ScuzzBlog: Diaries September 2020
Entry 2nd September 2020: Post 1: Commodore ICPUG - CBM Users.
Commodore ICPUG - CBM Users.
Thirty or so years ago, Europe particularly, was wall to wall CBM
users. It was a right of passage for any Commodore 64/128 or Amiga
user to be part of some group. Even as late as 2003 I was still
receiving hundreds of mails each day from various user groups. Not
only did these guys post regularly on the groups but also met face
to face to celebrate their interest.
I recall many many times having issue with the Amiga and simply
dropping a question in the pond and getting the most technical and
informative answer. This is a long ways from what we have today,
where the best you can hope for is a ' I use to have one of those '.
And so when I was digging through my 1581 related stuff I came
across half a dozen or so ICPUG magazines, short for Independent
Commodore Products User Group. This was a gathering of like minded
Commodore users in Europe who managed and maintained a very healthy
group of Commodore enthusiasts including libraries and PD disks.
Just read some of the pages from this group to see how detailed a
response an article received. A long ways from the 'twitter' single
liners that we get today. Amazing really and still very useful. These
are just six volumes for 1990 and represent numbers 1 to 6 of Volume
12. Just do the maths yourself and work out how many publications
there had been. Plus, check out the membership numbers and endless
lists of user groups. CBM did use to be massive and it is often
forgotten just how many people used these splendid products.
In amongst the 1581 disks I discovered a series of utilities disks
of which five spelt the name ICPUG when stuck together. These are
disks specifically for the 1581 which is the 3.5" floppy for the
Commodore C64/128 machines. They are part of the vast library
maintained by the ICPUG group. The question I guess is what happened
to the library. It really is so sad just how massive this platform
was and how the remnants of it are so badly served today. We lost
so much.
Have a look at some of the pages from this publication. I wish I
had more. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of pages of
informative articles. Not a page I flicked through didn't provide
valuable and treasured articles. It is most humbling for a collector
like me to be even associated with such giants of the platform.
Nothing today can compare with this knowledge base.
Commodore ICPUG - CBM Users.
The 1581 Toolkit
The 1581 Toolkit Disk
Magazine Disks
Just a snapshot of the publications work
in the early months of 1990. Wonderful
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