Personal Computer user group since 1983
Return to SFPCC main page [Ed Note: This is a little history of how our club got started during its first years. Much of the info was garnered from the first newsletters and my forever poor recollection. I’m hoping others can make suggestions for improvements and additions. Please forgive me for what I’ve left out that surely deserves to be included.] Larry Welling
The First Days of Peninsula Computer Club
This short history is being written for the 10th anniversary of our club in April, 1994. Hopefully, you will find it interesting and maybe better realize how our club and the computer industry has evolved .
The club was first formed as the idea of Larry Welling in April, 1984. Larry had purchased his first computer, a Kaypro 10, from Fred Cohn, owner of Computer Age in San Mateo. Some of us now may not even recognize the Kaypro name, but Kaypro was one of the pioneers of early micro computing with small luggage-shaped computers using the first microcomputer operating system called CP/M. Some of us may remember that CP/M was written by a heavyweight company at that time called Digital Research. Anyway, Larry noticed that there was no CP/M club on the Peninsula, and almost no other computer clubs either! What a drought for enthusiasts between San Francisco and San Jose. At that time, a computer CP/M hobbyist had to travel to a San Francisco or San Jose club or to a club in Berkeley called BAKUP. I think BAKUP was the only groups specializing in Kaypros. Other groups were around that included other CP/M systems, most notably the Osborne and Morrow CP/M machines. Anyway, Larry felt is would be fun for all to have a club on the Peninsula, since it was no fun spending an hour after work just to get to the BAKUP group in Berkeley, and then probably another 45 minutes to return in lighter traffic after the meeting. Probably most CP/M users of the day would characterize themselves as hobbyists. Perhaps being a hobbyist meant that you enjoyed tinkering with the hardware at least as much as actually using software. Being a hobbyist probably also meant that you enjoyed using local Bulletin Boards...yes even back then. Maybe a person became the ultimate hobbyist when he or she joined a club! The first instrument of launching our new club was a newsletter mailed in early April, 1984. One of the goals of the new club was to "exchange all our individual knowledge and experience to benefit the group as a whole." The original name of our current club was the Peninsula Kaypro Users Group. We would call ourselves KAYFUN for short. The first mailing went to 35 purchasers of Kaypro computers from Computer Age who indicated they would be interested in the club. Many thanks to Fred and the salespeople there for this early seed! The first meeting was held in the Social Room on April 26, 1984, and it felt most gratifying when 13 people showed-up. At that meeting we decided on our meeting day to be the second Thursday of every month, and what the usual meeting format should be. Officers "elected" were Larry Welling for president (who insisted he would serve as such for the first year, ha!), Bruce Mickle for Vice-President, Larry Hovorka as a Board Member, and Bob White as Program Chairman. If recollection serves correctly, Larry Hovorka and Bob White were salespeople from Computer Age. Maybe a few of our current members will remember these names? I believe Ernest Hintz joined us about January of 1985 and he was soon part of our Software Library Committee. So, what was our first presentation? It was a program about Perfect Filer presented by Ken Armstrong. Anyone remember Perfect Filer?...Bob Wallace, where are you? Programs soon followed about using CompuServe and local bulletin boards and about the CP/M operating system.
Growing
The club’s early growth came from word-of-mouth, referrals from Computer Age, and our free listing in Bay Area Computer Currents. We should certainly thank the ‘Currents people and later those at Microtimes for their support of computer clubs and BBS’s with those free listings. They were a big factor in getting the word out for many organizations then and now. The club also had a listing in the Kaypro CP/M magazine called ProFiles that was published by Kaypro Corp. Other listings came when we joined the National Kaypro User’s Group in New York, and we were listed in issues of their publication called KUGRAM. Even InfoWorld did a short article about us in their Grapevine section.
Early Activities
That first year saw us start to form our club’s public domain software library. Maybe some of us remember John Panelli as our first librarian with much help from Ernest Hintz, Charles Doland, and Steve Barba. A great deal of help was given to our library by Ted DeCastro of the BAKUP and Haypro’s groups when we were offered all of the BAKUP library disks and many of those from the Microcornucopia company to incorporate into our own library. At first, the club had no dues, we existed on donations at each meeting. Soon, we realized we would need something more formal to be assured of support for the newsletter, etc., so the first dues were instituted at the fabulous sum of $12.00 per year. It was about January of 1985 when the club first started investigating how to establish its own BBS. We were trying to figure out how to get that $1500 necessary for the "fabulous SYSOP deal" for a Kaypro 10 from Kaypro Corp. Our bulletin board system was born in April with the untiring effort of Ernest Hintz as first SYSOP. The BBS first ran on a Kaypro II floppy machine, but we soon got that Kaypro 10 which at that time had a "huge" 10-meg hard disk! Kirk Phaling later volunteered as Assistant SYSOP. Remember those first comm programs for CP/M, such as MODEM7, IMP and MEX? September, 1985 was our first venture into Computer Shows when Ernest Hintz and Steve Barba organized our participation at the Personal Computer Faire at Brooks Hall. Ernest made two Really Big wooden signs for us showing off our club name and benefits. We had lots of help from Kirk Phaling, Roy Henning, Charles Doland, Bruce Mickle, Jerry Roberts, Marion Baldwin, and Ted DeCastro. A common "crises" for us was finding cash to purchase more blank disks for the software library to sell at shows and club meetings, but we managed! We tried to have a presentation for most club meetings. Earlier years had many CP/M software, BBS and vendor presentations and even an occasional Open Forum Night thrown in on purpose. Some would also drive across the bay to visit a Kaypro CP/M group over there called BAKUP. Although we began as a CP/M group, by October 1996 what were then MS-DOS "clouds" began to infiltrate the group. Several members already had Kaypro MS-DOS machines and were seen as antii-establishment by the CP/M’ers! Who should ever need that MS-DOS stuff? However, by early 1987, it was apparent that MS-DOS was bringing the earlier hobbyist freeware days of CP/M to an end, and the new public domain software for MS-DOS morphed into shareware where authors wanted some bucks!
Windows World
Over the years we continued as an MS-DOS group "graduating" into the earlier versions of Windows and on to Windows 95 and 98. Eventually, Windows NT will probably become the standard for Windows 98 users. Presentations at many club meetings continue about software and hardware for these computers. A newer interest of the club is now subjects and workshops dealing with the Internet. This medium is growing at exponential rates and will probably be as ubiquitous as television by 2010. So, we are trying to educate our members about its usefulness and how to find relevant information. We invite you to come "check-out" our very friendly group and learn more about how computers can make you life more productive. Return to SFPCC main page