Fred Cisin (XenoSoft) wrote:
> The "PC Technical Reference Manual" was cheap, and contained
> complete schematics and source code for the BIOS. Third party
There was a technical reference manual for PC-DOS as well as the
technical reference manual for the hardware... I got both of them when
IBM was still selling the original PeeCees, but they were, for some
odd reason, difficult to obtain even back then (e.g., various people
at IBM denied that they existed... and if you really wanted to have
fun with IBM's biz'droids, you could telephone IBM and ask them what
"wet bulb temperature," as specified in the machine's
storage/operating conditions specifications, was! Many of them would
actually deny that there was such a specification.).
Does anyone know why these books were so difficult to obtain from IBM,
even when the systems were new? It seems to me that, for what they
charged for PeeCees back in the early days, they should have included
useful documentation with them, such as the Hardware Technical
Reference Manual. The documentation that came with them was,
basically, useless, unless all someone wanted to do was write BASIC
programs that didn't do anything particularly hackish.
--
Copyright (C) 2002 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd_at_rddavis.org 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.rddavis.org beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
Received on Sun Feb 23 2003 - 10:28:00 GMT