Memphis Amiga Group (MAG) and
Memphis Commodore Users Club (MCUC) History
MCU Magazine
Welcome
This is a collection of scanned and transcribed newsletters and disk magazines from the Memphis Amiga Group, as well as newsletters from its predecessor, the Memphis Commodore Users Club.
The Memphis Commodore Users Club (or Users Group, MCUG) started in the early 80s and lasted until the early to mid 90s. It spawned the Memphis Amiga Group (MAG) as a SIG in the late 80s. MAG operated from the late 80s to the late 90s. Commodore's demise in 1994 took the wind out of the group, and after a few more years it faded out of existence.
Meetings were held monthly, and most were preceeded by a board meeting the week before. MCUC presidents over the years included Ken Akins, Dwight Campbell, Jim Fox, Bob Nunn (of Operator Headgap BBS), and Pete Norton. MAG presidents included Alan Schwartz, Broadus Weatherall, Todd Rooks, Brian Akey, Bob Nunn, and Scott Pitts (who ran Amiga Pitts, MAG's official BBS). The only surviving near-relative of the group is AppleCore of Memphis, a Memphis-area Apple computer users group.
If you have newsletters, diskmags, or anything else at all pertaining to the Memphis Amiga Group, the Memphis Commodore Users Club, or even the Memphis PC Users Group, please contact me. I would like to add what you have to this site.
Contents
These newsletters and diskmags hold bits and pieces of history pertaining not just to MCUC and MAG, but to personal computing (particularly with regard to Commodore computers) in general. Some parts, such as these hardware prices from 1989, are particularly amusing. There are several chat transcripts (some from pre-Internet online services such as People Link and Genie) that indicate the state of Mac emulation in 1989, multimedia in 1991, and computer graphics in 1992. There are also old hardware hack instructions, such as upgrading the Amiga 1000 to the 68010 processor (1986.)
Some of the highlights of Commodore's rise and fall can also be traced:
- 1988 - Commodore produces seven TV commercials
- 1988 - Commodore introduces Amiga with 68020
- 1989 - Commodore discontinues the Commodore 128D
- 1990 - Unveiling of the Amiga 3000 in New York City
- 1991 - Commodore cuts prices and provides 24 hour support
- 1991 - Amiga/Commodore 64 sales up, CDTV promoted in Japan
- 1992 - Commodore the top stock pick of S&P analyst
- 1992 - Amiga 600 announced: the "Sega/SuperNES killer"
- 1993 - Commodore introduces the CD32
- 1994 - Commodore chairman grilled by stockholders over $356M loss
- 1994 - Commodore liquidation proceedings
- 1995 - Summary of auction day for Commodore's assets
Interesting Texts
The following is a random selection of a few of the "interesting" texts found throughout the disks in the DiskMAGs section.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| runner.doc | Post to net.micro.amiga from 1986 about running CLI command from Workbench. This later became the "Execute..." item in the Workbench menus in 2.x and beyond. |
| Ed Commands | Description for using the basic command-line AmigaDOS text editor "ed" written in 1985. |
| Amy_Today4.3 | Amy Today, am Amiga text-file magazine, volume 4 issue 3 from October 30th, 1988. |
| Accessor.txt | Price sheet for Amiga accessories from June 1989. |
| A1000-Upgrade.article | Discussion of Amiga 1000 upgrade options as an alternative to switch to the Amiga 2000, from March 1990. |
| A1000-2000_adaptor.doc | Instructions for building an Amiga 1000 keyboard to Amiga 2000 keyboard port adaptor. |
| CANDO_CONFERENCE.TXT | A chat transcript from a July 1991 StarShip conference about CanDo. |
| 5min5-4 | The StarShip 5-MINUTE Weekend Newscast from April 30th, 1993. Includes the official announcement of the Video Toaster 4000. |
| 5min5-18 | The StarShip 5-MINUTE Weekend Newscast from May 14th, 1993. Includes news from The Gathering 1993 demo party (which "Desert Dream" won) and the announcement of OctaMED 4. |
| ar311.guide | Amiga Report Magazine 3.11 from June 1st, 1995. |
