Fun with Maps ISSUE 2025-42

By Steve Kovacs (Introduction by Chuck Gibson)

LOVELAND, OH (March 5, 2025) – In today’s edition of Fun with Maps, we celebrate the anniversary of the first meeting of an iconic “computer club”.

NERDS RULE

The Homebrew Computer Club held its first meeting on March 5, 1975 – 50 years ago.  It took place in the Gordon French’s garage in Menlo Park, California.  The Club met in various places for 11 years.

Members of the Club were electronic enthusiasts, who traded ideas, parts, circuits and the like.   Attendees of the first meeting included Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who went on to be co-founders of their own company, Apple, the following year.  Gordon French soon after the first meeting moved East to work for the Social Security System as a computer engineer.

Many members of the Club were interesting characters.  Several were computer hackers, including Wozniak, who was expelled from the University of Colorado for hacking its mainframe computer.   In high school, Jobs preferred to read Shakespeare and Plato (who does that?).

This map of California is by Mitchell from 1890, with insets of San Francisco and the Bay area.

Steve Kovacs and his wife Theresa reside in Loveland, Ohio where they raised their two children. He is a passionate collector of antique maps.

Visit his antique map boutique world-on-paper online. Watch for his daily feature Steve Kovacs: Fun with Maps here on Loveland Beacon.