The second and third links are for 1982 belt drive machines. These IIRC were direct drive in 1983's L series.
I learned something from the manuals however - I did not realize that beyond the fill section of the timer sequences, one could run the machine less than full on a machine without an adjustable water level. Very cool, however it would still fill to high for the rinse.
In regard to the direct spin vs. neutral drain machines - in the early editions, they did not pause to drain, even if nobody fiddled with the lid. They did a direct spin, which as Matt said, put a huge strain on what was considered by most at the time a worthless piece of trash (many servicers were very biased against these like anything else new, from what I'm told) so a fairly quick re-design was made to introduce a neutral drain.
When I bought my 1986 BD, I saw a few of the lower line DDs on Sears' floor and would have bought something used had I only had a choice of DDs, and would have raised holy heck about the garbage they were trying to peddle to me. Little did anyone know at the time that these would re-write the standards in some ways later on. Ask a "newer" technician who cut his teeth on DDs what he thinks of belt-drives...lol
Gordon