This Day in History: 22Aug1955, The First Computer User Group Is Founded http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/August/22/
Following a Los Angeles symposium hosted by IBM, a group of representatives from seventeen groups that had ordered the IBM 704 mainframe computer met at the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California. The outcome of the meeting was the first computer user's group, SHARE. The name was chosen to promote the idea of sharing information and programs between installations. The group grew quickly, eventually producing new software and documentation for their IBM computers. ... snip ... Back when software was free (& shared) ... before legal actions and 23Jun1969 unbundling announcement ... that started to charge for (application) software. Company was able to make the case that operating system software should still be free. some past posts http://manana.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#unbundle Then the "Future System" effort in the early/mid 70s ... was completely different and replace 370 ... so 370 efforts were being shutdown ... the lack of 370 products during the period is credited with giving clone processor makers a market foothold. more discussion http://www.jfsowa.com/computer/memo125.htm and past posts http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/submain.html#futuresys when Future System imploded, there was mad rush to get products back into the 370 pipeline ... and also because of the clone processors ... decision to transition to charging for operating system software. -- virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
