<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title></title></head><body><div>I was too young to have anything to do with TRACE. But I have some memories about it, and I likely saw the TRACE exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre. My father bought a personal computer for me and him in 1976: Z-80, S-100 bus, CP/M, BASIC. He bought a printing computer terminal from Walter Banks, who is mentioned as a prominent TRACE member. We used that as a printer, but I could also use it as a terminal for interacting with BASIC if I wanted to. We also had a video terminal, in the form of a video card, RS-232 keyboard and monitor. The monitor was intended for closed-circuit security TV systems.</div><div><br></div><div>While TRACE was for adults, in the 1970's, I was a member of TACUS: the Toronto Area Computer Users Society. This was a club for youth, run by Taras Pryjma. Since we didn't have home computers, we did our computing at various universities around Toronto. York University had a public access computer lab full of ASR-33 teletypes and Decwriters, where you could sit down and interact with a time sharing system running old school Kemeny-and-Kurtz BASIC. Not the heavily extended BASIC language of the 1980's with structured programming, user defined named subroutines, and all that modern stuff, but the original BASIC. But we also had access to interactive APL at the University of Toronto. And we had access to IBM batch programming systems where you input your program using punch cards. APL was by far the best programming language I had access to (no LISP), but BASIC had the best community feel. Hanging out in the York BASIC labs with friends playing Star Trek, or typing in a program listing from Creative Computing magazine was pretty awesome.</div><div><br></div><div>TACUS is one of many awesome things I remember that has fallen into the memory hole. No real record of it on the internet, although I did find this:</div><div><a href="https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/thestar/name/taras-pryjma-obituary?id=45605090">https://www.legacy.com/ca/obituaries/thestar/name/taras-pryjma-obituary?id=45605090</a></div><div><br></div><div>Doug.</div><div><br></div><div>On Fri, May 15, 2026, at 11:11 AM, Ernst Rullmann wrote:</div><blockquote type="cite" id="qt" style="overflow-wrap:break-word;"><div>I came across <a href="https://museum.eecs.yorku.ca/exhibits/show/hobby_canada/hobby_canada">this article </a>from York University\u2019s Computer Museum (YUCoM) talking about the early hobby computer industry in Canada. Thought it was a decent read and I think the rest of their website looks interesting as well.</div><div><div><br></div><div>There\u2019s some references to a "Kitchener-Waterloo Microcomputer Club\u201d, does anyone know if there are archives or records related to that organization? </div><div><br></div><div>Ernst</div></div><div>_______________________________________________</div><div>kwlug-disc mailing list</div><div>To unsubscribe, send an email to <a href="mailto:kwlug-disc-leave@kwlug.org">kwlug-disc-leave@kwlug.org</a></div><div>with the subject "unsubscribe", or email</div><div><a href="mailto:kwlug-disc-owner@kwlug.org">kwlug-disc-owner@kwlug.org</a> to contact a human being.</div><div><br></div></blockquote><div><br></div></body></html>