel-and-centronics-expansion-card-data-sheet-ocr

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