ncperson@ndsuvax.UUCP (Brett G. Person) (10/04/89)
Pournelle mentioned a Cd-ROM from Microsooft that contained microsoft user manuals in one of his recent columns. Exactly what does one get with this ROM? Is it worth investing the bucks ina cd rom reader? What is the price on a package like the refence manual cd rom? Jerry raves about it. But, then again, he still likes basic... :-) -- Brett G. Person North Dakota State University uunet!ndsuvax!ncperson | ncperson@ndsuvax.bitnet | ncperson@plains.nodak.edu
ajk@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Jeff Boerio) (10/04/89)
ncperson@ndsuvax.UUCP (Brett G. Person) writes: >Pournelle mentioned a Cd-ROM from Microsooft that contained microsoft user >manuals in one of his recent columns. Exactly what does one get with this >ROM? Is it worth investing the bucks ina cd rom reader? What is the price on >a package like the refence manual cd rom? The price runs around $1000. It sounds like a REALLY good package, if you use a lot of Microsoft programming software. All the manuals are on the disk, loads of example programs, and a lot of the Microsoft Press books. You can pull a lot of the examples out of the help menu and paste them right into your code. Everything is referenced by hypertext. I have an example program around here somewhere. I also have some more documentation on it. If you're interested, send me some E-mail, and I will send you whatever documentation I can find. - Jeff -- Jeff Boerio : Purdue University Dept. of Computer Science ajk@mace.cc.purdue.edu : Purdue University Computing Center Volunteer boerio@summer.ecn.purdue.edu : Purdue University ECN Student Programmer
tat@pccuts.pcc.amdahl.com (Tom Thackrey) (10/06/89)
In article <3272@mace.cc.purdue.edu> ajk@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Jeff Boerio) writes: >ncperson@ndsuvax.UUCP (Brett G. Person) writes: > >>Pournelle mentioned a Cd-ROM from Microsooft that contained microsoft user >>manuals in one of his recent columns. Exactly what does one get with this >>ROM? Is it worth investing the bucks ina cd rom reader? What is the price on >>a package like the refence manual cd rom? > >The price runs around $1000. It sounds like a REALLY good package, if you >use a lot of Microsoft programming software. All the manuals are on the >disk, loads of example programs, and a lot of the Microsoft Press books. > >You can pull a lot of the examples out of the help menu and paste them >right into your code. Everything is referenced by hypertext. I have an >example program around here somewhere. I also have some more documentation >on it. If you're interested, send me some E-mail, and I will send you >whatever documentation I can find. > The price is more like $400, the $1000 price probably includes a CD-ROM drive. I have this CD and use it a lot. It provides me with some features not available in the paper manuals. 1) Full search by keyword(s), not dependent on the index in the back of the book. 2) online source code. 3) Manuals for MS products I don't own (useful when asked questions about Fortran or when considering buying a product). It has the ability to pop-up within most popular editors, BUT, the resident code is HUGE (80K) so I don't use this feature. In addition to the MS manuals for C, Fortran, MASM, Pascal, Windows SDK, MS-DOS, Basic, etc. you get some MS Press books on these topics, for example the hardware section includes the MS Mouse book and "Programmers Guide to PC & PS/2 Video Systems" which are very helpful. I doubt if I would buy a CD-ROM Drive just for this CD, but, I think it's worth the money if you use 2 or 3 MS products and already own a CD-ROM drive (and do a lot of programming).
jcmorris@mbunix.mitre.org (Joseph C. Morris) (10/06/89)
In a recent article ajk@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Jeff Boerio) writes: >ncperson@ndsuvax.UUCP (Brett G. Person) writes: > >>Pournelle mentioned a Cd-ROM from Microsooft that contained microsoft user >>manuals in one of his recent columns. Exactly what does one get with this >>ROM? Is it worth investing the bucks ina cd rom reader? What is the price on >>a package like the refence manual cd rom? > >The price runs around $1000. [...] The $1000 price tag is for the "Programmer's Bundle", which includes a Denon CD drive, the SCSI adapter for a PC, and the Programmer's Library CD itself. I think the CD is about $350 or so (list) per copy, although I've seen it at PC shows for somewhat less. The adapter included with the package is for an AT-style bus. A Microchannel (TM and all that stuff) adapter is also available for a slightly higher price. (Voice of Experience speaking: the MicroChannel adapter is from Future Domain. If you get the card and will be it only to support the Denon CD-ROM player, make sure that the ROM BIOS chip on it is *NOT* installed. If it is, your boot time runs about 40 seconds longer, and you get an obscure error message about not being able to find any disks. We now return you to your normal newsfeed...) I got the package last summer and have been satisfied with it. It's nice to be able to do a text search over some of the manuals instead of relying on the index of a hardcopy book. The Denon drive also plays CD audio disks quite nicely, so I can listen to Bach while working at my desk. Joe Morris