Fine-tuning an LLM to write docs like it's 1995
A developer describes the process of fine-tuning a local LLM to mimic the writing style of 1990s technical manuals. The project utilized the Bitsavers repository to train a model on millions of words of legacy documentation.
Why it matters
It demonstrates the growing trend of using specialized, local AI models for niche creative and technical tasks rather than relying solely on large, cloud-based frontier models.
In my predictions for 2030 I wrote that tech writers would be using specialized LLMs, running locally on powerful hardware. I see hints of this move to “local first” among engineering pundits, but we’re not there yet, in part because of how much more powerful connected frontier models are. That doesn’t mean we can’t experiment, though. That’s precisely what I did last week, trying to fine-tune an instruct model to write like a software technical writer from the 80s and 90s.
The article is a technical personal account of a software project with no political or social agenda.
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