July 2016 - vcf-midatlantic

F/S: Sharp PC-5000 laptop from 1983
by Evan Koblentz 14 Jul '16

14 Jul '16

I have a Sharp PC-5000 (laptop circa 1983) in the box with the manuals. It worked last time I tried it several years ago. Not sure if I still have the disks but it should be standard DOS. Hate to sell it because it was a gift from another collector (my plan was to give it to the museum) but I really need some money. In my opinion* it's worth a few hundred dollars. * Strictly my personal property and personal opinion about the value; not at all related to VCFed stuff.

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Museum Report 07/13/16
by Jeffrey Brace 14 Jul '16

14 Jul '16

So it was a slow day with 5 visitors. They were very interested. One boy around 15/16 even tried his hand at BASIC on the PET. He was used to programming Python. He was a War Games fan so he asked "Shall we play a game?" What was the response? Also gathered and started setup for Workshop this weekend.

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OT: Exploring Mars lecture @ InfoAge July 31
by Evan Koblentz 13 Jul '16

13 Jul '16

http://www.n2mo.org/temp/the_journey_of_curiosity.pdf Our own Frank O. is giving a lecture about Mars rovers etc. on July 31 at the satellite dish campus. It's unclear if Frank plans to use that occasion to phone home. :) Anyway, it sounds interesting! Some of us will be at HOPE and others will be busy with Kfest, but all are welcome to attend this.

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display case for museum
by Evan Koblentz 13 Jul '16

13 Jul '16

Everyone, We need a large display case for some ENIAC/Univac artifacts. We have a few display cases that are waist-high. But we need something taller in order to show more artifacts without using more floor space. The ideal case would have a black exterior, adjustable shelves, lights for each shelf, mirrored back panel, and locking door. It would be four feet wide, a foot or two deep, and maybe chest height. That's asking a lot... we can probably take something simpler and add our own mirrors, lock, etc. Anybody have something that might work or know where we could get something inexpensive? I'm not above converting a bookcase or using Craigslist. New ones are quite expensive. (Don't just bring something in, we need to see it first...)

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Museum Report 7/6/2016
by Jeffrey Brace 13 Jul '16

13 Jul '16

Slow day at the museum. It's a nice hot and sunny day so everyone is at the beach, pool or working etc. One visitor, but he had been here previously at VCF and didn't have the time to look at the museum before. Looked about by himself and I chatted with him for a while. My main project was to get the Internet working in the museum. I got it working. So wi-fi now works for our members. Right now the speed is relatively slow, but next week I hope to move the receiver closer to the window to increase the speed. I didn't get to the Commodore 64 robotics kit, mostly because the parts haven't arrived and partly because I left the manual at home. I will be working on this next week as the parts will be here before next Wednesday. == Jeff Brace

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Museum Report 7/10/16
by Jeffrey Brace 13 Jul '16

13 Jul '16

Sorry for the late post, but I've been busy. Mouse was docent this past Sunday. About 30 visitors came by because there was a Rebel Arts Music Fair on InfoAge's campus right behind the museum. About 300 came to that festival. This kept Mouse really busy. Thanks so much Mouse for being docent this past Sunday! -- Jeff Brace

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Cool new artifact
by Evan Koblentz 12 Jul '16

12 Jul '16

Our newest artifact, to be delivered next month, really is "cool": a member of the Mauchly family is giving us a desk fan that John M. brought home from the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Co. office. It will go in a display case in our museum. We can make a sign (for example): "Early computers made their surrounding environment quite hot. This desk fan favored by John Mauchly came from the EMCC office."

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Fwd: Fwd: IBM 5150
by Evan Koblentz 12 Jul '16

12 Jul '16

See below. Anyone who wants to make a few bucks should reply directly to Brooke. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Brooke Douglass" <brookemdouglass(a)gmail.com <mailto:brookemdouglass@gmail.com>> Date: Jul 12, 2016 12:10 PM Subject: IBM 5150 Good afternoon, I have an IBM 5150 PC from 1981(?) and I'm looking for someone who knows a bit about old computers. I basically need to hire someone to take a look at it and figure out if it still works. I tried to turn it on to no avail but my husband thinks maybe it just needs a different hard drive or something. Are you in MD and if so, do you provide this kind of service? We have a very extensive collection of accessories, original keyboard, original boxes, printer, and tons of floppy disk games and programs. Thank you! Brooke

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VCF Workshop July 16/17 who's going? Watcha working on? When Coming?
by Jeffrey Brace 11 Jul '16

11 Jul '16

Now that Independence Day has passed. Just getting the workshop interest moving again. The workshop will be July 16/17 Starting Sat. 7/16 at 10am and ending Sun. 7/17 at 5pm. Besides the list below I also created a Google Sheet to make a more clean way of looking at the list. 1. Jeff Brace - Commodore 64 Robotics Kit - All Weekend. 2. ? 3. ? 4. ? 5. ? 6. ? 7. ? 8. ? 9. ? 10. ?

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OT: SCA SCSI Disks up for grabs
by Ethan 11 Jul '16

11 Jul '16

Heya, someone I do some side work for is donating a bunch of IT hardware to a non-profit music and gaming fest I help. Not all is needed and there is some stuff that ?might? be of interest to this crowd. Not quite vintage yet. Up for grabs for cost of shipping, SCSI disks. SCA interfaces (sorry no 50/68 pin) 6 x Seagate st373453lc ultra 320 8 x Seagate st373454lc 15k.4 15 x Seagate st3300007lc 10k.7 2 x st3450857ss 15k.7

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