Although my MEGA65 came with the very latest Revision 6 mainboard, the same cannot be said about the User’s Guide which is from the original print run of 1st Edition tomes. Trenz won’t be shipping the newer user guide with machines until they’ve used up the rest of that stock. Of course there’s a PDF user’s guide available online which I could refer to but you just can’t beat a decent paper version that you can have open right in front of you.
Thankfully there is a ‘Print on Demand’ version of the user’s guide available from Lulu so about a week ago I placed an order for it and it has now arrived!
The 2nd Edition User Guide from Lulu.
Have to say I was very impressed with it. I wasn’t sure if the quality would take a hit but happy to say it didn’t. The only noticeable physical differences are that the comb binding is plastic on the Lulu one and it lacks the clear plastic covers on the back and front of the original.
1st vs 2nd Editon Dates
Opening up the guide reveals the edition details near the front with the First Edition having gone to print back in November 2021 whereas the Second Edition is dated February 2024.
How the two guides stack up side-by-side
One big difference between the two versions though (besides a snazzier front cover on the newer guide) is that the second edition comes with a whopping extra 54 pages making it almost a full 1cm thicker overall!
The newer front cover (left) is definitely a lot snazzier – I like it!
Looking at the contents pages side by side you can already see an extra 10 pages having been added by the end of section 3 (18 pages vs 28) and this continues throughout the remainder of the guide.
Differences stacking up already
Some of the sections have been expanded upon, others have morphed into something different entirely. There are aslo a lot more appendices. The table below gives a rough outline of the differences.
| First Edition | Second Edition |
|---|---|
| Introduction | Introduction |
| Setup | Setup |
| Getting Started | Getting Started |
| Configuring your MEGA65 | Configuring your MEGA65 |
| C64, C65 and MEGA65 Modes | Upgrading the MEGA65 |
| Cores and Flashing | Using Disks and Disk Images |
| Floppy Disks, the Freezer and D81 Images | Transferring Files |
| APPENDICES | APPENDICES |
| A. BASIC 65 Command Reference | A. BASIC 65 Command References |
| B. Special Keyboard Controls and Sequences | B. PETSCII Codes |
| C. Supporters & Donors | C. Screen Editor Keys |
| D. Screen Codes | |
| E. System Palatte | |
| F. Supporters & Donors |
There are plenty of splashes of colour within the guide
Very happy I picked this second edition up now. It contains tonnes of extra information over the original guide and it’s a lot more relevant to the hardware I actually have now. If you have one of the newer R6 machines but are still rocking the older manual then this is well worth the investment.
