Re: Which manuals came with Apple II Plus?

[Ivan X <ivanxqz@yahoo.com>]

On 8/15/10 3:47 PM, in article i49g9b$s7v$1@news.eternal-september.org,
"M.O.B. i L." <mikaelb@df.lth.se> wrote:

> I found someone unboxing an Apple II Plus, but unfortunately the books
> are stacked and it says some books weren't part of the package.
> http://www.vintage-computer.com/apple_ii_plus.shtml

I took a look at that picture. The DOS 3.2 manual (which also came with DOS
3.2.1) is sitting on top of the "The DOS Manual" (which came with 3.3). Both
of those would have come with the drive, but not the base machine (though of
course they might have been sold as a together).

The Apple ][ (Integer) BASIC Programming Manual came with Apple II and is
sitting on top of the Applesoft ][ BASIC Programming Reference Manual, which
came with Apple II Plus, and whose cover looks like the DOS 3.2 manual. The
other manuals in that picture came with software.

> Does anyone know where I can
> find the book "Applesoft Tutorial" as pdf-file?

http://www.classiccmp.org/cini/pdf/Apple/The%20Applesoft%20Tutorial.pdf

> I suppose the books must be updated versions from Apple II (without Plus).

More or less. There was a certain amount of overlap between manuals. The
earliest Apple II's came with only the photocopied Apple II Mini Manual,
which you could think of as a hobbyist's owner's manual. It incompletely
covered, in pretty wild style, general machine operation, Integer BASIC,
machine language, and hardware internals. It was soon replaced with the
printed and more comprehensive (but no less disorderly) Apple II Reference
Manual (January 1978), aka "Red Book," and before long this was complemented
with the Apple ][ BASIC Programming Manual, which was the owner's manual for
the rest of us. It covered setting up the machine and Integer BASIC
programming in an introductory tutorial style approachable by first-time
computer users.

With the Apple II Plus, things got cleaned up. The new Apple ][ Reference
Manual was considerably more professional looking than the Red Book, and
limited its focus to machine language and hardware internals, expanding some
parts and excising others (the Red Book still contains a lot of cool stuff
not found elsewhere). The Applesoft Tutorial replaced the Apple ][ (Integer)
BASIC Programming manual both as an introduction to the machine and to
programming. The Applesoft ][ BASIC Programming Reference Manual is a
thorough review of the language, something Apple never published for Integer
BASIC. (It replaced the Applesoft II Reference Manual, aka "Blue Book,"
which came with the cassette and ROM card Applesoft, but not with any
machine.)

Of course, the DOS 3.2/3.3 manuals -- which supported both Apple II and II
Plus computers -- really became more essential than any of these, as DOS was
more complex to operate than cassettes, and owner programming became less
important as third-party software exploded.

All these manuals were discontinued and replaced with entirely new ones with
the introduction of the Apple //e.


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