The legendary group of technologically obsessed geeks that essentially kickstarted the personal computer industry — which counted Apple co-founders Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs among its members — is to be reunited for one night only.
Thanks to a successful Kickstarter campaign that doubled its initial funding target within 48 hours, 25 of the club’s original members, including Steve Wozniak, Hypertext pioneer Ted Nelson, and the club’s moderator, Lee Felsenstein, will be reconvening at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California on November 11. Some 27 years after the club’s final meeting, the personal computing pinoeers will be honored for their quite sizable achievements since 1975 and will hopefully reminisce about the early times while sharing their thoughts on the future of consumer technology with today’s generation of disrupters, hackers and tech obsessives.
Tickets for the event are on sale now with prices starting at $64. The crowd-funding campaign, which had hoped to raise $16,000 to secure a suitable venue, hire security and cater the event, when it launched on Friday has already hit the $36,000 mark and the campaign doesn’t close until the end of October.
The extra money will be used to pay for a professional photographer during the meeting and, if funding passes the $40,000 mark, to make a short documentary of the event.
Founded in 1975, the Homebrew Computer Club was started by Gordon French and Fred Moore and its first meeting was held in March 1975 in French’s garage in Menlo Park, San Mateo County, California. The club was where Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs first demonstrated the circuit boards and cables that would become the Apple I and although the two Steves are its most famous members, a number of its other founding members, including Adam Osborne, Harry Garlandand Roger Melen also went on to make their mark on the home computer.
