The ST Owner's Manual is not generally ranked as one of the world's great literary achievements. Now help for technophobes is at hand, as David Collins explains...

There must be thousands of ST owners looking for guidance, from novices overawed by high powered silicon to experienced users who want to stretch their highly-tuned technical skills. The problem is... where to get good advice. You can either listen to your friends passing on third-hand gossip or try reading Atari ST's Owner's Manual from cover to cover - neither of which is particularly foolproof nor fulfilling. Your Second Manual, written by Andeas Ramos, is a comprehensive 170 page textbook solely dedicated to helping you get the most out of your ST.

Divided into thirteen sections Y2M has substantial coverage of the whole gamut of ST-related activities, beginning with a basic introduction to computers (i.e. what they are) and going on to consider everything from the keyboard, the mouse and desk accessories to word processing, the public domain and ST User Groups.

Promoting a philosophy of robust exploration and high-tailed good humour, the manual offers to fill in the gaps left by the official Atari Corporation's ST Owner's Manual: "If the ST Owner's Manual tells you how to turn on the machine, this one tells you how to use it... This is not a technical manual; my experience is that most users don't need technical material, they need help."

Setting itself up as an alternative owner's manual, Y2M takes great pleasure in telling you all the things the official manual conveniently glossed over. From its unsanctioned perspective it pulls no punches in its criticisms, calling badly designed features exactly what they are ("crap") and teaching you how to live with them, avoid them, or where to buy an alternative.

Just as importantly, it strikes to make you master of your machine. It cajoles you into exploring, testing, dismantling and generally being unafraid of your ST. "Take a look inside. See what goes on in there. It is a simple process of removing 20 screws. The machine can easily be put together again - they are designed to be put together in the Far East by 14 year old girls."

The manual thoroughly covers the peripheral stories that bring your ST alive. The soap opera history of Atari, corporate wrangles with Commodore, Sam Tramiel's nepotism, the ST's ultra-quick development and the absurb personalities behind your favourite computer ("Jack Tramiel is to business what Rambo is to peace.")

Apocryphal stories about punching horses in the face and postmen with fishing fetishes abound - some instructive, some genuinely funny, but most of them of the tedious funny ha-ha variety. The problem is that Ramos writes with an insider's jocularity and a cavalier attitude to imparting crucial information to beginners. Though the laughter and chuckles keep the prose zipping along, it hides a serious loss of perspective.

This is not a logical step-by-step guide to the ST, but an irreverent, confusing pot-pourri of advice and tips (great, if your biggest concern is how to cut up your wet suit to make a mousepad!). Divided into disorganised chunks and lacking coherence, the manual continually misplaces emphasis.

The public domain section, for example, begins with a six page definition of the legal terminology of copyright laws, when what you really want to know (what's available and from where) is quickly skimmed over in only four pages. A half page in the word processing section is devoted to a straight-faced recipe for Tennessee Bar-B-Que Sauce (wacky, eh?) but only three pages are put aside for graphics.

The manual assumes readers unfamiliar with technical jargon only need to have the terms defined to progress to the next stage. What technophobes require is not a definition of terminology but a hands-on guided tour of what all these strangely named grommits actually do, and how you can benefit by using them.

The step-by-step "how to use" sections are posited within each chapter as mere hasty asides and alternative curious, when they should in fact be the basic central tenet of explaining a difficult proposition to a beginner terrified of RAM disks and BIOS functions.

This manual may make your ST more interesting, it may give you some idea how the ST works and the kind of tricks you need to maximise its potential, but it's not a hands-on user's guide.