In the early 1980s, the computer became increasingly popular. The users were always looking for information about their computer, finding it in books, magazines and attending user group meetings.
In the Netherlands, the magazine PBE was very popular with users of Commodore computers. PBE is an abbreviation of PET Benelux Exchange and was published by Copytronics. The man behind the Copytronics company, Johan Smilde, not only edited the magazine PBE, but also organized meetings for users of Commodore computers.
In 1981 Bill Tjon and Ben de Winter decided to organize meetings for the subscribers of the magazine PBE in the region of The Hague. The first meeting took place on November 29, 1981 in the Lodewijk Makeblijde College, in Rijswijk. After several successful meetings, each with about 200 visitors, it was decided to set up the PBE region West Netherlands.
The PBE region West Netherlands became a success, with regular meetings and its own newsletter. But Bill and Ben wanted to start an association to organize the meetings in a more professional way. Unfortunately, Johan Smilde of Copytronics / PBE did not want to go along with that. But Bill and Ben didn't stop there and decided to set up their own association and separate themselves from Copytronics / PBE.
On January 14, 1983, the association VCGN - Vereniging Commodore Gebruikers Nederland was officially founded.
The board of the VCGN consisted of:
Bill Tjon - Chairman
Tino Pat - Secretary
Henk Tieland - Treasurer
Ben de Winter - Commissioner Hard-/software
Wim Ockhorst - Commissioner Newsletters and meetings
An article from a meeting of PBE region West Netherlands in the PBE magazine.
An (angry) reaction, in PBE, from Johan Smilde to the founding of the VCGN.
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