Two weeks of the urgently needed holliday in france ended on sunday and on monday I was already at work in my little shop.

And what a big big surprise: There was a huuuge box with old Peoples Computer Company newspapers on my desk, generously sent to me from Bob Leedom. He noticed I had a chapter in my booklet about the very early computer magazines and did not spare the expenses and sent me all of his PCC issues. from 1973 to 1978. These are real treasures. The condition of the newspaper measured by it‘s age and the poor paper quality is good.

The Peoples Computer Company was a nonprofit organization and it‘s newsletter of the same name. It was founded by Bob Albrecht, Dennis Allison and George Firedrake to spread information about computers, the BASIC language, how to set up Computer systems in schools. They held workshops to teach young people computers and take away the fear and respect of this technology.
From the beginning on the company was anadvocate against copyrights and the response to Bill Gates famous ‚Letter to hobbyists‘ was the initialization of TinyBasic - a small and free alternative to microsoft Basic.

Around TinyBasic a spin off magazine was published called Dr. Dobbs Journal of Calisthenics and Orthodontia which was published until 2009(!).

PCC changed it’s newsletter name to recreational computing in 1980 and ended in 1982, when homecomputers were all around the initial purpose vanished.

Now I have 5kg papers that need to be saved from crumbling to dust.

Have fun, stay childish

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