The Costa Blanca Computer Club was started in the Spring of 1983 by Ed Kelly, a retired US officer interested in the machines. It was in the days that very small computers became so cheap that they could be bought by people with normal incomes. From the very beginning the club had the dual purpose of helping the members to increase their knowledge about computers and promoting general interest in the use of computers.

According to our byelaws the club is not permitted to have any commercial purposes, precisely to enable us to assist members with unbiased help and advice. Due to Ed's energy and charisma things got moving at once - our first regular meeting was held in Benidorm's Hotel Poseidon less than two weeks after the founding of the club, with the members in proud possession of one ZX80, 2 ZX81, 1 VIC-20 and 1 Sharp 700. Our collective amount of RAM was less than a quart percent of the RAM of the most basic PC sold today. Eventually members upgraded first to Commodore 64 and Spectrum computers, then Amstrads and the first MS-DOS computers with a monumental memory of 640 Kilobytes - more than anyone could decently have any use for! However it was soon demonstrated that sloppy programmers and excessively complicated operational systems and graphical user interfaces ate up all this memory, and screamed for more.

So the members, dutifully, bought ever bigger computers to run ever heavier programs - a process that never seems to end. As computers got more powerful it also became crystal clear that the bugs causing errors and crashes also increased in size and nastiness. If that wasn't enough some infamous programmers found it the best joke their tiny brains could imagine to write computer virus programs, some of which can wipe out the work of years from your hard disk. So the club thrived because users still needed information to avoid problems and help when these nevertheless raise their ugly heads. In the last years the number of members has stabilized around 100, the overwhelming majority PC users, but also a small band of dedicated users of the Atari ST platform.

After years of hard work for the club serious illness forced Ed to retire in 1990, but at that time it was clear that the club had come to stay for an indefinite period. Computers which can accelerate so many arduous and tedious types of work continues to cause unexpected problems for their users. As long as this continues the club will fulfil a need.