User Groups - did you? and which one?

[+jedimatt42]

Fest West was a hoot. But it reminded me of missing the User Group days of my youth. I'm inspired by the roll-call thread, and the other events going on that get people together... inspired to ask:

 

What TI Users Group were you a part of back in the day?

 

I myself, was a Kitsap 99er, from 5th grade up until graduating high school. Probably 1984 to 1990. I think the last user group meeting I went to was the one that got me a job fixing PCs at the local community college I was about to attend. I have many fond memories from these group meetings. Playing 3D tic tac toe on the chalkboard. People demo'ing new acquisitions... MBX voice commands didn't really demo well. We had a Forth SIG, of about 4-6 that gathered for breakfast once a month. I didn't learn as much as I should have. We would participate in a yearly exhibition of all the area computer users groups in the Silverdale (WA) Mall.

 

-M@

 

 

 

 

[RXB]

Vancouver Users Group

P.U.N.N (Portland Users Ninety Nine)

[Shift838]

I was apart of HUG (Houston Users Group). Just a handful of teenagers and the rest were, well as teenagers would put it. Old farts! The user that ran the HUG TIBBS lived fairly close to me and I talked him in letting me see his setup. I was amazed at that time of all the drives and auto answer modem!

 

They always held their user group meeting if I recall off of MLK blvd here in Houston at on old school or maybe a church.

[sparkdrummer]

It's pretty well known around here that I was a member of the Valley of the Sun TI99ers (VAST). I started out as a member who always let the same person "Somebody Else", do anything that required doing. Then, as membership started to fall off, I told Self "You better get off your thumbs and start helping out here". So I volunteered for everything from that point on. I became Vice Predident, Fest West co-chairman, Prrsidemt (many years) and Newsletter Editor (many years). In the end I was pretty much doing everything. It was effort well spent. Now with Airshack and myself we are a mighty VAST club of 2.

[+jedimatt42]

It's pretty well known around here that I was a member of the Valley of the Sun TI99ers (VAST). I started out as a member who always let the same person "Somebody Else", do anything that required doing. Then, as membership started to fall off, I told Self "You better get off your thumbs and start helping out here". So I volunteered for everything from that point on. I became Vice Predident, Fest West co-chairman, Prrsidemt (many years) and Newsletter Editor (many years). In the end I was pretty much doing everything. It was effort well spent. Now with Airshack and myself we are a mighty VAST club of 2.

I think it is great that you two have rekindled the VAST monicker.

 

I don't think my wife would appreciate me joining something called PUNN.

 

-M@

[apersson850]

I was quite heavily involved in the user's group Programbiten in Sweden for some years. The group no longer exists.

[atrax27407]

Guilford Users Group (North Carolina) and Hunter Valley Users Group (Australia)

[Omega-TI]

_N.O.V.A.^{-- ( Ninety-Niners Of The Vancouver Area )}

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[+Ksarul]

I am/was in a mix of groups over the years. I joined the York 99ers (York, PA) shortly before I went to Germany. They met every month at the Adams Electrical Cooperative. I acquired my first disk-based Assembly programs at one of their meetings. In Germany, I was one of the original members of the K-Town 99ers (Kaiserslautern, Germany, not the US-based one). I was their program librarian for the entire time the club existed, and the club president for the last three years that there were still enough of us left in the K'Town area to keep the group alive. We were the last surviving American User's Group in Germany. I am also a member of the Dutch TIGG, the British TIUGUK, and the US Chicago UG. I also spent a lot of time with the Errorfree group in its early years and also with Rex Soft (as program librarian) in the last few years that it was around (it served folks in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland).

Edited May 8, 2017 by Ksarul

[Omega-TI]

 

Now with Airshack and myself we are a mighty VAST club of 2.

 

Do you accept remote members? I already get the great newsletter....

[sparkdrummer]

No, No - Yesterdays News is for the "club" here on Atari Age. I have not republished a Vast News........... yet.

[Omega-TI]

Hmmmm.... you've given me an idea Sparkdrummer! How about a.... NEWSLETTER CONTEST?

 

Anyone who wants to participate could start designing and making their entry now, and then upload their completed entries on the same day in PDF format, say July 1st? This would give everyone nearly two months to put something together. Everyone uploading on the same day is simply to avoid plagiarism or design disputes.

 

This could be a lot of fun, as well as very informative.

[Sinphaltimus]

QCUG. Queens computer user group of NYC. By the time I joined, they had transitioned to primarily Amiga computers.

Edited May 8, 2017 by Sinphaltimus

[+Lee Stewart]

DCUG: Washington DC Area TI Home Computer Users Group, which eventually became MANNERS (Mid-Atlantic Ninety-NinERS), a merger of several area users groups. Even after I moved to north, central Maryland, ~75 miles away from the meeting venue in Fairfax, Virginia, I remained a member and drove to meetings now and then. Somewhere in the late 80s I let my membership lapse. Occasionally, Jim Fetzner (@Ksarul), his kids, my wife and I will have an informal MANNERS meeting (read “lunch to exchange hardware and talk about the TI-99/4A”) somewhere between us, usually at a Hard Times Cafe for Cincinnati Chili.

 

...lee

[RickyDean]

Hoosier Users Group (HUGers) in the mid nineties.

[Arnuphis]

I was a member of TI-Home in the UK. I think I was one of earliest members after finding out about them at a home computer fair. They are still going but they are now called TI User Group UK. I even contributed a couple of pieces for their magazine TI*MES and issue 1 has an ad for the games software I was selling which were written in glorious TI-Basic so you know what they were like! I was a poor teenager at the time and my TI system comprised of a cassette deck and a copy of Hunt The Wumpus. That was it. Such lofty visions at the time for my software empire. A couple of Spectrum friends were going to port the games to that and I had a guy with a Dragon32 and we set up in my parent's conservatory on a long table. We even had a space set aside for the TI-99/2 which had been recently announced.

[+arcadeshopper]

I joined the Tri-valley 99ers in my teens. It was an active group with an older member base at the time. I was the youngest member.

Mostly they traded shareware with other groups and made a nice newsletter and were part of the exchange.

 

I ended up being President of the group for a few years and near the end it turned into "what has Greg done with his 99/4a and Geneve this month" pretty much..

 

I was also active with the SFvalley group and the La99ers now and then attending meetings and we all did Fest West 86 together.

[+InsaneMultitasker]

Milwaukee Area TI User Group (MATIUG). I met the newsletter editor Gene Hitz through a BBS and soon thereafter he and I would play chess by connecting our two TI's with our VolksModem 300 baud modems. I became a member in 1986. I did manage the Geneve library for a while and contributed to support at the monthly meetings. Don Walden and I periodically traveled to Chicago for meetings, and a number of us traveled to the Chicago and Lima faires together. Sometimes we would wrap up the user group meeting and head to Cecure Electronics, work on our projects, grab dinner at one of the local Greek restaurants, and continue working until 2-3am. Loading a PEB (or Tower) and monitor into my trunk at 3am, during winter with -20 below temps and a chilling wind, is an experience I will never forget

[PeBo]

I don;t believe here was ever a Toronto 99 Users Group (closest was Oshawa - close but still too far without wheels, which I was)

 

Although I was fairly active years later in TAF (Toronto Atari Federation).

[+Ksarul]

Actually, the 9T9 User's Group was out of Toronto, wasn't it?

[PeBo]

You're absolutely right!!! (blasted aging memory synapses!). Regardless, I was never a member. I knew nothing about users groups until a few months before selling my 4A, and by that time all my friends had Atari 800XL's, so I jumped on that bandwagon for software sharing sake. I was never happy with that decision though (annoying my Atari friends as I droned on and on endlessly about what a mistake I had made switching to the 800 from the 4A.)

 

UNTIL I bought my first (of many) Atari ST, my second love (the wife is in there somewhere...probably position 4 or 5 (Sorry, she knows the TI, ST & Lacrosse come before her). The ST had me so hooked (thanks mainly to GFA Basic) that I finally joined a users group...actually 2,.. TAF and a smaller Atari group (will have to dig out a newsletter to remember the name - I wrote "ST Sorry" for them).

 

In line with this topic, I've attached a little bonus I got from a recent purchase. The seller (probably someone in these forums of course) included a letter with information on joining the Int'l 99/4 Users-group (of Bethany Oklahoma!) as a very nice extra (surprising since I won the auction for a much lower price than I thought I would...Diagnostics with box and manual for under $100 Canadian!! (with the 73¢ dollar we had a couple weeks ago, I sure didn't think I deserved a bonus...felt more like I stole it!!)

 

Anyway did a 600dpi scan of it...was going to put it in the TI document forum, but since we're here talking about newsgroups...

int'l 99-4 user group.pdf

Edited May 8, 2017 by PeBo

[digdugnate]

You're absolutely right!!! (blasted aging memory synapses!). Regardless, I was never a member. I knew nothing about users groups until a few months before selling my 4A, and by that time all my friends had Atari 800XL's, so I jumped on that bandwagon for software sharing sake. I was never happy with that decision though (annoying my Atari friends as I droned on and on endlessly about what a mistake I had made switching to the 800 from the 4A.)

 

UNTIL I bought my first (of many) Atari ST, my second love (the wife is in there somewhere...probably position 4 or 5 (Sorry, she knows the TI, ST & Lacrosse come before her). The ST had me so hooked (thanks mainly to GFA Basic) that I finally joined a users group...actually 2,.. TAF and a smaller Atari group (will have to dig out a newsletter to remember the name - I wrote "ST Sorry" for them).

 

In line with this topic, I've attached a little bonus I got from a recent purchase. The seller (probably someone in these forums of course) included a letter with information on joining the Int'l 99/4 Users-group (of Bethany Oklahoma!) as a very nice extra (surprising since I won the auction for a much lower price than I thought I would...Diagnostics with box and manual for under $100 Canadian!! (with the 73¢ dollar we had a couple weeks ago, I sure didn't think I deserved a bonus...felt more like I stole it!!)

 

Anyway did a 600dpi scan of it...was going to put it in the TI document forum, but since we're here talking about newsgroups...

Ooooh... 'President's Club'! That sounds pretty awesome.

[+Ksarul]

Membership in the President's Club let you buy a number of "premium" programs from their software library that were unavailable to the general membership. I think there were 20 or so titles in the set. I have a number of them that I bought from Blaine Crandall a while back.

[klrw111-78]

I was a member of C.H.U.G. - Chattanooga TI99/4A User Group back in the day.

[marc.hull]

Gdi's.

 

Most productive house ever.