The Alternative Csound Reference Manual
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# Why is this called the Alternative Csound Reference Manual?

When I originally started my manual project, there was already an Official Csound Reference Manual (last known address: http://www.lakewoodsound.com/csound/hypertext/manual.htm). The Official manual was maintained by David M. Boothe. I found its layout confusing and I wanted to change it. But since it was maintained with a commercial word processing program, I couldn't. I could neither afford this program nor was it available for my main computing platform.

So I created an alternative to the Official Csound Reference Manual. I distributed my manual using the DocBook/SGML format so that anyone on any platform could edit it with a text editor. This manual can also be produced with freely available programs.

David M. Boothe wasn't interested in maintaining my DocBook/SGML version of the manual. He was also concerned that people would confuse his project (the "Official" one) with mine. So out of respect for his wishes, I named my project the Alternative Csound Reference Manual. I made this decision so that nobody would confuse my project (the "Alternative" one) with his.

Written by Kevin Conder, October 2002.

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