For consumer stuff a manual should rarely be necessary. But... I work in failure analysis of semiconductors. We have a lot of very expensive machines and not a single one has a proper manual. Neither online nor printed. I use a scanning transmission electron microscope, three years old, no manual. There are functions in the software even the service engineers have no clue about and no one can explain what they are there for. Correct adjustment? Troubleshooting in case of hardware failures? Some basic info, mostly written for an older and different microscope. We are talking about 3 mega euros for this tool We have gone through a few software upgrades for OBIRCH and PEM machines, used to find shorts or misbehaving transistors in ASICs. And there are several functions where we get differing infos from every one we ask at Hamamatsu. No manuals. 1.5 mega euros per tool. We run a few FIBs, focused ion beam tools, for circuit modification and nano milling of semiconductor chips. No manuals. There are options where we dont know at all how to use them. 1 to 3 mega euros per tool. I bought an AFM, atomic forrce microscope. No manual. Online manual is for a completely different software release. We are currently trying to give it back to the manufacturer as it is useless without detailed info about all the settings. Of course we get trainings for these tools. But this is no replacement for a proper manual. But the worst is, that no tool is bug free. Software that costs a several €10000 a year and it crashes again and again. There is no software for any of these tools which I cannot crash intentionally. And with each new machine it gets worse. All this crap is nowadays sold and bought by sales and purchasing people. Not engineers. Specs have to be met on paper, no one cares if it can't be used efficiently for the intended purpose by the people working with it. The days of Mr Hewlett and Mr Packard are gone, it is not surprising that Agilent and now Keysight are struggling.

Nothing to see here, its finally over, move on ...

I read "The colour of magic" while doing my diploma thesis in Sweden nearly exactly 20 years ago. It was the first time that I literally fell of a chair laughing. Wonderful! I read and reread most of his novels. Whenever there was a difficult time in life and I needed to get into a better mood his books were there. And after I fell of a chair laughing they got me thinking. Thank you. I have not been moved in such a way or been so sad that someone whom I didnt personally knew had died before. In his wonderful book "Small Gods" the main character dies at the end. He finds Death waiting and gets told that you will find whatever you imagined after dying. May it be a continuous party, hell, a desert or nothing. May you, Sir Terry Pratchett, find whatever you imagined. And then there is Cohen, the Barbarian and his Horde, who simply refused to die ... A person finally dies after his name was mentioned the last time. You will live on for a very, very long time. Remember Octarine, the eight colour ... Magic.