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Questions tagged [books]

Questions on retro-related books (contemporary or historic)

18 votes
2 answers
3k views

Identify this children's Commodore 64 book

I'm trying to remember the title of a book on Commodore 64 programming that I had as a child. Here is what I remember about it: Published some time between 1982 and 1985 and sold in Canada. The ...
Psychonaut's user avatar
  • 7,681
1 vote
0 answers
118 views

Searching for a QuickBasic 2.0 book (not 4.5)

I'm travelling now to 1986, and trying the 2.0 version of QuickBasic on a 80286, emulated in PCem. (DOS version 3.2) So this question is not about QBASIC, but about QuickBasic. All the books I find on ...
Bahamut123's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
220 views

What was the title of this IBM PC software compendium book circa mid 80s?

Sometime in the mid 90s I stopped by a library that used to sell off their old stock and bought a copy of an IBM PC software compendium that I am now struggling to remember the name of or find ...
Noel Whitemore's user avatar
21 votes
10 answers
7k views

When did computer manuals and books start using monospace fonts for code, and why?

At least through the early 1980s, the source code in non typewritten computer manuals and books was usually typeset using proportional fonts, sometimes with syntax highlighting such as keywords in ...
Paolo Amoroso's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
183 views

What books did Symbolics Press publish?

Object-Oriented Programming in COMMON LISP: A Programmer's Guide to CLOS by Sonya E. Keene is a well known CLOS book published in 1989 by Symbolics Press (ISBN-10: 0201175894; ISBN-13: 978-0201175899),...
Paolo Amoroso's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
523 views

Looking for the name of a natural language Fortran compiler

Back in the 80s I ran across a book at a garage sale titled something like "Programming Fortran In English" or "Programming Fortran In Natural Language" that described a compiler ...
JockM's user avatar
  • 71
9 votes
2 answers
1k views

Were printed manuals for HP PCL or GL ever published?

If one wants to learn about PostScript, it's possible to find copies of the "Red", "Green" and "Blue" books, which were published by Adobe. Were similar manuals ever ...
Peter Russell's user avatar
24 votes
1 answer
2k views

Where can I find the debate around snow-free screen updates mentioned in the Zen of Assembly Language?

Michael Abrash's book Zen of Assembly Language: Volume I (1989) contains a reference to a column in a computer magazine, though the actual source is not cited. From the text: I recall a debate in the ...
640KB's user avatar
  • 1,357
9 votes
1 answer
292 views

Weird example code for CALL/360:BASIC

The CALL/360:BASIC manual has a couple of simple examples of file I/O. This one has me scratching my head: 10 OPEN 10, 'ITEMFILE', INPUT 20 GET 10: A$,A,B,C,D 30 LET Al = (A+B+C+D)/4 40 PRINT USING ...
Maury Markowitz's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
324 views

Anyone have the 1975 edition of "An Introduction to Microcomputers, Vol 2"?

I'm looking for references to the EA9002, an ill-fated design if there ever was. Practically the only place I can find it detailed is Osborne's Introduction to Microcomputers, where it was chapter 11 ...
Maury Markowitz's user avatar
10 votes
4 answers
1k views

Anecdote in Weinberger's Psychology of Computer Programming: is it ARPANET?

Gerald Weinberger, in the 1971 book The Psychology of Computer Programming, gives the following anecdote: The numerous stages [of reporting?] can produce interesting effects, as a result of filtering ...
Kaz's user avatar
  • 1,660
2 votes
1 answer
219 views

Where can I find the software for "DESIGN: a program to create data entry programs" by J. Michael Wuerth?

I have a copy of the book, DESIGN: a program to create data entry programs by J. Michael Wuerth. Does anyone know where I can obtain a copy of the accompanying software for the book?
Wes Robinson's user avatar
15 votes
2 answers
3k views

Which computers did Donald Knuth "mix" together to get MIX?

The MIX was a computer design that Donald Knuth used to illustrate computer instruction sets in his magnum opus The Art of Computer Programming. MIX's model number is 1009, which was derived by ...
DrSheldon's user avatar
  • 16.5k
7 votes
0 answers
276 views

What was this book about floating-point system design/construction?

A comment on the question Why did 8-bit Basic use 40-bit floating point? says the following (emphasis added): Re, "Nowadays, floating point is usually either 32 or 64 bits." More ...
texdr.aft's user avatar
  • 3,627
6 votes
2 answers
284 views

Documents about timesharing systems, access and resource control and its financials

I delved a bit into the origins of (commercial) timesharing and it seems there have been very interesting computing hardware and software (architectures) which have become relatively unknown but may ...
2080's user avatar
  • 161

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