Date   : Sun, 26 Dec 1982 02:25:00-EST
From   : Jerry E Pournelle <POURNE@Mit-Mc>
Subject: CP/M Systems Programming books

Good News!  As I will say in upcoming BYTE (probably March to
April; the pipeline is long) Digital has reformed!  Due
(according to a letter I have from them; you may believe as much
as you want) to my constant hounding of them, they have new
documents staff.  They have sent me the new manuals for CB80 and
CBASIC, and they are quite good.  Examples,, good organization,
clear English.
       Now for the bad news.   About six months ago I got a
note from a new (two iterations ago, I think) documents person
at Digital; she sent me (proudly, alas!) some new documents for
CP/M 86; they were worse than the usual Digital Research
standard, in that they conformed to all the "Technical Writing"
university level style manuals: no redundancy, "logical"
organization with levels and sublevels, no "superfluous"
examples... And I have not yet seen what the new team has done
with the CP/M manuals.  Possibly, though, they'll reform.
JEP