To help ensure that the PCjr was a
success IBM developed a sales and service training kit. The kit
consisted of the following:
- A VHS tape that introduced IBM sales people to the PCjr.
- A booklet ("PCjr Training Guide") to explain how to use the
training materials.
- A booklet ("PCjr Service Training") to explain how to
perform
basic diagnostics and service.
- A diskette with a training program on it.
- A diskette that let you "practice" your new skills.
The video is difficult to watch because, well, it is just a terrible
concept and performance. Imagine using Ebenezer Scrooge from Charles
Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" to teach people how to sell a new home
computer. You get the idea. The computer programs are written in
interpreted BASIC which is not known for its performance. It is hard to
believe that this was the state of things in 1983.
Are you interested in learning how to sell a PCjr to somebody
today? If so,
you are in luck! Here is what you need:
 (Thanks to Gene Toye for
providing the PDFs.)
The diskette images are standard sector-by-sector dumps compatible with
rawrite, Linux dd, and Winimage. On DOS machines I use DskImage
(available from the software downloads
page). To restore the disk images using DskImage:
- Transfer the images to your DOS machine. (You will have to rename the images to meet the DOS 8.3 filename requirement.)
- Format one diskette normally as a 360KB diskette and
another diskette using the "/1" option to format it as a single sided diskette.
- Writing the training program image: dskimage
train.dsk 0:40:2:9 to write the 360KB (double sided) image.
- Writing the practice program image: dskimage
practice.dsk 0:40:1:9 to write the 180KB (single sided) image.
Notes:
- The programs require a PCjr with cartridge BASIC.
- I have not been able to get them to run cleanly on my jrIDE
system. The programs load some code and leave that code memory
resident, allowing the BASIC programs to use that code. But there is
something not quite right with the fix-up that is done to make
Cartridge BASIC usable on an enhanced system so the programs give an
"Overflow error" when trying to force the BASIC interpreter to do
garbage collection. You can always expect IBM to engineer something
overly complicated.)
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