The Homebrew Computer Club was an informal group of electronic enthusiasts and technically minded hobbyists who gathered to trade parts, circuits, and information pertaining to DIY construction of personal computing devices. It was started by Gordon French and Fred Moore who met at the Community Computer Center in Menlo Park. 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 of the club was held on March 5, 1975 in French's garage in Menlo Park, San Mateo County, California, on the occasion of the arrival in the area of the first MITS Altair 8800microcomputer, a unit sent for review by People's Computer Company. Steve Wozniak credits that first meeting as the inspiration to design the Apple I. The next few meetings were held at a large home in Atherton, California, which had been used as a preschool. Subsequent meetings were held at an auditorium at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, until 1978, when meetings moved to the Stanford Medical School. An anecdote from member Thomas "Todd" Fischer relates that after the more-or-less "formal" meetings the participants often reconvened for an informal, late night "swap meet" in the parking lot of the Safeway store down the road, as SLAC campus rules prohibited such activity on campus property. Others, at the suggestion of Roger Melen, convened at The Oasis, a bar and grill they considered a pub located on El Camino Real in nearby Menlo Park, recalled years later by a member as "Homebrew's other staging area". As Steven Levy wrote about the Oasis gatherings: The 1999 made-for-television movie Pirates of Silicon Valley describes the role the Homebrew Computer Club played in creating the first personal computers, although the movie took the liberty of placing 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 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.
The Homebrew Computer Club's newsletter was one of the most influential forces in the formation of the culture of Silicon Valley. Created and edited by its members, it initiated the idea of the personal computer, and helped its members build the original kit computers, like the Altair. One such influential event was the publication of Bill Gates's "Open Letter to Hobbyists", which lambasted the early hackers of the time for violating the copyrights of commercial software programs. Paul Terrell, partner in Repco who was the exclusive sales rep company for MITS in Northern California, was a member of the Club and would provide information at the meetings about the progress of the Altair 8800 in the factory and provide copies of the MITS Newsletter to members. He later started Byte Shop, an affordable computer store in Mountain View, California, and bought the first 50 Apple I Computers from Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak after they did a demonstration of the Apple I at a meeting at SLAC. 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. The second volume began on January 31, 1976 and included sections for A LETTER FROM MITS, CASSETTE UPDATE, TINY BASIC, MEETING FACILITIES, SOFTWARE, PROBLEMS, MEETING-1, and ALTAIR 680.
In popular culture
The club is depicted in the films Pirates of Silicon Valley and Jobs, as well as in the PBSdocumentary seriesTriumph of the Nerds. However the depiction of how the club worked was not entirely accurate.
