The motherboard configuration is explained in a tiny 25-page pamphlet, written in classic “Taiwanglish.” For example, there is a rubber-stamped notice on the title page: “IBM PC, PC/XT, PC/AT are registeled trademarks of.” The manual instructs the user to press Ctrl-Alt-Slash to change processor speeds, when in fact the combination is Ctrl-Alt-Backslash. The motherboard is designed to run with no wait states, and according to the manual, “the [RAM] with access time of 100 ns is appreciated for 10-MHz zerowait.” Finally, the only clue to the CMOS (complementary metal oxide semiconductor) setup procedures is a small line of handwriting inside the title page: “Ctrl-Alt-Esc activates the Setup program on the BIOS.” This hardly gives the impression of a polished product.
Maybe he meant “Taiwanglish”, the barely comprehensible English that used to be common on manuals, instructions, etc., from Taiwanese and Japanese (Japanglish) products, although in recent years, I have noticed it to be a lot better.
I also noticed, and this too worried me, that there was no mention of an AT&W command in the chapter relating to commands. Not only that, but ATZ0 and ATZ1 were both described as “Restore factory settings”, as was AT&F. This led me to believe that it cannot save customer profiles, which makes it less than useless for most applications. OTOH, the next chapter, relating to the S registers, starts out by saying that those marked with an asterisk can be stored in either of two customer profiles with AT&W0/AT&W1, that either of these may be restored by ATZ0/ATZ1, and that AT&Y0/AT&Y1 can be used to select which profile is restored by ATZ; this is like normal modem operation. Is it that the manual is written in Taiwanglish, or did two departments have different inputs to the documentation/design process?
Publishing is a very broad term…75 editions (or is it 90?) of MacHinery’s Handbook…A glossy trifold brochure for one time event…A Harlequin romance…the documtation for a $50 million airplane…a one page taiwanglish insert in a $9.95 lamp. Some of those are well understood (actually all of the above are understood). But the two technical entries (for instance) have real potential to be radically improved with electronic technology, which we don’t really know yet. OK, we’ve got a handle on why CALS didn’t work. But that aspect of publishing isn’t _understood_ (IMO) till it’s being done routinely, and it’s only news if a project messes up the electronic docs.
2006 May 19th, “Jim Howes” (username), “Re: BIOS Flash Help” in uk.comp.homebuilt, Usenet:
Eventually, after much reading of badly-translated taiwanglish ‘manuals’ I discovered that the Dallas 12887, which was of course soldered to the board, had had its CMOS reset pin snipped off.
