The Berkeley Macintosh Users Group, or more commonly "BMUG", was the largest Macintosh User Group. It was founded in September 1984 by a group of UC Berkeley students including Reese Jones[1] and Raines Cohen[2] as a focal-point for the nascent Apple Macintosh user community. With more than 13,000 members, or "BMUGgers" at its peak in 1993, the group was the largest,[3] and generally understood to be the most important,[4] Macintosh users group. A few of the notable members include John "Captain Crunch" Draper, the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, notorious murderer Enrique Zambrano,[5][6] early hacker-chaser Cliff Stoll, Inktomi founder Eric Brewer, and may prominent computing journalists like John Dvorak,[7] Ilene Hoffman, Leo Laporte and Adam Engst. An example of the group's omnipresent blue-floppy-disk lapel pin is held in the Smithsonian Institution's American History collection.[8] BMUG's history and activities were closely linked with the MacWorld Expo meetings, traditionally held in San Francisco each January and Boston each August.
- ^ "Strategic News Service - Future in Review 2008 Participants". Archived from the original on 2008-10-19. Retrieved 2009-01-05.
- ^ "2005 SF Mac Expo (Photo story) - Brian Thomas".
- ^ Nakamura, Lisa (2002). Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet. Routledge. p. 190.
- ^ Pang, Alex Soojung-Kim (14 July 2000). "User Groups and the Macintosh". Making the Macintosh: Technology and Culture in Silicon Valley. Stanford University.
The most important Macintosh user group in the area, and arguably within the entire user group movement, was BMUG. Started in 1984 by Berkeley students Reese Jones, Raines Cohen, Tom Chavez, and others, BMUG's members went on to found numerous businesses, most notably the networking companies Farallon and Netopia; develop software and hardware for the Macintosh; write for Macintosh industry magazines; and serve as some of the machine's staunchest advocates.
- ^ "Enrique Zambrano". USA Death Row 2019. Retrieved 30 November 2019.
- ^ McCullagh, Declan (10 August 2007). "Death row inmate's fate turns on the word 'hacker'". clnet. Retrieved 29 November 2021.
- ^ "Dvorak's Inside Track to the Mac". Centre for Computing History. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
- ^ "Advertising Button, Berkeley Macintosh Users Group (BMUG)". National Museum of American History. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 30 November 2021.
This square button, designed to look like a 3½" floppy diskette, has a blue background. At the top, in a yellow rectangle, is a blue image of a clock tower and blue text that reads: 'BMUG Disk / BMUG / 1442A Walnut St. #62 / Berkeley, CA 94709 / (415) 849 9114.' On the reverse is a black card with a metal pin.