History of Computing Collection

Manufacturers' Guides & Manuals

Library of Manufacturers' Guides & Manuals

The Collection posesses a substantial collection of materials to do with computers made by many manufacturers from the 1950s onwards. These include forrner British  manufacturers such as Ferranti, EELM, Leo, STC - culminating in the formation and collection of ICL documents.

Also included is a large collection of continental manufacturers like Olivetti, Bull, and Norsk Data, as well as American manufacturers like UNIVAC, IBM, RCA, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Wang, Prime, Burroughs, and Honeywell.

For example, we have substantial documentation on the ICL 1900, 2900, Series 39, DRS, and System 4, with IBM documentation including System/360, System/370, System/3, Series/1, and Virtual Machine/X.

We have software manuals for all systems, including DEC RSX-11, RT-11, VAX, VMS, DSM, ICL VME, IBM DOS/VTAM, and many more.

For most systems, we have a complete set of documentation - intended for the machine operator and maintainers, rather than the machine's users. You may find the following documents in our collection:

• Principles of Operation
      A basic guide to how the machine is structured and may be operated using the standard control panels.
• Maintenance Guides
      A more in-depth explanation to the machine's inner workings, common faults, and how to fix them. Usually includes schematics and diagrams, sometimes comes with interesting technical details that aren't outlined anywhere else.
• Operating System Usage (for applicable systems)
      A guide to the facilities and tools provided by the machine's intended operating systems, typically paired with library listings and containing programming tips for the beginners.
• Principal Software & Integration
      For systems intended to run one program at scale, we have a large amount of documents relating to this software, and how to integrate it into existing workflows and system setups.
• Programming & Interfacing
      A large amount of resources on programming the systems and interfacing them with other systems, or external devices like peripherals and larger networks.
• Upgrade Options
      Lists of hardware options provided by the original or third-party manufacturers that upgrade the capabilities of systems in various ways. These tend to provide a very detailed view of the sheer scope of most of these companies at the time.
• Library Listings 
      Software listings or API listings of libraries intended to be used with other software, sometimes a part of the operating system, sometimes the principal software, and sometimes external tools that make development for these systems easier.
• Peripheral Usage
      How to connect and use peripherals to the systems, and maintain them for high operational lifetime.
• Peripheral Programming
      How to make the systems and existing programs able to communicate with and use the peripherals in a normal way.
• Other
      There may be a large amount of manuals not included in these categorizations, due to the varied nature of documentation created during these systems' time periods.

The library benefits from a substantial donation of period documents from Alec Jackson.