February 2020 - vcf-midatlantic

Re: [vcf-midatlantic] List of 2020 Exhibits
by Bill Degnan 02 Feb '20

02 Feb '20

My wchibit is not listed Bill On Sun, Feb 2, 2020, 4:14 PM Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Exhibitor list has been updated with all the approved exhibits to date. > There are a number we are waiting to hear back from with more details > before listing them, so the list will be updated as we move closer to VCF > East (there’s already another one approved since we updated the site > earlier!) > > > http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/vcf-east-exhib… > > Tony

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] List of 2020 Exhibits
by Tony Bogan 02 Feb '20

02 Feb '20

Exhibitor list has been updated with all the approved exhibits to date. There are a number we are waiting to hear back from with more details before listing them, so the list will be updated as we move closer to VCF East (there’s already another one approved since we updated the site earlier!) http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/vcf-east-exhib… Tony

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Museum Report 2020-02-01
by Jeffrey Brace 02 Feb '20

02 Feb '20

Sending this report out late. We reopened the museum for visitors yesterday (Sat. Feb. 1) and we had about 10 visitors. The steering committee continues to make changes and improvements to the museum. The floor epoxy was finished about a week ago and now we are working on the bedroom exhibit as well as changing out artifacts. Lots of interesting "stuff". Personally I find it exciting all the different changes. -- ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member, VCF East Showrunner Vintage Computer Federation http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org

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Hayes 300bps SmartModem for museum exhbit?
by Herb Johnson 02 Feb '20

02 Feb '20

> Was it the Hayes (internal S100) listed below? Seuss himself just > mentions a "Hayes 300 baud modem card" at: > https://www.chinet.com/html/cbbs.html I know plenty about S-100. I'm pleased to see an opportunity to show in the 21st century that S-100 was (again) a trailblazer in personal computing. The discussion at the linked Web page seems clear to me, that the card referenced was a S-100 product. The people in discussion state that testing was "very early in Feb" of 1978. One can research to see what Hayes products were available on that date. But one Hayes S-100 card I saw today says on the card "1977-1978" The linked discussion is from Randy Suess and - not mentioned here - Ward Christensen. Ward developed a number of early - I'd call legendary - programs which were distributed later by CPMUG and SIG/M in their diskette libraries. Don't forget him. http://www.s100computers.com/Hardware%20Folder/DC%20Hayes/103/103%20Modem.h… shows a Hayes 80-103A modem card and discusses some of its history. The site also shows a Hayes Micromodem-100 and claims it was "second". Another S-100 modem brand was PMMI; the MM-103 is also shown at s100computers.com. Note John Monahan mentioned the Hayes card needed a PMMI coupler. There were probably other brands of S-100 card modems. These cards for various reasons, did not include a "coupler", the device that physically connected to the telephone. That's for historic reasons; look it up. There were several key technologies needed to produce a modem; and a little bit of regulated commerce was involved. They all came together at the time to enable such a product to arise. Of course: the microprocessor computer with mass storage created a need. Yes, there were remote terminals in use and that was a market, but most terminals were wired in or used leased lines. There's other considerations I'm not putting into this simple post; go research late-1970's computing. I was a BSEE and minicomputer system manager at the time, I experienced some of this stuff, and so I'm simply commenting from memory. I find that modern people looking back, think that modems were "natural" even obvious. No, they weren't, they occurred at a point in time for historic reasons. I've suggested a few. It's entirely up to the exhibitors to decide, whether or not to portray that background in their exhibit. regards Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Hayes 300bps SmartModem for museum exhbit?
by Adam Michlin 01 Feb '20

01 Feb '20

Hmm.. this just gets more interesting. I found this: http://software.bbsdocumentary.com/AAA/AAA/CBBS/thoughts.txt Where Ward Christensen thanks the S-100 modem companies: "Oh yes, special thanks to the S-100 modem companies (Hayes, IDS, and PMMI) for really making CBBS practical. We probably wouldn't have tried it with an external modem." And Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayes_Microcomputer_Products> tells me: "Hayes started producing similar products at a "hobby level" in his kitchen in April 1977 with his friend and co-worker, Dale Heatherington. Their first product was the 80-103A, a 300 bit/s Bell 103-compatible design for S-100 bus machines. Business picked up quickly, and in January 1978 they quit their jobs at National Data to form their own company,[2] D.C. Hayes Associates." Furthermore, the Micromodem II for the Apple II came out in 1979. So the very thing that made BBS systems practical caused problems for lay people wishing to connecting to BBSs (especially if they didn't have slots). Enter the SmartModem. So cool. Thinking out loud, we should put the Micromodem II in the Apple II and connect it to one of the S100 machines with an 80-103A! And now I really want an original Bell 101 for the display. We might have to buy a bigger display case <he half jokes>. On 2/1/2020 11:39 AM, Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > That was the modem I mentioned as my assumption of what you wanted, but I only have the later Apple II internal modem with the external microcoupler. S100 stuff was not a thing i dealt with in my small corner of the world. > > Tony > >>> I'm learning more and more. Since the exhibit is primarily motivated to >>> honor CBBS and the passing of Randy Seuss, I'm doing some research on >>> the modem originally used for CBBS. >>> >>> Was it the Hayes (internal S100) listed below? Seuss himself just >>> mentions a "Hayes 300 baud modem card"

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] List of 2020 Exhibits
by Mike Loewen 01 Feb '20

01 Feb '20

On Fri Jan 24 14:10:58 EST 2020, Tony Bogan wrote: > Yes, the list definitely needs to be updated (and the entire website section > for VCF East) > > It is slated to be updated after the workshop this weekend. Since we just > had a flurry of classes, speakers and exhibits sign up over the past 5 or 6 > days, we decided to meet at the workshop tomorrow and go over everything > before doing the next update. As you well know, everyone that wants to do an > exhibit isn't automatically approved, so it’s never been done in real time. > (Although maybe we will let some Pentium based exhibits in this year ;-) Any progress on the current exhibit list? Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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