You’ve got to love any article that makes you nostalgic for old-time computer manuals. I don’t see too many manuals these days that randomly name their chapters, include “Terrine Maison” in their glossaries, or actively promote breaking copy protection. These old Franklin manuals are pretty amusing.

The Ace 100 manual goes on to describe three categories of crooks in the computer world. The first category is “Them,” the computer salespeople who overhype their products with advertising gimmicks. The second category is “You.” Franklin isn’t actually calling you a crook, but they say that software manufacturers will treat you like one.

Things haven’t changed much. Be sure to read the comments, too, featuring some interesting memories by people who worked at Franklin.