Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Were you in a computer user group, back in their heyday?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 80 posts

Re: Ask HN: Were you in a computer user group, back in their heyday?

#71

Post by lizmat »

oblib wrote: post #48

I joined a Perl user group for a very short time. I live in a rural area and drove a couple hours to attend a meeting. It wasn't at all what I expected. It was basically a Larry Wall fan club. I have no problem with Larry or fan clubs. They're just not my thing.

FWIW, I think you've touched on a problem with longer existing user groups: they turn into meetings of long-time friends that like each other's company, but have little to do with the original reason of coming together.

Re: Ask HN: Were you in a computer user group, back in their heyday?

#72

Post by maccam94 »

I was active in the Ubuntu Massachusetts Local Community (LoCo) Group from ~2007 - 2009. We had occasional meetups in Boston, did some release parties where we handed out some nice Ubuntu swag, had installfests at the MIT Media Lab, and helped maintain some Ubuntu computers for the community in the South End Technology Center in Boston. I don't remember how big we were, I think maybe a dozen or so pretty active members and another few dozen lurkers? I was disappointed that the group faded out a bit by the time I got back to Boston after college.

Here's a link to our old site: https://web.archive.org/web/20110930172321/http://ubuntu-mas...

Re: Ask HN: Were you in a computer user group, back in their heyday?

#74

Post by ohjeez »

bransonf wrote: post #9

I’m not old enough to have been around in the day of the original user groups, but I’m pretty active on Meetup these days, finding other developers in my city using similar languages and tools. Curious to know what the contrasts are of the golden days and modern day.

That's one reason I want to write this story!

The shortest answer I can give you is that meetups are usually for a niche interest, such as programming. Most of the original user groups were far more general -- anything about microcomputers (my first group, on an island off the coast of Maine, was run by a guy with an Epson QX10 and another guy with an Amiga), or anything about IBM PC or Mac or whatever. So the demos were pretty wide ranging and had more variety. You'd have someone showing a graphics application one month (Arts & Letters) and a software utility the next (Norton Computing).

Re: Ask HN: Were you in a computer user group, back in their heyday?

#75

Post by ohjeez »

revicon wrote: post #54

3 of us started the Kalamazoo Linux User's Group (KLUG) back in 1998 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Still going strong today: https://kalamazoolinux.org/

What made you decide to do so? How did you go about it... posting flyers in computer stores, or what?

Re: Ask HN: Were you in a computer user group, back in their heyday?

#77

Post by revicon »

ohjeez wrote: post #75
revicon wrote: post #54

3 of us started the Kalamazoo Linux User's Group (KLUG) back in 1998 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Still going strong today: https://kalamazoolinux.org/

What made you decide to do so? How did you go about it... posting flyers in computer stores, or what?

exactly that actually, we posted a flyer in a computer store, I think it was called "Cybertech" and had a couple ppl show up the first night, then a few more, then a few more. We started having a table at computer shows helping people install linux on their desktops, and finally we ended up taking over a cybercafe and converted all of the desktops to linux. You could run a web browser, play doom, it was fun.

Re: Ask HN: Were you in a computer user group, back in their heyday?

#78

Post by willjam »

Hi, I was not in on the very early days of User Groups, I joined my User Group, the Oklahoma PC User Group (OKCPCUG), in the early ’80s and I do remember my club having hundreds of members and meeting in an auditorium for our General Sessions. This club was one of the original ones formed that had IBM in its name. It was later changed to OKCPCUG due to a possible lawsuit from IBM. Microsoft, WordPerfect, and Adobe were the headliners. They gave presentations that drew the hundreds and provided wonderful giveaways of full versions of their software. You could always expect the introduction of new versions of their products would be a big event. Much like the way Samsung and Apple launch new hardware today. We had more than a dozen different SIGs that touched on every aspect of computing. Our club offered classes that were always full usually having a waiting list. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were treated like rock stars. The club is still in existence with a much smaller membership roster. The reason, no freebies and an older and dying members.

Bill

Re: Ask HN: Were you in a computer user group, back in their heyday?

#80

Post by Tronkavel »

I lead a 42 year old Mac User Group still going strong. https://www.wap.org/ I have a short video clip of Walt Mossberg waxing wistfully about how his tech journalism career started with early Pi sessions swapping components and software. May I share that with you?

Jonathan Bernstein

Post reply on HN