Berzerk early (concept) manual uploaded

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Inside the 3 Berzerks I recently found, there were also 3 envelopes and each contained a full set of documentation.

Apart from the schematics, instruction cards in various languages (English, German, French, Dutch) and a monitor schematic, there was also of course the manual.

However, I soon found out that the manual was nothing more than a bunch of photo copies of what looks like the concept for the actual manual.

The first thing (and maybe the biggest thing) to notice is that the "cover" is hand-drawn in a rough sketch style. Also, the text with the drawings are hand-written and the pages with texts look like they came from a typewriter.

Here's the cover of the concept manual:
web.jpg


Here's the cover of the "final" manual:
web.jpg



Also, the trouble-shooting section (explaining about the beeps) is only a very short list of possible causes, compared to the elaborate explanations on the version of the manual that I have found at several sources on the internet.

Although there is not much more (actually, less) info in this manual, I thought it would be interesting from an archival and collecting point of view.

The machines I found had relatively early serial nrs. (in the 2000 and 3000) so it looks like Stern put in some pre-production manuals with the early games. Maybe also because these were shipped to Europe ? (Transport time).

Anyway, I scanned it and here is the PDF:
http://files.arcadecontrols.com/details.php?image_id=3605&mode=search

Again, if you look for troubleshooting info and better quality, get the other manual here:
http://files.arcadecontrols.com/details.php?image_id=1229&mode=search
 
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Very cool.. Oh and there has been some discussion as to how to remove the sliding panel. It's on Page 5 of the manual.. Never saw that before, but then I never actually looked at the manual other than the troubleshooting section..

Thanks for making me look at the differences of the manual, now I know how to remove the sliding panel.
 
Sweet find, pretty nice xmas present for those who are into Robotron. :)

How did you do your scan -> pdf conversion? I have a couple manuals I've scanned and I just got something else which is about 10 pages that I want to scan and turn into a pdf. Ideally I'd like an OCR/graphics combo off of them, but worst case I can just have it as a pdf of images. Any tips?
 
Thanks, glad I did it. I was a bit afraid someone would pop and say, hey this has been available for years here...and put in a link ;)

I'm a Mac user and creating PDF's is usually nothing more than "Save as" and select PDF in OS X, which I love. (Just like not needing Acrobat Reader to view PDF files).
But in this case, I use a Canon scanner and the included software (Canoscan Toolbox 5.0) simply has the option to directly scan to PDF.
Not sure if the PC version has that option too.

Since the originals are in the US Letter format I scanned to that size too.
 
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My serial #250 Berzerk had that same hand drawn manual in it also, while my later Berzerk had the final version. Cool stuff.
 
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