Manx is a catalog of manuals for old computers.
Manx is an open
source project hosted on GitHub.
Many of these manuals can’t be found by search engines because the
manuals have been scanned but haven’t been converted to text. Google
can index deep into these scanned documents because they will OCR scanned
images in PDFs and index the resulting text. However, manx contains
additional metadata on the online documents as well as information about
documents known to exist but not available online. Manx’s
search engine is currently limited to searching part numbers, titles
and keywords of these manuals.
This catalog mostly covers manufacturers of minicomputers and
mainframes, or associated devices such as terminals and printers.
Tiziano’s 1000 BiT is the best
catalogue for microcomputers.
Manx currently knows about 22060 manuals, 9992 of which are online, at 61 websites.
Manx covers the following companies:
3Com Corporation, Abekas Video Systems, Inc., ABLE Communications, Acorn Computers Limited, Adaptec, Inc., Adax, Inc., Addmaster Corporation, Advanced Digital Corporation, Advanced Electronics Design, Inc., Advanced Micro Devices, Advanced Scientific Instruments, Inc., Aesthedes N.V., Alpha Microsystems, Altos Computer Systems, Ampex Corporation, Ampro Computers, Inc., Analogic Corporation, Anderson Jacobson, Inc., Ann Arbor Terminals, Inc., Apollo Computer, Inc., Apple Computer, Applied Computer Techniques Ltd., Applied Digital Data Systems, Applied Microsystems Corporation, Archive Corporation, Artec Electronics, Inc., AT&T Information Systems, Ball Brothers Research Corporation, Basic Four Corporation, Beehive International, Bell Laboratories, Bondwell Holding Ltd., Brooktree Corporation, BTI Computer Systems, Burroughs Corporation, C. Itoh Electronics, CADO System Corporation, California Computer Products, Inc. (CalComp), California Computer Systems, Callan Data Systems, Central Data Corporation, Centronics, Centronics Data Computer Corp., Century Data Systens, Citizen, CompuPro, Computer Control Company, Compu/Time, Control Data Corporation, Corvus Systems, Inc., Courier Terminal Systems, Inc., Cromemco, Inc., Data Dynamics Ltd., Data Electronics, Inc., Data General Corporation, Data I/O Corporation, Data Systems Design, Inc., Data Terminals and Communications, Datamedia Corporation, Datapoint Corporation, Datapro Research Corporation, Dataproducts Corporation, Decision Data, Delta Data Systems, Diablo Systems, Inc., Digital Engineering Incorporated, Digital Equipment Corporation, Digital Research, Inc., Digitronics Corporation, Display Industry Association, Distributed Logic Corporation (Dilog), Documation, Inc., Dual Systems Corporation, DY 4 Systems Inc., EG&G, Emulex Corporation, Epson, Evans and Sutherland, Facit, Fairchild Semiconductor, Inc., Falco Data Products, Ferranti Ltd., John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Friden, Inc., General Electric, GraphOn Corporation, GRI Computer Corporation, Hayes Microcomputer Products, Inc., Hazeltine Corporation, Heath/Zenith, Hewlett-Packard, Honeywell Information Systems Inc., Human Designed Systems, Inc., Imlac Corporation, Incoterm, Informer Inc., Infoton Incorporated, INMOS Limited, Intecolor Corporation, Intel Corporation, Interdata/Perkin-Elmer, Intergraph Corporation, International Business Machines, International Computers and Tabulators Limited, IRIS Graphcis, Inc., ITT, Jupiter Systems, Inc., Kimtron Corporation, A/S Kongsberg VÃ¥penfabrikk, Lear Siegler, Inc., Liberty Electronics, Lundy Electronics & Systems, Inc., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Matrix Instruments Inc., Matrox Electronic Systems, Ltd., Megatek Corporation, Memorex Corporation, Metheus Corporation, Micro-Term Incorporated, Microdata Corporation, MIPS Computer Systems Incorporated, MITS, Inc., Moore Corporation, Morrow Designs, Motorola, National Semiconductor Corporation, NEC Electronics Inc., Network Computing Devices, Nixdorf Computer Corporation, Nuclear Data Inc., Oki Electric Industry Company, Ltd., Omron Corporation, Osborne Computer Corporation, PERQ Systems Corporation, Pixar, Prime Computer, Inc., Qume Corporation, Ramtek, Random Corporation, Research, Inc., Research Machines, S&H Computer Systems, Inc., S3 Incorporated, Sanders Associates, Inc., Seattle Computer Products, Inc., Shugart Associates, Silicon Graphics Inc., Singer Business Machines, Sony Microsystems Corporation, Soroc Technology, Inc., Sperry Corporation, Stardent Computer, Inc., Sun Microsystems, Inc., Tandy Corporation, TEC Incorporated, Tektronix, Teletype Corporation, TeleVideo, Telex Terminal Communications, Terak Corporation, Texas Instruments, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, Vector Graphics, Inc., Vectrix Corporation, Versatec, Visual Technology Inc., VLSI Technology, Inc., Vermont Microsystems, Inc., Volker-Craig Ltd., Weitek Corporation, Western Digital Corporation, Western Electric, WICAT Systems, Wyse Technology, Xebec Systems, Inc., Xerox Corporation, Zilog, Inc.
The list below shows the websites included in Manx. As Manx is
still being built, you will find that not all of the holdings of
these websites have been catalogued. If you know of manuals on other
sites, please create
an issue with the “data” label. Even if a site only contains
one manual, it is worth including. This list is ordered by date of
inclusion in Manx.
Some of these sites are marked as being Low Bandwidth. They are either on
a home DSL line, or the owner has indicated that they should not be mirrored
with tools. It isn’t a comment on the usefulness of the site!
Paul Williams wrote the original implementation of Manx in perl and
entered all the initial data. Thank you, Paul!
JetBrains donated a license of the
PHPStorm PHP development environment
for use in developing this code. Thank you, JetBrains!
Richard Thomson rewrote manx in PHP when Paul Williams took his
implementation offline. Richard is the current maintainer of the code.
