VCGN

Vereniging Commodore Gebruikers Nederland

VCGN

The VCGN - Vereniging Commodore Gebruikers Nederland is an association for users of Commodore computers in the Netherlands. The VCGN was founded in the year 1983, and was active until about the year 1996.

The VCGN was the first independent user association for users of Commodore computers in the Netherlands. The VCGN grew into the largest Commodore user association in the Netherlands, and organized monthly meetings in Rijswijk and later also in other municipalities in the Netherlands. Due to excellent contacts with Commodore Netherlands and many other companies involved in Commodore computers, scoops were often shown at the association days and hardware and software were often for sale at attractive prices at the meetings.

In the early days, information about the VCGN was distributed by a newsletter of about four pages. The number of pages in the newsletter quickly increased and the newsletter was succeeded by the association magazine "Monitor".

The purpose of this web page is to collect and make available information about the VCGN, for example the newsletters and the Association magazines Monitor. If you are in possession of information, newsletters or Monitors and would like to donate them, please send a message via the contact page of this web page. 

Diskettes:

C64 Diskettes
C128 Diskettes

Disk: 2023-01-06





In the collection, but not all are yet scanned (Newsletter / Monitor).

1983: 1, 2
1984: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 11/12
1985: 1, 2, 3, 4/5/6, 7/8/9
1986: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 11/12
1987: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7/8, 9, 10, 11/12
1988: 2, 3
1989: 3, 4, 5, 6
1990: 1
1991: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
1992: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
2023: 1, 2

The beginning of the VCGN

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