Re: Apple II vs Atari 800

[scott@alfter.DIESPAMMERSDIE.us (Scott Alfter)]

In article <w9WdnaqxDM1clJjVnZ2dneKdnZydnZ2d@brightview.com>,
Ensor <none@localhost> wrote:
>  > Apple, in contrast, published *everything* needed to make
>  >software, plug-in cards, and even more computers!
>
>So, you're saying that the Atari Technical manuals I have not 6 feet away 
>from me are figments of my imagination? :-)
>
>True they weren't shipped with the machine, but had to be bought seperately, 
>but they contain full schematics, operating system listings etc....
>
>By the time of the XL/XE series machines Atari had stopped publishing such 
>manuals, but then again so had Apple etc.

My copy of the Apple IIe Technical Reference Manual is dated 1987, and I
think volume 3 of the IIGS toolbox reference came along some time after
that.

The programming info, schematics, etc. were dropped from the owner's manuals
that shipped with later Apple II equipment (the Super Serial Card manual,
for instance was printed in two forms: the original edition, which looked
like it was printed with a daisy-wheel printer and included source code for
the ROMs and a schematic, and a "lobotomized" edition, which looked like it
was typeset on a Mac with a laser printer and had little more than
installation instructions and maybe some simple programming info), but it
was usually still available in the tech references.

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