![Back when computer manufacturers gave you a full set of manuals in the box... [4032x3024 - 2.82MB]](https://pic8.co/sh/1Kv1YH.jpg){kind=link}
I think the Kaypro was a business machine, therefore it had volumes of manuals. Original IBM PC had damn near an entire encyclopedia.
My C64 didn't come with stacks of manuals... but it did come with two thick spiral-bound books; "User Guide" details the inner workings of the machine, explains everything all the way down to teaching about bytes and bits. Has a pull-out full-page schematic of the computer. Then it also came with a thicker "Programmers Reference Guide," and it talks about both BASIC and assembly language programming.
The last new computer I got from work is one of those Thinkpads... if I remember right, it only came with one 8.5x11 page with 4 comic-like panels of pictures explaining how to plug it in and turn it on. That was it.
I want books detailing every aspect of my machine, including poster-size die shots of every piece of silicon. And scratch-and-sniff stickers that smell like magic smoke.
Kaypro was targeted towards business users, but they were the power user's computer. It actually had more manuals than my first IBM (yes, a real IBM) machine had. The IBM only came with some basic instructions, but had a GW-BASIC, PC-DOS, and an optional DOS reference guide. Since no software was bundled - no manuals.
I remember the stuff that came with the C64, I had a copy of those manuals up until a few years ago when I did some cleaning. Every peripheral came with it's own spiral bound manual or two.
Now, they just expect you to use Stack Overflow or Expert Sexchange to find your answers.
Ah. I had assumed IBM PC came with all those books that are always being showcased on this or that internet video next to the computer... That machine was released a handful of years before I was even born. So was the C64, but at least I was able to get my hands on one of those, complete in box, for cheap back in maybe 2008. So I guess maybe you had to buy all the IBM books separately. They look expensive.
Yes. For a while, every software publisher for the PC followed a similar packaging format with their software, that of a hardback, looseleaf manual that fits in a shell.
I don't think IBM mandated this in any way, it was just follow-the-leader. So if you saw a picture of a bunch of similar manuals, then they had to have bought all of them save the few that came with the machine. The only time I can think of more software being bundled was back around the MS-DOS 1.25 days, when some of the OEMs would include a full copy of MASM with the machine. I used that version clear up into the 90s because it didn't require all the useless definitions later assemblers did, and it would still produce a single-segment .COM program if your code was small enough and didn't need to leap outside the current segment.
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