Berkeley Macintosh Users Group

Berkeley Macintosh Users Group (BMUG) is a users' group, founded in September 1984 by U.C. Berkeley students including Reese Jones^[1], Raines Cohen^[2] and Bernt Wahl^[3] to share knowledge on graphical computing, primarily the Apple Macintosh.

The group had more than 13,000 members at its peak in 1993, with BBSs in Boston, and Tokyo, and was the largest users' group at the time.^{[citation needed]}

BMUG was famous for lively meetings, "We are in the business of giving information away" motto, "BMUG Awards", its great MacWorld Expo get-togethers, CD and book publishing, and a giant newsletter akin to the Whole Earth Catalog, and one of the largest shareware collections for Macintosh Public Domain software.

BMUG hosted a lively Thursday night meeting with questions and answers, and software demonstrations by vendors. Followed at the end by a raffle. Notable speakers include: Steve Jobs, Guy Kawasaki, Ted Nelson, Heidi Roizen, Andy Hertzfeld, Bill Atkinson, Jean-Louis Gassée, Marc Benioff, Melinda Ann French (Gates) and Bill Gates.

It also held Special Interest Groups (SIGs) on graphics, video, music, databases, the Internet, and mathematics. Some notable members include: John Draper (Captain Crunch), Hassanal Bolkiah (Sultan of Brunei), and Eric Brewer (Inktomi founder).

A few of the group met after the meetings at a Chinese restaurant in Berkeley, where they still meet on Thursdays to this day.^{[citation needed]}

BMUG declared bankruptcy in 2000. A group of its committed members formed PlanetMUG, and purchased Its online presence, the Planet BMUG BBS.

BMUG Boston, split off and formed the BostonBBS.

The Refurbishing project, was reformed into Access2Technology, and incorporated into a non-profit.

References

1. ^ http://www.futureinreview.com/participants.php?galleryid=3783
2. ^ http://rivertext.smugmug.com/gallery/355049_qzkmm/1/14113387_LPWyC#14113387_LPWyC
3. ^ http://cet.berkeley.edu/wiki/index.php?title=People:_Bernt_Wahl

External links

• PlanetMUG web site ... BMUG successor
• The BostonBBS, BMUG's Boston BBS
• Access 2 Technology, BMUG's Refurbishing project

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