Homebrew Computer Club

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Homebrew Computer Club at SLAC

William remembers - "Back in the mid 70's, many of us in the Berkeley Computer Club would carpool and drive down to the regular meetings of the Homebrew Computer Club at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC) Auditorium. The lobby would sometimes have commercial (e.g. Cromemco Dazzler), hobby (someone's KIM-1 or Altair 8800), or garage shop (Woz's cherrywood box Apple 1) machine. "Random Access" period with Lee Felsenstien wielding a stick to direct or to call to order, with Adam Osbourne in the back of the room with his perpetual box of books (I bought one!). Sometimes a presentation as well.

Apple First Glimmers

"Saw the first glimmers of Apple then. Wozniac set up on a folding table near the right side entrance to the auditorium before Random Access period. During the program, I watched as he entered a line of hex through the keyboard from a paper printout, pausing on every line to run a checksum, then move a ruler down a line. He did this for 6-10 pages, loading an integer basic interpreter in via the ROM monitor. Apparrently, he either couldn't afford a audio tape player, or didn't have the electronics working!"

"People came out of the auditorium after the program and started speaking with him, and he explained what the computer could do, showing examples. Steve Jobs would be off to the side, back against the wall with a leg cocked out, sizing up the marks as if at a carny. Some would drift off from Wozniac to encounter Jobs, sometimes exchanging contact information shortly then leaving."

Related

January 27, 2005. William Commentary - Silicon Valley's roots on Digging Silicon Valley's roots: some Homebrew Computer Club & other newsletters onlineSilicon Valley's Memory Lane, Doug Millison, SiliconValleyWatcher.

Homebrew Computer Club on the Wikipedia site

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