• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Bay Area Vintage Computer Club

Lutiana

Lutiana

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Mar 26, 2009
Messages
3,301
Location
Dublin, CA USA
What would it take to setup some sort of user group in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Is there actually any interest for an organization like this? To meet up maybe once a quarter to trade ideas, parts, information and general help. Perhaps a newsletter of some sort.

What do you bay area guys think?
 
lutiana said:
What would it take to setup some sort of user group in the San Francisco Bay Area?

Is there actually any interest for an organization like this? To meet up maybe once a quarter to trade ideas, parts, information and general help. Perhaps a newsletter of some sort.

What do you bay area guys think?
Click to expand...

Didn't you ask that same question back in April? -- http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showpost.php?p=96265&postcount=4

The obvious first step is to post on the Bay Area email list, and just ask, "Who wants to hang out?"

Sellam Ismail (founder of the Vintage Computer Festival) recently moved his business/collection to a HUGE warehouse in that area, where he'll have room to host some get-togethers. Or, ask the CHM people (or Bruce Damer @ Digibarn, etc.) to host a gathering.

But don't try to reinvent the wheel. You live in the HEART of the vintage collecting world. It's all been done there before ....
 
EvanK said:
Didn't you ask that same question back in April? -- http://www.vintage-computer.com/vcforum/showpost.php?p=96265&postcount=4
Click to expand...

Well I asked if there were any, now I am asking how would one go about creating one (since none seem to exist) and to gather an idea of how many would be interested.

EvanK said:
The obvious first step is to post on the Bay Area email list, and just ask, "Who wants to hang out?"

Sellam Ismail (founder of the Vintage Computer Festival) recently moved his business/collection to a HUGE warehouse in that area, where he'll have room to host some get-togethers. Or, ask the CHM people (or Bruce Damer @ Digibarn, etc.) to host a gathering.

But don't try to reinvent the wheel. You live in the HEART of the vintage collecting world. It's all been done there before ....
Click to expand...

Living in the heart of it all is one of the main reasons I am seriously surprised that there is no club/organization dedicated to it, or at least if there is I can't seem to find it.

A mailing list is a good idea, I will see about getting that going. Thanks for the ideas
 
I've thought about the same here, I just don't think I have time to organize it to succeed yet. But yeah, there's sites like meetup.com (not free and I'm not sure how or why people know about that site), myspace or facebook, craigslist, google groups and yahoo groups where people search for and find local social groups. Most of those are free which is the best part (meetup is not to host a group but free to signup and look around for groups and join groups).

I think you'll slowly get a large number of folks that appreciate the technology and where you are probably helped invent it to come to a meeting or social dinner where everyone just pays for their food and you reserve a room. That's how our Amiga group does it, now it's a bit more just coming to eat and chat with friends but if there's Amiga news we still talk about it or George will bring his AmigaOne or someone might bring something else new to demo off. It's a small group but yeah I've thought about trying to get another group involved like the Atari or Apple folks that may all have general interest.
 
lutiana said:
A mailing list is a good idea, I will see about getting that going. Thanks for the ideas
Click to expand...

There is/was the BACCL mailing list I mentioned in the other post (BACCL.Net) but it appears to be dead at the moment - hopefully that's temporary.

I think Eric Smith was running that one. If it is dead we can probably start another and invite the folks that had been on the old one. . . but best to get with Eric first.
 
Hi
The biggest problem is finding a place to host a group.
Stan Sieler used to have a small group going for a while.
There is still a small group that meets at Vito's Pizza.
In anycase, I need to get in touch with Eric. I found
some documents on the 432 that he might like to have.
Dwight
 
Yeah, meeting places are one issue and reserving it to try and make it the same time each month, etc is another. Then of course trying to find one for free. We (Amiga group) used to meet at a library for free each month and they had a back conference room with electricity and we had a larger crowd for a long time come in and show something off, or just bring a system with a problem and a few folks would look at it. That was a great scenario but eventually for whatever reason the library stopped offering the room up to people (guess they had some problems with some other group back there).

Then we moved to a local pizza place (we usually went there after the meeting for the Pizza SIG anyway). It's not a packed place so we usually don't have trouble sitting in the same spot and there's one plug that they don't mind us using (so we could troubleshoot one members 3000T almost every month lol) or demo off the A1200 or AmigaOne, etc.

With a professional group I've been in (ISSA) we used to pay for rooms each month but then found some companies were happy to host it (usually a company via members of the chapter) at no cost. Since then we've done that and they've always been very pleasant although some couldn't guarantee the room if they had a real conference up. But being a computer group, you may get some corp that thinks it's a neat idea or someone that joins up saying "yeah that's a good idea.. let me see if we have any conference rooms I can book".

Anyway, a restaurant that isn't overly loud or has a separated meeting room and electricity is good, plus it gets them money from folks eating. A library or university probably has a room you can use for free. Maybe corporate (you're in a great area and someone may be around who is proud of their first systems that would welcome fanatics).

The meetings start off small, but bring a system of interest and maybe a prepared topic or talk to have and slowly but surely it'll start to grow from folks that thought it was interesting. Have a workshop once and a while and that'll pull in lots of interest :)
 
Finding a place might not be too hard.

My company has a Demo room in Fremont that is empty most of the time, and could hold around 12 or so people. My boss would probably not have issue with us using it once a month for a few hours (after hours of course). Plus we'd have free presentation tools to use (projector, screen, document camera etc).

But I feel this might be jumping the gun a bit. A list of interested parties would be a much better way to start off. I haven't had much time recently, but when I do I intend to get a mailing list going and then see where it goes from there.
 
Last edited:
Hi
I've been involve with other groups and most places
require the group to show some type of insurence so
they are not responsible for any thing. And, I me anything!
Dwight
 
That's interesting, none of the groups I've been involved with have had that here in Austin other than some professional groups we did get insurance for board members specifically not members.

Certainly a valid issue that could come up. If the establishment is meant for having people/guests in the conference room (all of the places we've been have been meant for this) it wasn't an issue. I'd imagine they don't have every guest sign for a guest badge and sign a release of responsibility waiver in the event I trip and hit my head on the water machine and crash into the front desk phone that I'd be financially responsible for the damages.

Oh.. what we do have often and we like besides complying with rules but in our professional (not hobbyist) association we usually have a representative from that company present at the meetings. They can act as the liaison and escort folks around for security reasons. It's not just "here's the key to the building, have your meeting and please lock it afterwards".
 
The other thing that I was thinking about the place my company has in Fremont is that we do training events there as well as demoing A/V and industrial training products, so liability should be covered no matter what or when the gathering is.

It will mostly boil down to my Boss saying yes or no, and he is a pretty easy going guy so I could talk him into it provided we cleaned up after ourselves (we don't have any trash pickup down there so we'd need to take it with us).
 
I have not abandoned this idea. I just sort of got distracted by life and such. I am still pondering the idea of where to meet, but I will most likely be using meetup.com to start the group when I get to it. They charge for this, but it really is not that much.

Since I no longer have a wife, I have found myself with a fair amount of free time and a lack of commitments, so hopefully I can put some real energy into this idea.
 
How does a monthly "Beer and Vintage PC BBQ sound"? We can do many things like char meat over coals, and also do some geeky things like discuss and show off vintage computer stuff.

Sort of casual way of starting, perhaps move it around from house to house so no one person always bears the brunt of it.

Okay, discuss!
 
Sounds like something I'd enjoy. I could probably only make it every so often, I'm up in the Sierra foothills. I'd recommend posting on meetup.com to see if you can drum up some locals.
 
saundby said:
Sounds like something I'd enjoy. I could probably only make it every so often, I'm up in the Sierra foothills. I'd recommend posting on meetup.com to see if you can drum up some locals.
Click to expand...

Thats not really that far. I'd say, what? 3 Hours from here? Your job would to be bring the Sierra Nevada beer :D

I suggested once a month because I figured it would be people from all over the bay and outlying areas.

I intend to do a meetup.com group as soon as I gauge the interest. Perhaps I'll just bite the bullet and do it after the 15th.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top