IBM Logo Manual (1983) | Hacker News Reader

IBM Logo Manual (1983)

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68 pointssusam32 comments

When I was a little boy, Logo is how my grandfather taught me to program. He had an Amstrad computer that he used to keep the books of his insurance business, and when I was three years old or so, he noticed my interest in the machine and set about to teach me.

The Amstrad used standard 5 1/4” inch floppies and had (if I recall) two such drives; he showed me how to put the correct disk in and close the latch, and boot the computer. (Important: which side goes up.) And he taught me some very basic commands for the cursor, the “turtle”: up down, forward, turning, etc. My first lesson in degrees. He tried to explain subroutines but I couldn’t quite get it at that age.

Well, I thought it was cool, and played for a long afternoon by myself. When he came to check on me, he found that I’d gone into a room near his office to play with my toys very quietly. He asked: Oh, did you not like playing with the computer? And I said nothing. Very quiet. And he said, what happened?

I said, a red light came on and it broke. :(

The Amstrad’s Caps Lock key had a red light when activated. The case sensitive Logo language thereby ceased working and the characters all looked different to me. So, evidently, I ran away, thinking I had broken my grandfather’s important work machine.

Barely containing his laughter, I am sure, he escorted me back into his office and explained what had happened. He regaled me with the story for the rest of his life; when he died a few years ago, it leapt to my mind. Some years later I would end up with a B.S. in computer science and it is hard to see how it would have been so but for his decision to teach a three year old boy Logo.

In conclusion, Logo—and grandfathers—kick ass.

Such a beautiful story, you are lucky to have those memories. I have memories of my father locked up in his office working on his computer and ignoring me - I ended up learning the computer to impress him and it didn’t.

They are all beautiful, just different :)

I have a physical copy of this with 5.25" floppies and everything. It's one of my prized possessions :D

Saved you a click: This is a 550 page manual about the programming language, not about graphic design.

550 pages, ah back in the era where manuals were manuals and trees were scared.

No matter what IBM does, it smells like FORTRAN.

Jokes aside. Anyone knows what software did they use back in the days to write such beautiful manuals with keycaps and other icons ? Was it TeX, troff or anything alike ? I have old Atari manuals printed on thick glossy paper, they look quite similar and are pretty cool to read and keep in hands.

This looks very similar to me to the mainframe manuals I am familiar with from this time which were written using SCRIPT/VS as the printer control language & GML (which begat SGML) as the document markup language (implemented as SCRIPT/VS macros). There was also SCRIPT/PC for DOS but that was very limited by comparison and a pain to use so I doubt they used that. (SCRIPT/VS is quite like Troff - they share a common ancestor in RUNOFF.)

Thanks for sharing. Googling for "SCRIPT/VS" gives the only link pointing to somewhere in the middle of IBM's z/OS manual. Must be a lost alien technology by now.

There's a Wikipedia page[1] which covers the general background and a copy of the SCRIPT/VS Text Programmer's Guide[2] (which was my bible back in the day) on archive.org, which should give you a pretty good overview.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCRIPT_(markup) [2] https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_ibm370DCFSpositionFaci...

The primary school math teacher once wanted me to draw some repetitive shape for the final test of the Logo course, but I had no earthly idea of what a loop was. That's the last time I programmed in Logo more than 25 years ago. I've been looking at this book a couple of months back to see how it's done.

This post made me think of Hymie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odDO4cGh2RQ

Page 1-5 has tips for "Caring for Your Diskettes" including:

> Keep it away from electrical equipment (including the telephone and TV).

Was this a legitimate tip or an overly cautious manual? I know magnets could potentially damage floppy disks but could telephones and tube televisions, too?

Yes, telephones created magnetic fields when the bell rang. Simarly tube tvs degaussed themselves with big magnets. Either will erase a floppy.

1983 floppy user here. Small permanent and/or electromagnets would be driving the metal bell ringers of many telephones in those days. Don't store them under your telephone.

But floppies were always hanging out on and beside and behind computer monitors which, in those days, were exclusively CRTs like TVs. Perhaps don't store your floppies on top of the speakers on the family console TV.

What I like most about this manual (and others from that same era) is that the manuals do not coddle you. They provide the details, up to the exact memory layout of your computer. And that in a manual for an educational language!

Does anyone have experience with Logo environments still available today? And what results did you have with teaching kids to use them?

Those were the times, when software vendors still documented their stuff. Today, Apple can't be bothered.

How come page 1-2 has nothing on it? Did it not get properly scanned?

If only there was some way to know for sure if the page was supposed to be blank, and it wasn't a technical error.

Conventionally in print books, chapters start on the right page, not the left. Since the first page is a table of contents only spanning one page, the next page is intentionally left blank so the content can start on the right.

It's not really something that would have created any confusion at the time even if the convention has eroded with e-books and print-on-demand.

it is supposed to be blank, its that way on my physical copy

I think the OP is referring to the (technically self-contradictory) statement that IBM (and others) used to add to such pages -- "This page is intentionally left blank". Odd that it isn't used here given it is an IBM product.

Had a professor try to say in a serious voice that it was a paradox meant to stop AIs and robots from reading the rest of the manual. These days, I cannot say she was wrong.

Yes, exactly. Having read many IBM manuals from that era seeing a blank page without the "This page intentionally left blank." text is almost jarring in a way.

Like some slightly cryptically worded sentence as "this page intentionally left blank", you mean? You may be onto something! Quick, apply to IBM.

Ah, "Logo" as in "language", not as in "Paul Rand explains why stripes in IBM logo are horizontal and just thick enough but not thicker".

So i'm not the only one..

+1 ... I was also expecting the guide book, how to use or create the IBM logo :D

That guide would be simple: You don't. IBM does.

Just in case this is what you came for: https://www.ibm.com/design/language/ibm-logos/8-bar/

"Don’t make each letter a different color."

That's weird.

- Written on an IBM ThinkPad with the iconic red, green, blue IBM ThinkPad badge.

The Thinkpad IBM logo was created long before the current inhouse design team came up with that rule.

But you are right, there is official merch in the brand store that clearly doesn't follow the rule. https://logostore-globalid.us/ProductDetail.aspx?did=14234&p...

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