December 2018 - vcf-midatlantic

Museum Report 2018-12-09
by Jeffrey Brace 09 Dec '18

09 Dec '18

Dozens and dozens of visitors due to the holiday model train show at InfoAge. At one point I heard a noise and figured it was a critter. Low and behold it was a bird that was trapped inside. After lots of maneuvering and redirecting the bird, I was able to direct the bird outside. I also worked on getting more MUS files (as opposed to SID files) for the C64 that were of the holiday flavor. Now they can be easily played with SID Player from Compute! Magazine. I also made a disk image of the Commodore 64 robotics software and sent it to someone in the Las Vegas area that will be demoing this hardware/software robotics kit for the Commodore Retro eXpo. I had one lady tried to get me to explain how computers work on the most fundamental levels in a way for someone that is a computer novice. This isn't something easily done in a short conversation nor for the layman to understand. I did my best, but she didn't seem satisfied. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Museum report
by Evan Koblentz 05 Dec '18

05 Dec '18

Spent several hours at the museum with Laura today. In the first hour, we finished cleaning up from Festivus -- moved the tables back where they go, swept the floor, cleaned out the half-full (eww) coffee machine, etc. -- and then we did warehouse stuff for a couple of hours. We sorted several more boxes of books and made some progress on implementing the plan that Adam and I hatched to fit another aisle of shelves.

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Bodnar's Auction today
by Sentrytv 05 Dec '18

05 Dec '18

I just wanted to put it out there that Bodnars auction today at Raritan Center has a bunch of older gaming consoles, games, cartridges and some computer stuff. the auction for this stuff should start somewhere around 4 o'clock I was told.

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Lonely G5 looking for a home
by Neil Cherry 04 Dec '18

04 Dec '18

We have a G5 (that works) with no mouse or keyboard. It has the power cord and the machine boots to a desktop. It's looking for a home. It's currently at InfoAge and we're not willing to ship. Is anyone local interested? -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry(a)linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies

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Godbout Static (RAM) But Not Lost
by Herb Johnson 04 Dec '18

04 Dec '18

Festivus and old computers reminds me: the VCFed collection includes Compupro computers, possibly some Godbout-branded S-100 cards. It may be relevant to display one in the Museum in December (if there isn't one already), and add a note about his recent passing and the events in California. I've had interest from reporters covering the fire, so it's topical. And Compupro owners who visit the Museum might like to know, and have informative things to say. It's possible the family of Bill Godbout would like to hear of such responses; Evan mentioned he had such contacts. Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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Repair Workshop Signup - January 12 & 13, 2019
by Jeffrey Brace 03 Dec '18

03 Dec '18

Signup here for the next repair workshop: < https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Vhb9sEi7ZjuQ6h_OK0EwCw-rR2xS0yO4N99… > -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President Vintage Computer Federation

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Epic festivus
by Andrew Diller 03 Dec '18

03 Dec '18

> On Dec 3, 2018, at 10:55 PM, Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > In regards to 6502 variations in Atari machines, I found the bookmark detailing the specifics of "Sally", the 6502C: https://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/achsally.html Yeah, Sally was just a 6502 with the ability to halt the CPU via address line. This is beacuse the 8bit ataris all shared memory with the ANTIC chip and for it to read memory and build it's display lists it needs exclusive use of the bus and ram and needed a way to halt the cpu. The Atari CPU spends 40% of it's time halted as ANTIC does it stuff for the screen... think how much faster the systems would be if they just had non-shared ram. Which is exactly what Jay Miner did with the Amiga... -andyD

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Epic festivus
by Herb Johnson 03 Dec '18

03 Dec '18

I certainly enjoyed Festivus this year. About 50 people attended, a big number for the two rooms in use. The donations and trading was quite impressive on both days. Numerous items were examined and repaired on-the-fly, which I always enjoy. My personal "laying on of hands" contributed to a few successful repairs. And of course it's always good to be among my friends and correspondents. Food was tasty and available through Saturday and bits for Sunday also. The grill produced hotdogs and burgers into the evening; and there was pasta too. Of course, lots of sweets including homemade. I took time this year, to look at the Military Vehicle collection at InfoAge. The exhibits are professional and well curated (information and artifacts). They have a surprising number of WW II and later vehicles, particularly Jeeps. And for the train/holiday season, they have a N-gauge military rail loop. About trains: InfoAge includes a model train organization, which exhibits two rooms of trains in operation each December. The exhibits are always fun to see. Model trains use digital technology to manage switches and cars. But there's also a steam-powered model locomotive, in current production, based on a early 20th c. train. But the kids just like the movement and the noise! It's a busy campus, and of course there's not enough time during the Festivus to see all of the organizations there. The holiday and train event, the Vehicle and other exhibits by InfoAge paticipants, of course bring visitors to the VCFed Museum. The Museum operated during the weekend, and looked nice. It's fun to see the Naval computer in operation and hear about progress on it. The EAI analog computer is moving along, I'm told. I look forward to those and other developments next year at the VCFed Museum. Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Epic festivus
by Neil Cherry 03 Dec '18

03 Dec '18

On 12/2/18 5:50 AM, Laura S. Reinhard via vcf-midatlantic wrote: Hi Lausa, did you visit on Saturday. I don't recall meeting you. I did spend a bit of time in the Museum, so I may have missed you. -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry(a)linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies

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PiDP 11
by Bill Degnan 03 Dec '18

03 Dec '18

Anyone other than Bob Flanders and I with the new PiDP-11 kit? Just got mine today. Bill

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