[drcube]

Why would you expect more people to miss books? Books didn't go anywhere. Anyone who wants them can easily buy them or borrow them.

You know what I miss? Dead tree user manuals that used to come with hardware and software. That's something that has gone the way of the Dodo, unlike most other books. Luckily I can still buy printed manuals from the FSF.

[gdulli]

There's a pattern where people go along with technology and progress because it's the thing to do, rather than by making a conscious decision. We're constantly sold new ways of doing things by getting bombarded with messaging about their strengths. We have to figure out their weaknesses on our own and they creep up on us more quietly. There's no industry shouting at us about the pros of physical books the way Amazon does about the Kindle.

So it's not hard to believe that there are people who switched to e-books by default and later could realize they miss real books.

[astrodust]

With print-on-demand you can make a physical book out of any manual.

[jl6]

I just miss manuals, dead tree or otherwise. Where’s the manual for my iPhone? It’s just a vast unordered, sprawling, inconsistent, incomplete subsection of apple.com.

[cr0sh]

What I miss are schematics and parts lists. Of course, that would be virtually impossible with today's electronics, short of a bunch of PDF documents or something. Even then, they would almost be worthless.

But...back in the 1980s, just about any electronic device you bought (especially if you bought it from Radio Shack), the manual would have a schematic in the back, plus a list of parts (and in the case of RS - the parts list would usually have part numbers you could pick up off-the-shelf at the store!).

I miss that.

[astrodust]

There's too many black-box chips on a typical product to make any sort of schematic meaningful.

There used to be full wiring diagrams for cars in manuals, but imagine that now where your car has 200 separate computerized systems, each with their own intricate circuits.

[jdsully]

That’s the official way to get Intel manuals in print now. Not the same quality as the old ones - but I do like having my complete set ont he shelf.