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From: tat@pccuts.pcc.amdahl.com (Tom Thackrey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Microsoft Cd-ROM Reference Manual
Message-ID: <823@pccuts.pcc.amdahl.com>
Date: 5 Oct 89 17:08:23 GMT
References: <2983@ndsuvax.UUCP> <3272@mace.cc.purdue.edu>
Reply-To: tat@pccuts.pcc.amdahl.com (Tom Thackrey)
Organization: Amdahl Corporation, Sunnyvale  CA
Lines: 34

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).