wont you need something a little more complex
than a ladybird book?
( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:12, archived)

I've got this one, somewhere
pointlessmuseum.com/computer/default.html

Should probably read it again, actually...
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:17, archived)

apparently, in the 60s the MoD ordered 200 copies of that
in a plain brown cover so the staff wouldn't be embarrassed reading it.
( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:24, archived)

Now there's a fact and a half.
People in the 1960's reading books that weren't published until 1971. Wow.

They were all well accustomed to reading stuff that came in brown paper, I take it.

I'm impressed how many women apparently worked with computers in the 1970's. It's almost like a modern-day university engineering department prospectus. Having said that, my gran worked with a computer in the 1950's. MoD as well. From what she's told me, it was rubbish, the size of a room or no.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:28, archived)

meh, so i fucked the dates up, sue me :D
the fact is still true tho..
( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:38, archived)

How it Works: The Computer was used by university lecturers to make sure that students started at the same level. Two hundred copies of this same book were ordered by the Ministry of Defence. The MOD wanted the books to be bound in plain brown covers and without any copyright information, to save embarrassing their trainees!

actually, it was printed in the 60s :P

www.theweeweb.co.uk/ladybird/ladybird_history.php
( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:39, archived)

[citation needed]
but it's a good fact (or otherwise), so I think I'll keep it anyway.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:40, archived)

see above

( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:41, archived)

disputed...
"The rarest Ladybird book - so elusive, it seems, that not one collector has even seen one - is The Computer from the How it works series, produced privately for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1972."
www.independent.co.uk/money/spend-save/this-is-how-it-works-bunnikin-wonk-and-the-tinker-will-make-their-owners-richer-547624.html

This is a mystery.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:46, archived)

book published in the late 60s
custom one ordered a few years later, maybe?
( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:47, archived)

1971 seems to be the first edition,
the above citation appears to be some kind of paraphrase of Ladybird's own text on the subject, which doesn't mention a date but has simply been assumed to be in correct chronological order.
www.ladybird.co.uk/aboutus/companyhistory.html
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:51, archived)

ahh ahaha
1969
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:53, archived)

so..
the 60s then... ;p
( Azra3l Lubrication Persuasion and Brute Force ™, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:59, archived)

by the skin of your teeth :D

( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 2:00, archived)

Aww,
I was just eBaying to see if I could get a copy to take into my open-notes Computer Science exams. You're allowed one textbook, and I'd have liked that one.
( MooCow_Byter, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:48, archived)

Hah, found it.
Can't be that rare, I found two copies selling for under a fiver each. Maybe reprints, though.
( MooCow_Byter, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:51, archived)

brown cover?

( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:54, archived)

No, the 1979 cover.
I misread the bit on rarity and thought it applied to all versions of the book, not just the MoD one.
( MooCow_Byter, Tue 12 May 2009, 1:56, archived)

Even I've got that one.
And the Usborne Spotter's Guide to Dinosaurs, however much sense that does or does not make.
( Moon Girl Technologies horrendous beanbag, Tue 12 May 2009, 2:01, archived)