Category: Announcements

Happy 30th Birthday, Apple Macintosh

Post author By
Post date January 24, 2014

Thirty years ago today, computing history changed forever. After teasing it in what some call the most important Super Bowl ad of all time, Apple (then Apple Computer) revealed the Macintosh. For both TechServ and Drexel, the Macintosh holds a lot of history. At the launch of the Macintosh, Apple announced a partnership with a handful of academic institutions. One of them was Drexel (skip to the 53 minute marker in the video below.)

Despite the big names on the list, Drexel was special. Drexel was the first university on the list to launch the Macintosh, requiring every incoming student to purchase one. It was the beginning of a relationship with Apple that continues even today.

Some of the many Macintoshes awaiting unpacking.

The Macintosh was used in a variety of offices and programs at Drexel.

Drexel was also home to a handful of Apple Lisa systems as well as the Macintosh.

As the Macintosh hardware became more powerful, Drexel invested in newer Macintosh models, including the Macintosh Plus. However, they did not sport the custom Drexel D engraving.

Shortly after the release of the Macintosh at Drexel, a new student group was founded, The Drexel Macintosh Users Group, or DUsers for short. Without the Macintosh and without DUsers, there’s a good chance TechServ wouldn’t be who we are today. TechServ, in a way, is the successor of DUsers. We still use some of DUsers’ space on the university and our domain name continues to be dusers.drexel.edu We’re also thrilled to have some of DUsers’ equipment.

One of those pieces of equipment is one of the original Drexel Macintosh computers, complete with the custom Drexel branding. It still works, although on some days it requires a little encouragement to turn on. We’re also happy to be the owners of two Macintosh SE/30 computers, a Bondi Blue iMac, and a PowerMac G4 Cube among other pieces of historical Apple systems. We occasionally exhibit our collection at Drexel events.

Happy 30th Birthday, Macintosh.

(A special thank you to the Drexel University Archives for the historic Macintosh photos)

Announcements Weekly Meetings

No Meeting 20 Jan

Post author By
Post date January 15, 2014

Howdy there folks,

Please note, we will not be meeting on 20 January due to MLK Day. It was added to TicketLeap by mistake (Australia has different holidays than the US ^^;). If you try to book a spot for the 20th, you’ll now receive a message that sales have stopped for that day.

Sorry for the confusion!

~ Stephen

PS: Just to make that stupidly loud and clear:

We are not meeting on 20 Jan.

Announcements Weekly Meetings

Winter 2014 Meetings Are Here!

Post author By
Post date January 9, 2014

Howdy folks! It’s a new year and a new term, which means it’s time for new meetings too! Yay! For the Winter 2014 term, we’ll be meeting Mondays and Thursdays from 7p to 9p. UNIV-101 students, tickets for meetings are now up on TicketLeap for your reserving pleasure. Note: You’ll find a new events page on TicketLeap now, which lists both current and past meetings (or as TicketLeap calls them, “events”). We also currently have two events that are live, one for meetings, and one for testing the new TicketLeap design. Please make sure you get a ticket for a meeting, not the test event. Feel free to use the test event to test out the new TicketLeap though (and let us know if something breaks or looks wrong!)

Now go forth and reserve all the things!

Reserve all the things!

Online event registration with TicketLeap

Announcements Weekly Meetings

UNIV-101 Students, Sign Up For Meetings Now!

Post author By
Post date October 1, 2013

Hey there UNIV-101 students! We’re excited to kick off a new academic year with weekly meetings held this term on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6p to 8p. However, we operate a bit differently than some other UNIV-101 opportunities you may have seen. If you haven’t already, make sure you read our page on UNIV-101 info. And we mean read it in full.

If you must insist on a tl;dr edition, please be aware that if you want UNIV-101 credit for TechServ, you cannot simply show up to a meeting. Last year, we implemented a policy that restricts the number of UNIV-101 students per meeting to four and you must reserve a spot. This is for a couple reasons: 1) we just don’t have the space in our workshop, 2) this helps ensure all UNIV-101 students have something to do, and 3) at TechServ, safety is one of those things we simply “care” about. To reserve a spot, you must “purchase” a ticket through TicketLeap, who we’ve chosen as our reservation system. Now, while we do say “purchase”, tickets are free. Since TicketLeap’s primary business is to sell tickets, they use the word Purchase on their site.

Once you have reserved a ticket, come to the meeting with your ticket. You can either print it, or add it to Passbook in iOS (or for you droids, show it on your phone). We scan all tickets at the door. If you do not have a ticket (and that means a valid ticket), we will not honor your UNIV-101 minutes for the meeting. For the full terms and conditions, read the UNIV-101 info page in full. We generally do not give exceptions.

To reserve your tickets, click the stupid huge button below.

Reserve Your Spot Now!

Ticketing with TicketLeap

Announcements

TicketLeap is Changing

Post author By
Post date May 13, 2013

Just a heads up for our UNIV-101 students, TicketLeap announced today that it is changing the design of some pages, one of which is checkout. If things look different next time you go to reserve a ticket, don’t panic. Checkout is now done on a single page, rather than the previous multi-step process. If you have problems with booking a ticket because of this change, let us know and we’ll pass it on to TicketLeap.