Hacker News Reader

Comment by user5994461 | Hacker News Reader

There is a many thousands pages instructions manual for that, that is freely downloadable from Intel. It's re-posted on HN from time to time.

View on HN

Speaking of which... I'd really love to have a reference manual on one of the early x86 processors. Maybe the 386, since it is one of the iconic ones (or the one I have the most nostalgia for) that also started to get interesting features like protected mode, but still wasn't so complicated as to be a multi-volume, 5,000-page series (maybe?).

Back in the 1990s, when I was doing assembly language on the Amiga, Motorola sent me the official 68000 manual for free when I called and asked them. It was a really cool book to have on the shelf and occasionally lead through.

I looked at abebooks.com, and there are Intel books, but I wouldn't know exactly which one would be the reference manual. Anyone got an ISBN?

For the 80386 there are two manuals, a Hardware Reference Manual (ISBN 1-55512-069-5) and a Programmers Reference Manual (ISBN 1-55512-022-9). They come up on eBay from time-to-time, I think I paid $30 for my pair.

That's exactly what I was looking for, thanks. Found them on abebooks.com easily. Awesome 1980s neon covers.

Intel used to give away hardcopy manuals for free too, but stopped doing that around 2010:

http://styx.head-crash.de/stuff/intel_manuals.jpg

Now they still have hardcopy, although it's basically just paying for someone else to print and bind the PDFs for you:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?contributorId=1030088

Try Bitsavers (an amazing work in the service of historic preservation): http://www.bitsavers.org/

Previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10143295

Internet Archive collection (the Intel documents part): https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_intel

Library of Congress reference: https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwa00096459/

Reply on news.ycombinator.com