| Some
History of the Bundaberg PC USers Group
*By Morry Coppock My first encounter with the BPCUG was in 1992, shortly after moving to Bundaberg from Sydney. At the time the club was presided over by Merv Hersom, who sadly is no longer in our midst. The club met at the time, on a Thursday night, twice a month as now, but in the Education Centre in Woongarra St. As can be imagined computers were a mite simpler and less powerful than we are used to today. At the time the predominent operating system was DOS 3.11 and Windows was just beginning to make it's impact on the scene with version 3.1 the norm. Most of the machines in use at the time were 286, 386 and for the rich amongst us the veritable 486. Soon followed by to DOS 4.0 with a few extra bells & whistles, and upwards to DOS 5.0,and even DOS 6.0 and it's upgrades. The majority of operations done at that time were carried out in DOS, so most us us got very proficient in typing at the keyboard with one finger. The beauty is we didn't experience any GPF's etc, the most we would get would be a "bad command or file name" and we learned the basics which reinforced our knowledge as we progressed to Windows. Things change, and as the Council wanted to a Library on the site we had to vacate the premisies. Thanks to the old premise of "it's not what you know, it's who you know" we were able, through the intervention of Merv's brother, to get a new venue at the Rowers Club, and free of charge. We also changed to Wednesday night mettings, but retained the same format of a workshop night on the first meeting of the month, with demo's and instruction on the second meeting evening of the month. It was at this time that we began holding EXPO's, with the assistance of the very knowledgable people from the Brisbane PC Users Group (Brisbug) Two Expo's were held with their input, and they were very well supported by local suppliers. Unfortunately Brisbug became a little short of the folding stuff and had to pull out of our next venture at the last moment, so we had to organise everything in two weeks flat as we had already booked the room. We were a great success and have gone on to better things since. Of course the Club would not be the success it is today if it wasn't for the input and dedication of all those people who over the years have made the effort to further the aims of the Club. Since our early days where it was necessary for the members to bring their own computers for demo's and instruction, to where we are today with the equipment the Club owns, shows what can be acheived by ordinary people with a will to succeed. We have learned a lot of lessons along the way, and not only computer related, but also in management of a small group such as ours. Let us hope that the future holds a further improvement, only the members can acheive this. *Morry Coppock is one of our Honourary Life Members and resident expert on DOS and computer basics. |
A section of our Computers in Technology EXPO 1997 |
|
|