Introducing Your Commander X16 Personal Computer (brief intro)

[voidstar]

From Kevin's 1-page "here's the X16" quickstart letter included in "the 100" to an in depth 500-page technical reference, we're still trying to find the right balance on manuals.

Here is my 20-page offering, focused more on having a Gen1 physical system in your hands, and for those who have been away from putting together a system like this for a long time and need a brief refresher.


UPDATED FOR R45 (what the "1000 units" batch will be launched with):
https://github.com/voidstar78/X16_MANUA ... T_REV9.pdf



It's not a lengthy hand-holding step by step manual, like many of the original Commodore, Tandy, and Apple manuals used to be. But it is also kept brief for cost reasons: if someone wants an actual printed manual to go with the system, then just 20 pages is still going to cost $5 - $10 (using actual "book like" thick glossy paper).

If any official manual were to be decided, then a decision has to be made on who prints it: with the case or with the mainboard? or a third party altogether and offers the two together as a single package? We're still aways from that as we test the waters on the overall interest in the system (or which configurations are preferred).

One suggestion has been that a printed manual can probably be under 10 pages (and with no need to include any programming examples). Other suggestions are to commit to a more verbose ~50 page manual (such as describing each available BASIC command). Others still desire a complete 500-page technical manual on every facet of the system, such as descriptions of the memory map and each opcode.

Anyhow, this little document is just a "Fan Inspired Manual" to anyone interested. I'll have notes on how I had it printed available soon, and how it turned out. I printed it in a 7" format, but the overall format was inspired by the Tandy Color Computer original 10" introductory manual.

[jhames]

Thanks for posting this. it is a good start on using the X16.