Homebrew Computer Club
Encyclopedia
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
hobbyist users' group
Users' group
A users' group is a type of club focused on the use of a particular technology, usually computer-related....
in Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
, which met (under that name) from March 5, 1975 to December 1986. Several very high-profile hackers and IT entrepreneurs emerged from its ranks, including the founders of Apple Inc.
History
The Homebrew Computer Club was an informal group of electronic enthusiasts and technically-minded hobbyists who gathered to trade parts, circuitsElectronic circuit
An electronic circuit is composed of individual electronic components, such as resistors, transistors, capacitors, inductors and diodes, connected by conductive wires or traces through which electric current can flow...
, and information pertaining to DIY construction of computing devices. It was started by Gordon French and Fred Moore
Fred Moore (activist)
Fred Moore was a political activist who was central to the early history of the personal computer. He was an active member of the People's Computer Company and one of the founders of the Homebrew Computer Club, urging its members to "bring back more than you take."Moore is prominently featured in...
who met at the Community Computer Center in Menlo Park
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
. They both were interested in maintaining a regular, open forum for people to get together to work on making computers more accessible to everyone. The first meeting was held in March 1975 in Gordon French's garage in Menlo Park
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
, San Mateo County
San Mateo County, California
San Mateo County is a county located in the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. It covers most of the San Francisco Peninsula just south of San Francisco, and north of Santa Clara County. San Francisco International Airport is located at the northern end of the county, and...
, California, on the occasion of the arrival in the area of the first Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems
Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems
Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems was an American electronics company founded in Albuquerque, New Mexico that began manufacturing electronic calculators in 1971 and personal computers in 1975. Ed Roberts and Forrest Mims founded MITS in December 1969 to produce miniaturized telemetry...
Altair microcomputer, a unit sent for review by People's Computer Company
People's Computer Company
People's Computer Company was an organization, a newsletter and, later, a quasiperiodical called the "dragonsmoke." PCC was founded and produced by Bob Albrecht & George Firedrake in Menlo Park, California in the early 1970s.The first newsletter announced itself with the following...
. Subsequent meetings were held at an auditorium at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S...
.
After the more-or-less "formal" meetings the participants often reconvened at The Oasis http://theoasisbeergarden.com/, a bar and grill on El Camino Real in nearby Menlo Park
Menlo Park, California
Menlo Park, California is a city at the eastern edge of San Mateo County, in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, in the United States. It is bordered by San Francisco Bay on the north and east; East Palo Alto, Palo Alto, and Stanford to the south; Atherton, North Fair Oaks, and Redwood City...
, recalled years later by a member as "Homebrew's other staging area".
The 1999 made-for-television movie Pirates of Silicon Valley
Pirates of Silicon Valley
Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 made-for-television film directed by Martyn Burke and based on the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. The film documents the impact on the development of the personal computer of the rivalry between...
(and the book on which it is based, Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer) describes the role the Homebrew Computer Club played in creating the first personal computers, although the movie erroneously placed the meeting in Berkeley and misrepresented the meeting process.
Many of the original members of the Homebrew Computer Club continue to meet , having formed the 6800 Club, named after the Motorola (now Freescale) 6800 microprocessor. Occasionally and variously renamed after the release of the 6800, 6809, and other microprocessors, the group continues to meet monthly in Cupertino, California
Cupertino, California
Cupertino is an affluent suburban city in Santa Clara County, California in the U.S., directly west of San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The population was 58,302 at the time of the 2010 census. Forbes...
.
Members
Though the Homebrew members were hobbyists, most of them had an electronic engineeringElectronic engineering
Electronics engineering, also referred to as electronic engineering, is an engineering discipline where non-linear and active electrical components such as electron tubes, and semiconductor devices, especially transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, are utilized to design electronic...
or programming background. They came to the meetings to talk about the Altair 8800
Altair 8800
The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
and other technical topics and to exchange schematics
Circuit diagram
A circuit diagram is a simplified conventional graphical representation of an electrical circuit...
and programming tips.
From the ranks of this club came the founders of many microcomputer
Microcomputer
A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
companies, including Bob Marsh, George Morrow
George Morrow (computers)
George Morrow was part of the early microcomputer industry in the United States. Morrow promoted and improved the S-100 bus used in many early microcomputers...
, Adam Osborne
Adam Osborne
Adam Osborne was an American author, book and software publisher, and computer designer who founded several companies in the United States and elsewhere.- Computers :...
, Lee Felsenstein
Lee Felsenstein
Lee Felsenstein is an American computer engineer who played a central role in the development of the personal computer...
(wielder of "the big stick", a blackboard pointer used as a prop for his form of moderation), and Apple
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
founders Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs
Steven Paul Jobs was an American businessman and inventor widely recognized as a charismatic pioneer of the personal computer revolution. He was co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer of Apple Inc...
and Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...
.
John Draper
John Draper
John Thomas Draper , also known as Captain Crunch, Crunch or Crunchman , is an American computer programmer and former phone phreak. He is a legendary figure within the computer programming world.- Background :Draper is the son of a U.S...
was also a member of the club, as was Jerry Lawson
Jerry Lawson (engineer)
Gerald Anderson "Jerry" Lawson was an American electronic engineer known for his work in designing the Fairchild Channel F video game console....
, creator of the first cartridge-based video game system. Ron Jones (Crashed Platter Products and other small businesses) and Jerry Lawson were the only African-American members of the club.
Newsletter
The Homebrew Computer Club's newsletter was one of the most influential forces in the formation of the culture of Silicon ValleySilicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
. Created and edited by its members, it initiated the idea of the Personal Computer
Personal computer
A personal computer is any general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator...
, and helped its members build the original kit computers, like the Altair. One such influential event was the publication of Bill Gates's
Bill Gates
William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, philanthropist, and author. Gates is the former CEO and current chairman of Microsoft, the software company he founded with Paul Allen...
Open Letter to Hobbyists
Open Letter to Hobbyists
The Open Letter to Hobbyists was an open letter written by Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, to early personal computer hobbyists, in which Gates expresses dismay at the rampant copyright infringement taking place in the hobbyist community, particularly with regard to his company's...
, which lambasted the early hackers of the time for pirating commercial software programs.
The first issue of the newsletter was published on March 15, 1975, and continued through several designs, ending after 21 issues in December 1977. The newsletter was published from a variety of addresses in the early days, but later submissions went to a P.O. box address in Mountain View, California
Mountain View, California
-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south...
.
Other computer clubs
Since the first Homebrew Computer Club meeting, other hobby computer clubs have emerged all around the world. For example, in the NetherlandsNetherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
a Homebrew Computer Club emerged with members meeting near the town of Utrecht
Utrecht (city)
Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...
. Initially, in April 1977, the HCC
Hobby Computer Club
The Hobby Computer Club is a Dutch computer club, based in Houten, the Netherlands which was established on April 27, 1977 by a small group of people who lived near the town of Utrecht and which grew to become a nationally significant club of over 200,000 members in 2003...
(Hobby Computer Club), as it is called, had only a few dozen members and published a small stencilled newsletter in A5 format. They still exist today, have 180 thousand members (they are the biggest such association in the world), and from the small newsletter grew the magazine "Computer!Totaal". But they also publish several others and provide internet access and other consumer services http://www.hcc.nl/.
One of the biggest and most influential computer clubs worldwide is the German based Chaos Computer Club
Chaos Computer Club
The Chaos Computer Club is an organization of hackers. The CCC is based in Germany and other German-speaking countries.The CCC describes itself as "a galactic community of life forms, independent of age, sex, race or societal orientation, which strives across borders for freedom of...
(CCC).
In the 1980s, a Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
computer club called The Computer Workshop emerged, operating mostly in Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States. It is one of the major cities that make up the Silicon Valley located in the San Francisco Bay Area...
and at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
.
Perhaps the most important comparison Club to Homebrew was the Southern California Computer Society (the SCCS). The SCCS was briefly covered in Levy's Hackers book. It's an extremely important comparison, because it happened in the same state as Homebrew (California; one important variable, geography, held somewhat constant, and an area where the aerospace industry had plenty of technical talent) and exactly the same era (time being another important variable held constant), and yet it failed to spark anything like Silicon Valley. This is a lesson lost to most attempting Northern and Southern California comparisons.
Perhaps the oldest Apple users group still going strong is The Apple Corps of Dallas, founded January 7, 1978. The origins of the club and the early days of personal computing, as seen through the eyes of a founding member is shown in this video "How It All Began".
See also
- MITS Altair 8800Altair 8800The MITS Altair 8800 was a microcomputer design from 1975 based on the Intel 8080 CPU and sold by mail order through advertisements in Popular Electronics, Radio-Electronics and other hobbyist magazines. The designers hoped to sell only a few hundred build-it-yourself kits to hobbyists, and were...
- Apple IApple IThe original Apple Computer, also known retroactively as the Apple I, or Apple-1, is a personal computer released by the Apple Computer Company in 1976. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer...
- Apple ComputerApple ComputerApple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
- BMUG (Berkeley Macintosh User Group)
- Computer History MuseumComputer History MuseumThe Computer History Museum is a museum established in 1996 in Mountain View, California, USA. The Museum is dedicated to preserving and presenting the stories and artifacts of the information age, and exploring the computing revolution and its impact on our lives.-History:The museum's origins...
in Mountain View, CaliforniaMountain View, California-Downtown:Mountain View has a pedestrian-friendly downtown centered on Castro Street. The downtown area consists of the seven blocks of Castro Street from the Downtown Mountain View Station transit center in the north to the intersection with El Camino Real in the south... - Hackers: Heroes of the Computer RevolutionHackers: Heroes of the Computer RevolutionHackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution is a book by Steven Levy about hacker culture. It was published in 1984 in Garden City, New York by Anchor Press/Doubleday...
, a 1984 book by Steven LevySteven LevySteven Levy is an American journalist who has written several books on computers, technology, cryptography, the Internet, cybersecurity, and privacy.-Career:...
has more information about the Homebrew Computer Club and the companies that sprang from it. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak are legends today from what they started and introduced to the Club. - Pirates of Silicon ValleyPirates of Silicon ValleyPirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 made-for-television film directed by Martyn Burke and based on the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. The film documents the impact on the development of the personal computer of the rivalry between...
, a 1999 made-for-television movie, primarily about Apple ComputerApple ComputerApple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
and MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, with mention of their roots in the Homebrew Computer Club - What the Dormouse SaidWhat the Dormouse SaidWhat the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry, is a 2005 non-fiction book by John Markoff. The book details the history of the personal computer, closely tying the ideologies of the Collaboration-driven, World War II-era defense research community to...
, a 2005 account of the whole movement, including the club. - Kilobaud Microcomputing (magazine)Kilobaud MicrocomputingKilobaud Microcomputing was a magazine dedicated to the computer homebrew hobbyists from the end of the 1970s until the beginning of the 1980s.-How kilobaud started:...
was a magazine dedicated to the homebrew computer hobbyists with knowledge of electronicsElectronicsElectronics is the branch of science, engineering and technology that deals with electrical circuits involving active electrical components such as vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, and associated passive interconnection technologies...
. - Triumph of the Nerds, 1996, Robert X. Cringely, Oregon Public Broadcasting.
External links
- Stephen Wozniak, "Homebrew and How the Apple Came to Be" in Steve Ditlea, ed., Digital Deli, 1984.
- Steve Wozniak's home page
- Memoir of a Homebrew Computer Club Member
- The Netherlands Home Computer Club website (in DutchDutch languageDutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
) - Homebrew Computer Club Newsletters
- Life Outside the Mainframe: Remembering Fred Moore
- In Search of the Valley A 2006 documentary on Silicon Valley which includes a section on the homebrew computer club and interviews with Lee Felsenstein and Steve Wozniak.
- Homebrew Computer Club on Jolitz Heritage site
- Lee Felsenstein and the Homebrew Computer Club, A History of Free Hardware Design
- The Beginning of the Apple Corps of Dallas (January 1978) Thru the Eyes of a Founding Member