Being far from everything was different.
Standard components were easy, even here some importers offered almost free databooks but final products were other thing.
If product itself didn't include enough information, like schematics inside the case, the situation became very difficult if the case was more than general user stuff.
So when you had some occasional info at hand you knew its value, like jumpers and DIP switches of the machine, pocketbook was one of those things, other one was a driver disk and well known example of it is NE2000 network adapter.
And if you were at the customer you better ask and check their never used part of their office storage, missing manuals had probably been there all these years, including original plastic bag with warning flips and travel locks.
I guess that original plastic bag is still there and now it includes original driver and manual CDs.
Service info was generally as it is now, if local service organization was established free info was limited.
Other end was that nobody was blocking anything because nobody knew anything, maybe importer was just a bit lazy, later even manufacturer was a bit unknown.
Rebadging was one thing but then Taiwan and Korea started appearing with their never-heard-of brands, also some lesser known from Japan.
Luckily computer internals were pretty standard and consumers learned pretty fast that known brand is better, even if a bit pricier.
For computers USB and Plug'n'Pray became very helpful, finally when praying was less necessary.
Then net before Google was many times much better than it is today.
Now much more info is available but, like it is said, SNR is occasionally very bad.
It's everyday more clear that Google is actually not a search engine, maybe it used to be so but not anymore.
So finally circle is closing, regular stuff is easy and the rest are what they are.
Though no idea if it's really just Google, maybe those old pages just are not there anymore.
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