This is great. The Raspberry Pi manuals and marketing have a touch of humorous self-awareness that is otherwise absent from computer, nothing like this, of course.
In 1982, I owned a Franklin Ace 1000 along with a Smith Corona daisy-wheel printer, an external floppy drive and ScreenWriter II word processor. I thought I was king of the tech world! The printer generated 14 characters per second and made the devil's own racket. When I entered the Print command, I had to leave the room and close the door to preserve my hearing. But the system worked great. And I did love the manual.
The part about the reset button reminds me of the “Push to Trip” button in the basement of North Morton. I believe we caused a four-hour blackout with that one.
Somehow this made me nostalgic for the old Beagle Brothers software ads:
https://stevenf.com/beagle/
This is great. The Raspberry Pi manuals and marketing have a touch of humorous self-awareness that is otherwise absent from computer, nothing like this, of course.
What a find and great post thanks!
Thanks! The Franklin Ace 1000 was actually my childhood computer. So I didn’t so much “find” it as I did “remember” it!
That is very cool. I don't remember Franklin Ace 1000. My nearest claim to fame is having had a "Next" computer - different era!
In 1982, I owned a Franklin Ace 1000 along with a Smith Corona daisy-wheel printer, an external floppy drive and ScreenWriter II word processor. I thought I was king of the tech world! The printer generated 14 characters per second and made the devil's own racket. When I entered the Print command, I had to leave the room and close the door to preserve my hearing. But the system worked great. And I did love the manual.
Love it. For people who like this, go checkout the newsletters of Be, Inc. archived for posterity here - wonderfully cranky nerdgasms guaranteed!
http://testou.free.fr/www.beatjapan.org/mirror/www.be.com/aboutbe/benewsletter/article_index.html
The part about the reset button reminds me of the “Push to Trip” button in the basement of North Morton. I believe we caused a four-hour blackout with that one.
Interesting. My first computer was also the Franklin Ace 1000 although I never learned to use it. Perhaps I should have read the manual.
Yup!
Sal
Nice to see you showing up in my comments again, Sal! Hope you’re well!