Hearted Youtube comments on Veronica Explains (@VeronicaExplains) channel.
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I think that hardware/software manuals have returned to what they were in the mid-1970's (in a way) for the kit computers. Those assumed a level of technical skill was already present in the reader (a casual person from home wouldn't be buying a kit computer to solder and put chips on, etc.). The transition to the home/personal computer (an already fully assembled "thing") meant that manual writers had to assume that Jane/Joe public was now buying these and would not have any background in engineering, programming or even typing (I remember in the mid 1970's being one of the few kids around who even had a manual typewriter). So showing things like "What is the Spacebar" makes a lot of sense. It's like telling someone who has no previous musical experience to play an E note on a guitar; they have no reference to know what an E note is, never mind how that translates onto a guitar.
The TI-99/4A guide you showed is somewhat telling in that the original TI manuals from Texas Instruments themselves were still a little too complicated for a new home user (the Apple II manual was like this too, I remember not understanding parts of it when I first saw it back in 1979). The one you showed is not by TI at all but by Consumer Guide, which, being a series of magazines for general consumers for a variety of products, had to aim to the lowest common denominator (ie someone who knows nothing about computers) and start teaching from that level upwards.
Heh... loved the COBOL / Matrix reference... I laughed out loud at that.
One set of manuals for early home computers that I found as one of the best (note: I may be slightly biased) is the original TRS-80 Color Computer manuals ("Getting Started With Color BASIC" and "Going Ahead With Extended Color BASIC"). The later condensed Coco 2 manuals, while good, were not quite at the same level. They had friendly illustrations, made the reader comfortable that they can take as much time as they need and refer backwards to previous lessons, has little question/answer and problems at the end of each chapter, and made a lot of the lessons fun rather than dry programming examples. They first of the two can be found on the Color Computer Archive online.
P.S. As you can probably tell from my rambling sentences above, no one should ever let me write a manual for public consumption. lol.
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