New Zealand Vintage Computer Forums

Hi,

I just took charge of a new EACA Colour Genie today. It's actually a spare, but it came with lots of docs, which was the main attraction.

I've written about it in my blog here.

With this machine came with two year's worth of newsletters (1984-85) from the Auckland Colour Genie user group. Reading through them made me remember just how passionate people were about microcomputers in the early days. As mentioned in the blog, it's obvious that groups like these played a major role in supporting machines. They were particularly necessary for machines like the Colour Genie whose manufacturer went under in late 1983, and so were orphans in a sense.

For some reason I missed out on being involved in user groups in the early days? I don't think there was a strong System-80 one in Palmerston North.

Anyone got any stories or memories (good or bad) about user groups they belonged to in the 1980s?

tezza wrote:Anyone got any stories or memories (good or bad) about user groups they belonged to in the 1980s?

I used to belong to the Auckland Apple Users Group - I think from about the late 80's through to the early 90's. When I first joined that club it was amazing. The number (and diversity) of people that they would get along to meetings was incredible. I think it was the second tuesday of every month. There would be a main event from what I remeber where there would be a demo or a presentation and then a general get together. People would bring in thier systems to show what they had accomplished and of course I loved the software (and hardware) lending library. When I first joined it was really an Apple II club but near the end it was largely Macintosh based. Saddly, as with most of these things I think, as the internet started to take off the club started to decline.

I dont remember anything bad about the club to be fair

gavo wrote: Saddly, as with most of these things I think, as the internet started to take off the club started to decline.

I dont remember anything bad about the club to be fair

Yes, I think the Internet did away with a lot of things like this, but it was also the fact computers were becoming less hobby machines and more consumables items.

Terry (Tez)

tezza wrote:Yes, I think the Internet did away with a lot of things like this, but it was also the fact computers were becoming less hobby machines and more consumables items.

That is a very good point. I guess as this happened computer companies started to realise it and offered more "commercial" support for their products than they had in the past - but certainly more diluted and targeted for the consumer user.