To coincide with Usborne publishing a new series of computer books for children, the publisher has released as PDF downloads fifteen of its 1980s computer books for the same market. Note that these books were written for the 8-bit micros that were common in the UK at the time but nevertheless they may still be a useful introduction to computing (for adults as well as children!) although be wary that they use the then current definition of a kilobyte (1024 bytes) instead of the modern term kibibyte. Also note that the PDFs are composed of image scans of the pages and the text has not been OCRed.
http://www.usborne.com/catalogue/fea...ing-books.aspx
The titles (and size of the files) are as follows:
Introductions to programming series- Programming Tricks and Skills (15.3 MiB)
- Machine Code for Beginners (19.4 MiB)
- Introduction to Computer Programming - BASIC for beginners (16.2 MiB)
- Practical Things to do with a Microcomputer (17.6 MiB)
Computer games listings- Computer Spy Games (9.8 MiB)
- Weird Computer Games (14.8 MiB)
- Creepy Computer Games (26.8 MiB)
- Computer Battle Games (16.2 MiB)
- Computer Space Games (17.8 MiB)
Adventure games series- The Mystery of Silver Mountain (14.1 MiB)
- Island of Secrets (12 MiB)
- Write Your Own Fantasy Games (44.7 MiB)
- Write Your Own Adventure Programs (39.2 MiB)
First computer library series- Computer Fun (5.8 MiB)
- Simple Basic (16.8 MiB)