Instruction manuals and literature

[Antneed]

Does anyone else besides me, enjoy reading classic videogame literature, including instruction manuals.

 

I find, when I'm bored, or in need of some good reading material, pull out several old classic vid-game instruction manuals and read them from cover to cover for enjoyment.

 

I think its fun and interesting to see the different companies style.

For me, I enjoy all videogame literature, from the 2600 up till the Dreamcast.

 

Now, I wish I had some of those old videogame magazines. I really enjoyed the scans recently of the Atari Age magazines!!!

Awesome!!

 

Does anyone else like to read instruction manuals for classic games when they are bored?

 

Ant

[sku_u]

I'm also a big fan of this old literature. If you haven't already, check out this site:

 

http://www.atariarchives.org/

 

They have tons of interesting literature related to Atari.

[ussexplorer]

I not only look at old magazines and laugh. But, I also have old computer books. From 1983 and laugh at how they talk about business and home user systems. I have one book that only has about one chapter of actuall technical stuff. The rest talks doesn't even talk about computer stuff. It seems to talk about morals. Plus I like how they treat the person. Like they are a Idiot. I can't say much though. When I got into computer even back in 92. We had people come in and ask why they needed to have windows or what is a motherboard. Even how to turn on the computer. So I can't say these books was wrong. Just not very helpfull in some cases

 

Later,

 

Josh

[MegaManFan]

I think collecting instruction manuals is one of the best things about collecting old video games. Sometimes they have more personality than the games - either from hilariously bad translations (lazy Japanese to English), designer notes and biographies (Activision games kill in this area) or "the story behind the game" which leads you up to the reason you must assume the role of hero to play. Sometimes the cover art or the formatting of the manual itself can be a superb treat - I really love the hand stitch Star Wars ESB for example.

[Room 34]

I love collecting and reading the old manuals, and I also love the CATALOGS.

 

I find the catalogs very funny to read. It's interesting to see how much advertising has changed in the past 20 years.

 

It's gotten a lot flashier, of course, but it's also dumbed down incredibly.

 

Read some of the copy in the catalogs in the archives here on this site to see what I mean!

[MegaManFan]

Very true. A lot of the catalogues and literature was clearly aimed at a higher reading comprehension level than advertisers tend to expect from consumers today.

[Room 34]

Sadly, I think most people still CAN comprehend the more intellectual stuff, but marketers have learned the fast-and-stupid approach is more effective, subduing everyone into a drooling, gape-jawed stare at the overwhelming onslaught of quasi-information.

[Ehrbad]

Sadly, I think most people still CAN comprehend the more intellectual stuff, but marketers have learned the fast-and-stupid approach is more effective, subduing everyone into a drooling, gape-jawed stare at the overwhelming onslaught of quasi-information.

 

I think that's a pretty good anaylsis of the way advertising tends to be these days...dumb it down to the lowest common denominator.

 

But back to the topic, I love the artwork on the Atari boxes and carts, particularly the picture labels from the early eighties, which are my favorite. Who were the artists who sketched these cool works of art? They all seem to have a similar style, as if painted from one or a few authors.

 

The manuals are awesome to read, I agree. So much work was put into the storytelling to set the scene, and to fire the imagination. And you really need to use your imagination to make the graphics correspond to the story (i.e., Super Breakout!). It's almost like the Atari programmers were trying to coax you into tolerating a game with a bunch of squares and rectangles by creating the cool storylines accompanied with nice artwork. I think that that adds to the charm and quaintness that makes Atari so much fun.

[+cvga]

I'm also a huge fan of the literature. My instruction manual collection rivals my cart collection and I'm just as proud of it. I'm also really into videogame posters.

[xredmenacex]

Who were the artists who sketched these cool works of art? They all seem to have a similar style, as if painted from one or a few authors.  

 

I've often wondered about some of these folks as well. Like the guy who did Warlords and a few others. I've often tried to discern his signature on the instruction manual. It looks like Steve Henshilm or something. Does anyone have any info on any of these illustrators?

[rolenta]

And you really need to use your imagination to make the graphics correspond to the story (i.e., Super Breakout!).

 

Super Breakout was the first instruction manual that had a background story added to it.