April 2022 - vcf-midatlantic

Has anyone thought of the VCFED hosting a Mastodon instance?
by Dan FitzGerald 28 Apr '22

28 Apr '22

Look, I know that this probably going nowhere, but there is currently an interest in people posting to something other than Twitter because of Elon Musk. I've been on Mastodon for a couple of years, and it has its flaws, but a VCFED Mastodon instance wouldn't be the worst idea on the planet. One of the flaws with Mastodon is that its like Twitter if it was open-protocol and made up of clusters of special interest groups. If we had a VCFED Mastodon open only to members of VCFED (we could make membership to this mailing list a prereq to joining the instance), then the instance's local timeline would be full of posts from this community. As opposed to the tech.lgbt instance I am on, where the local timeline are just a bunch of people that happen to be queer like me... I feel like a timeline full of folks I just spent three days sharing an exhibit hall with would be more of an actual community. Regards, Dan FitzGerald They/Them/Theirs http://www.vm.ibm.com/devpages/dfitzger

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Apple II Classroom - Thank you and a challenge
by Adam Michlin 27 Apr '22

27 Apr '22

Hi Everyone, On behalf of Tony Bogan, Javier Rivera, Stephen Edwards, Dean Notarnicola and myself, we would like to thank everyone for making the Apple II Classroom such a wonderful success. Almost every class was overflowing all three days! We have all talked and would like to publicly challenge the Commodore community to create a Commodore classroom at VCF East 2023! Best wishes, -Adam

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My VCF East 2022 Polaroids are online
by Dan FitzGerald 27 Apr '22

27 Apr '22

Here ya go, there's eight of them and one of my cat. Cheers! https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjzMkYL id="-x-evo-selection-start-marker"> Regards, Dan FitzGerald They/Them/Theirs http://www.vm.ibm.com/devpages/dfitzger

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Replacing keyswitches on a Macintosh Plus keyboard
by Herb Johnson 27 Apr '22

27 Apr '22

Dan FitzGerald: > that the keyboard was still plugged into my Mac 512Ke, and it fell of > the desk and the top rightmost keyswitches ('/' and '*') snapped. The OK, I can help you but you have to help me. The M0110A keyboard for the Plus and 512KE has a numeric keypad on the right with the keycaps you describe. The M0110 "short" keyboard for the 128K and 512K does not. Point one: you have the long keyboard right? https://deskthority.net/wiki/Apple_M0110A Point two: there's no "standards" when it comes to keyboards, OK? Brand, model, where it was built, when it was built - those come into play. For expediency, I'll just ask you identifying questions. A) what color is the broken *keystem*? Creamy white? Ivory white? Black? b) what color is the *keycap*? Grey/platinum or brown/tan/beige? I can likely supply you at InfoAge, keyswitch and keycaps on Saturday to you in hand, if you inform me before Friday midnight. OK? Plan B: I find out Saturday and provide parts Sunday. With parts in hand you can visit with Jon Chapman at the CDL lab at InfoAge and repair the keyboard in some short period of time. Please reply privately to me so we can work this. 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 comcast DOT net -- 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 comcast DOT net

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Vintage Computer Festival -- Happy 25th - 2022
by Andrew Diller 26 Apr '22

26 Apr '22

This year is the 25th anniversary of the Vintage Computer Festival The very first one was held on October 26-27, 1997, at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton, California. More information will be forth coming as I continue my research about the history and formation of VCF (the Festival _and_ the Federation). I'm imagining that West may emphasis the anniversary since that is were it all began. -andy

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2022 VCFE AV Thanks and notes!
by Ethan O'Toole 26 Apr '22

26 Apr '22

Much thanks to people who helped out with the AV stuff this year. In no specific order, Shawn Holtom, Ben Dressler, Reggie Waters, Jason Perkins, Glitch and anyone I might of forgotten by accident (still recovering from the weekend!) Thanks to MAGFest for letting us borrow the pipe and drape system used behind stage and the ellipsoidal spotlights. A VCFE 2022 AV system diagram for those curious (95% accurate): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1szUFTQiNCdlRVvHh58kI6bYRSK-ARHJm/view?usp=…

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My Commodore Classroom story
by Kelly Leavitt 26 Apr '22

26 Apr '22

Back in 1982, as I was going into my junior year of high school, I moved to a new school district in rural New Jersey. The one I moved from (Vernon Township) had one Apple II plus computer and a link to an HP9000 time share using paper ttys. That was it for their computer program. The one I move too (High Point Regional High School) had a very different setup. They had just moved from independent TRS-80 model III computers to a new room of twelve Commodore Super Pet 9000s with shared 8050 disk drives. They were offering a BASIC class for interested students. Since I had been programming in BASIC since 1980 (that's a separate story*), they let me test out of that and then do an independent study of Pascal. What I actually did was mess around with peek, poke and what little assembly I knew while learning just enough Pascal on my own. The Super Pet 9000 is well documented at the following two sites: http://zimmers.net/cbmpics/csp9000.html and http://www.6502.org/users/andre/petindex/superpet.html I never hear too much about these setups but this is what I had to work with. I'd be happy to help out with a PET classroom, but I don't have any PET 9000s. Kelly PS * Separate story on how I got involved with computers in the first place... I was playing PeeWee football. Through a freak tackle I ended up breaking my kneecap at the end of 7th grade. I was on crutches and then rehab for two years. They had nothing to do with me for the required PE class. However, the school had just gotten a grant for an Apple II plus. They asked me if I wanted to learn about it, so I did. I sat in the equivalent of a closet for two years reading about the Apple II and basic programming. Funny how my first two computers were NOT TRS-80s but that's what I like the most.

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VCF East 2022 Wrap-up
by Jeffrey Brace 26 Apr '22

26 Apr '22

Hello everyone, VCF East 2022 was a great success! Initial reports indicate that financially we recouped our large expenses this year. Everyone that I ran into seemed very pleased with all aspects of the show and thanked me for all my hardwork and dedication for making this show great. The talks were diverse and top notch, the consignment was very profitable and great treasures to be found, the food on site was appreciated, the exhibits were incredibly exciting, lots of cool VCF Swag to be bought and the comradery was fun. I want to thank everyone who volunteered and helped me with the planning, setup and breakdown of the show. I spent countless hours planning for this show over the weeks and months before the show. Despite the huge amount of time and dedication that I put into this show by myself, I would not be able to make this show happen without the volunteers. The quality of the show has been improved due to the volunteers such as the Sea Cadets and all the individuals who made my job easier and improved the quality of the show overall. For me, this is a part time job in the months leading up to this show and a full time job the week before the show. I want to thank Bill and Rick who helped me plan for hours every week ahead of the show. Bill is my right hand man who helps set up the signs, docenting at the museum and with anything that I need, before, during and after the show. Rick helped with the planning and the survey as well as setup, docent duty and breakdown after the show. The Sea Cadets were incredibly helpful with crowd management and helping in all areas of the show. I want to thank Alex for organizing the volunteers and running the consignment. They brought consignment up to a new level with a Point of Sale System, setting up storage carts for a less crowded room, labeling for items, spreadsheet inventory and many other tweaks. Thanks to Corey for running the front desk, helping with setup and breakdown of it. I felt relaxed to know that he would have everything running there smoothly. Jason was great in setting up the tables, managing the exhibitors and for making the campus map as well as Lawson for making the exhibitor map. Ethan O and crew for bringing the A/V to an even higher level of professionalism. They were so good last year, but were even better this year! Thanks to Adam and Tony for setup and teaching and all the instructors for doing the Apple 2 classroom. It was very successful. Glitch had another incredible workshop and adjusted nicely due to lack of kits by making it an S-100 repair workshop. Chris L for helping where I needed at the front gate, breakdown, etc. Chris F for being the speaker coordinator and all the other people who helped with the day before, during and after the show. I was very glad to be able to go home "early" on Sunday by 10PM due to help with breakdown. I'm usually there until 2AM and come back Monday for several hours to clean up. Thanks to all the great speakers for such diverse, interesting and enjoyable talks. Thanks especially to Bil Herd for wrangling 12 Commodore speakers together in one spot. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity to see so many of them in one spot. Thanks to all the Commodorians who came. You will never see this happen again. Thanks to Burger Becky for such incredible talks. Thanks to Kathy Kleiman for a fun interactive talk. Thanks to Stephen Edwards for moderating the technical talks with the Commodore folks. Thanks to all the in-person and virtual speakers who had diverse and fun talks. All the steamed talks were made private so that we have a chance to clean up the videos and release them as separate talks. We need some time to edit and process them before releasing them. Our next year's show will be April 14, 15 and 16, 2023 back at InfoAge. There will be two themes for this show. The first is: Computing in Education. The second theme will be announced shortly. I hope to see everyone again next year for an incredibly fantastic show! Jeff Brace Showrunner for Vintage Computer Festival East

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The Commodore panels were off the hook.
by Christian Liendo 26 Apr '22

26 Apr '22

I'm sorry for singling out those panels. For me, those Commodore panels were amazing. They were something we wish we had when Commodore was around and had to wait 40 years. I don't know how to properly thank Bil Herd in getting all those people there. But that was a historical moment that I predict people will be talking about for a while. I have a lot of good Vintage Computer Fest Stories and this will go with them, I got to learn a lot of great trivia and met a lot of good people. Also it was great to see all the people I know.

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Green Modem/Phone in consignment
by Jeff S 25 Apr '22

25 Apr '22

Didn't Connor buy that at a discount in the last hour or two? On Mon, Apr 25, 2022, 1:29 PM Jeffrey Golas via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Does anyone know if the green modem/RCA phone pair that were on the first > table sold at all? (AlexJ would prob know but I dont have his contact info) > > Jeff

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