Isn''t August always a bit too short? You just get used to the fact nobody is about, you get all settled into having afternoon naps and drinking in beer gardens when you should be working, and then... bam! Along comes September and suddenly there''s another Manchester BSD User Group to get to. September 4th - the date of our next meeting - is the 51st anniversary of the IBM 305 going onto the market: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_305 "... while the storage capacity of the drive could have been increased above five megabytes, the marketing department at IBM was against a larger capacity drive because they didn''t know how to sell a product with more storage." Whilst that''s an odd curiosity, the real peculiarity was the drum memory. It span at 6000 RPM and given that the timing signals were derived from a factory recorded "Clock Track" on the drum, I''m thinking you could conceivably over-clock it by getting the drum to spin faster. There are no details if IBM sold see-through case panels and neon light kits to tailor to that market. Anyway, to business! What? Who? =========================================================== The Manchester BSD User Group is a group of Unix enthusiasts, users, developers and systems administrators who meet once a month in a pub in central Manchester. It''s a friendly/social event and we don''t do talks or presentations. In the past, conversations have covered a wide range of technical topics, so if you''re interested in the kind of tech that you can pull apart and put back together again (even when you''re not meant to), you''ll find somebody interested nearby. Where? =========================================================== The Briton''s Protection pub on Great Bridgewater Street, in central Manchester. http://tinyurl.com/yqqkzj We normally dominate one of the rooms around the back, but if it''s warm and sunny we may head out to the beer garden (if open). The Briton''s is a traditional English pub with real ale, quality lager, a huge array of whiskeys, a range of soft drinks and an excellent selection of crisps. I believe they do food of a high quality, but don''t know what time they stop serving (probably before 7pm though). When? =========================================================== We always meet on the first Tuesday of each calendar month. The next meeting is on Tuesday the 4th September, and the meeting after that is currently planned for the 2nd October. We normally drift in to the place around 7:30pm, and most people drift off sometime between 9pm and 10pm. Questions? =========================================================== Feel free to post queries to manchester@bsdgroups.org.uk or you can contact me directly. If you want directions to help find us, or need a mobile number in case you get lost, just get in touch.