{"id":9719,"date":"2026-05-18T11:42:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T18:42:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/?p=9719"},"modified":"2026-05-26T16:11:29","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:11:29","slug":"what-an-amazing-cultural-phenomena-computer-user-groups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/what-an-amazing-cultural-phenomena-computer-user-groups\/","title":{"rendered":"What an Amazing Cultural Phenomena ! Computer User Groups"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9741\" style=\"width: 345px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9741\" class=\" wp-image-9741\" src=\"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/EarlyComputerUserGroup.jpg\" alt=\"Early Computer User Group\" width=\"335\" height=\"238\" srcset=\"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/EarlyComputerUserGroup.jpg 800w, https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/EarlyComputerUserGroup-300x213.jpg 300w, https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/EarlyComputerUserGroup-150x107.jpg 150w, https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/EarlyComputerUserGroup-768x545.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 335px) 100vw, 335px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9741\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Early Computer User Group<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Imagine a group of <strong>Toaster enthusiasts<\/strong>. Right &#8211; people who love making Toast. Maybe cinnamon toast for Saturday mornings.<\/p>\n<p>They are so excited about toasters, they arrange meetings and share tips &#8211; for free.<\/p>\n<p>Or <strong>Vacuum Cleaner zealots.<\/strong> Same thing &#8211; meetings and free technical support for each other.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not going to happen are they?<\/p>\n<p>Like ever.<\/p>\n<p>But it <a href=\"https:\/\/arstechnica.com\/information-technology\/2020\/08\/the-golden-age-of-computer-user-groups\/\">happened with computers<\/a>, and still is going strong. Only now its pretty much on line as opposed to in-person meetings.<\/p>\n<p>IBM users got together in 1955, DEC users in 1961, PC Users in 1981.<\/p>\n<p>Everyone helps each other &#8211; for free.<\/p>\n<p>Sharing knowledge, understanding , software and hardware. All for free !<\/p>\n<p>What an amazing cultural phenomena.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"># # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine a group of Toaster enthusiasts. Right &#8211; people who love making Toast. Maybe cinnamon toast for Saturday mornings. They are so excited about toasters, they arrange meetings and share tips &#8211; for free. Or Vacuum Cleaner zealots. Same thing &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/what-an-amazing-cultural-phenomena-computer-user-groups\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":4,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9719"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9743,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9719\/revisions\/9743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/daviddilworth.com\/pol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}