Introduction

Back in 1980, just as the Apple ][ was making its mark on the world, a group of enthusiastic users got together to hold an inaugural meeting of the Apple/ITT2020 Group in St. Albans, UK. It was decided at that first meeting to call themselves the British Apple Systems User Group, or BASUG for short, and a steering committee was formed.

At first, regular themed meetings were held in St. Albans, and local groups round the UK were encouraged to also start their own meetings. Within a few months, the Hardcore magazine was being published by the group, and BASUG became a limited company. Hardcore was aimed at the entire AppleII community in the UK, and was published through the years of 1981-1986. From 1984, the group embraced the Macintosh as well as the Apple II, and till its end, always equally divided its support between all the Apple computers.

In 1986, the committee decided that the group needed a new direction, and so BASUG was renamed as Apple2000. The magazine also took on the new name, and was published until the demise of Apple2000 in 1992.

During both the Hardcore and Apple2000 years, supporting updates and other material was published. In earlier years, there had been intermittent BASUG Updates, and in later years, a bi-monthly newsletter Apple Slices, was published between intervening issues of the Apple2000 magazine.

By 1992, the Apple community had grown and evolved to a point where a major national User Group no longer had the same kind of support that it had enjoyed over the years. Reluctantly, with rapidly falling membership, it was decided to close down Apple2000. This marked the end of published magazines from a national User Group in the UK, though some local groups still exist and thrive to this day.

Please note that as these magazines are now quite old. The advertisers may or may not still exist, and any phone numbers or contact address, may no longer be valid. We have done our best to ensure that any contact details for User Group members have been disguised.

My thanks go to Michael Dawson for helping me with the scanning, and to the members of the Apple2000 committee, who encouraged us to complete this project.

These PDF files are scans from the magazines and other material published by BASUG and Apple2000 between 1981 and 1992. Copyright in the magazines, and any material contained with them, remains either with the authors, or Apple2000. You may copy these files for your own private use, but may not reproduce them in any way, include them in any compilation or archive, or sell them for profit.