@th
I had Rector & Alexys' The 8086 Book (1980), Peter Norton's Inside the IBM PC (1986), and an Intel databook that was as thick as a phone book and printed on what appeared to be thin newsprint and had every 808x peripheral chip they made (8254 timer, 8259 PIC, etc.).

The manual that came with my dads' IBM-PC had the BIOS listing printed in the back.

Did this Linus character live in a cave?