Boston Computer Society

The Boston Computer Society (usually called "BCS") was an organization of personal computer users, based in Boston, Massachusetts, that ran from 1977 to 1996.

History

The organization was founded by a thirteen year old boy named Jonathan Rotenberg in 1977, and grew to become the largest such organization in the world., with over 30,000 members in all 50 U.S. states and 40 other countries. Also, there were two additional co-founders, Gary E. Haffer and Allan Sneider.Fact|date=February 2008 At its peak in the late 1980s, BCS supported more than 75 different user and special interest groups and held more than 150 monthly meetings.

Apple Computer Corp., Lotus Software and IBM made major product announcements at BCS meetings. For example, Apple made the East Coast introduction of the Apple Macintosh at a BCS meeting in 1984.

The BCS magazine was called "Update".

There were a myriad of user groups meeting monthly with their own paper newsletters, such as the Social Impact group.

Much of the promotional and support role played by the organization became obsolete with the growing sophistication of computer users, and the growth of the Internet as an alternate source of information. Membership shrank to 18,000, [ [http://www.xent.com/fall96/0275.html "Logging off: Boston Computer Society to fold,"] Hiawatha Bray, "Boston Globe", September 12, 1996] they ran out of money, and BCS closed in October 1996.

References

External links

* [http://www.blu.org/about_blu/bcs.html Farewell page] , including letters from the BCS Board of Directors and the Executive Director of the club, explaining the decision to close.