Anybody read a good manual lately?

[Steve Simpkin]

For many years I thought I was the only person on earth who really, really liked reading manuals I used to be the one at home that read the user manual on some new appliance or electronic gizmo when no one else wanted to. That being said, when I bought my HP-25 I discovered that HP calculator manuals were the gold-platinum standard in manuals. I was hooked. I must have read my HP-25 Owner's Handbook cover-to-cover a hundred times over the years. From that point on I would look in thrift stores for HP calculator manuals, finding a few. In the 80's I discovered Educalc and would occasionally order HP manuals and books from them even if I didn't own the calculator model itself.

I think the most challenging HP manual I read was the HP-28C manual set. It was such a departure from the more traditional RPN 30/20/10 series models (not counting the HP-41, which I completely missed out on) and the two volume set was huge. It took weeks reading in my spare time to get though them. Even reading the HP-48SX manuals and William C Wickes HP-28/48 Insights series was not as challenging as the HP-28C manuals. Needless to say the HP Museum site, Museum DVD Set and "The Internet" have been like Crack to my HP Calculator Manual addiction

Lately I have been reading through the PDF version of the HP35s manual since I bought one recently. I was dismayed to find out that, contrary to what the HP35s Quick Start Guide said, HP no longer prints the full HP35s paper manual anymore

The worst calculator manuals I have come across are the "one giant page", tiny print manuals that come with some Casio and Sharp scientific models.

Why are manuals like this nowadays? Cost, plain and simple.