April 2025 - vcf-midatlantic

‘End of an era’: The last RadioShack in Maryland is closing its doors
by Christian Liendo 12 Apr '25

12 Apr '25

https://wtop.com/calvert-county/2025/04/end-of-an-era-the-last-radioshack-i…

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] ‘End of an era’: The last RadioShack in Maryland is closing its doors
by Mike Loewen 11 Apr '25

11 Apr '25

On Fri, 11 Apr 2025, Sentrytv via vcf-midatlantic wrote: > I was told and somebody can correct me if I’m wrong That there is still a > Radioshack privately owned up in Boston I don’t remember where but maybe > somebody could have the details available My cousin owns a Radio Shack in New Holland, PA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU-OYWAh6vw Mike Loewen mloewen(a)cpumagic.scol.pa.us Old Technology http://q7.neurotica.com/Oldtech/

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] MS 50th anniversary
by Jeffrey Jonas 11 Apr '25

11 Apr '25

An exhibitor had the infamous "Letter to Hobbyists" on a high speed paper tape punch, zipping out copies of said BASIC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Open_Letter_to_Hobbyists

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] MS 50th anniversary
by Dean Notarnicola 10 Apr '25

10 Apr '25

Fixed link: https://hackaday.com/2025/04/06/celebrating-30-years-of-windows-95/ On Thu, Apr 10, 2025 at 7:35 PM Alexander Pierson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > I can't take all the credit, that was very much a collaboration between > Katherine and myself. In fact, alot of people seemed to be really > surprised when I told them what we were exhibiting. We had been planning > the concept since some time in 2023 (probably on our road trip to VCFSW), > and doing the prep work for what felt like 6 months. We borrowed equipment > from a number of generous folks because neither of us had suitable working > 90s-era VGA CRTs to use. We also borrowed a Pentium 1 desktop from Glitch, > which ended up being one of the more popular machines. > > It made perfect sense to be placed right next to Bill's excellent > Altair/S-100 exhibit to show just how much had changed in the intervening > 20 years with regards to what Microsoft was programming. > > Seems we got a HaD article for our trouble: > https://hackaday.com/2025/04/06/celebrating-30-years-of-windows-95/ > -Alexander > <https://hackaday.com/2025/04/06/celebrating-30-years-of-windows-95/-Alexand…> > 'Z' Pierson >

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MS 50th anniversary
by Bill Degnan 10 Apr '25

10 Apr '25

Apparently Microsoft is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary. Did VCF East have anything about it this year? Sorry I was not able to attend. Bill

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VCF East 2025: The Verge Video and article
by Jeffrey Brace 10 Apr '25

10 Apr '25

https://youtu.be/4BTxddKZbhA?si=oLVqiQTKrBzQDapc https://www.theverge.com/video/646507/vintage-computer-festival-east-2025 Enjoy! Jeff Brace VCF East Showrunner

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ANONYMOUS SURVEY: VCF EAST 2025
by Jeffrey Brace 09 Apr '25

09 Apr '25

Please take a few minutes to complete this anonymous survey about VCF East 2025. Your feedback is important and helps us in planning the next event. https://bit.ly/vcfe2024post Take care! Jeff Brace VCF East Showrunner

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] VCF East - thanks and suggestions
by Jeffrey Brace 09 Apr '25

09 Apr '25

Bernie, It was great to see you! Thank you for your feedback. In the future, it would be more efficient to e-mail these to vcfeast(a)vcfed.org instead of the public discussion list. On Wed, Apr 9, 2025 at 1:54 AM bernieS via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Thanks to everyone (too many to name!) for another excellent VCF > East. The talks, exhibits, management, and so much more were great. I > have some suggestions: > > Food: Having a decent onsite food vendor with a variety of edibles > for everyone was well-received by many, and it kept people from > leaving the event for food. Their prices were kinda high, but I doubt > we could do much better. More vegetarian food options (veggie > hoagies, veggie burgers?) would be welcome. > It took five years to convince a food truck to be there. We now have the numbers to convince them. We kept the menu options limited so that they would reduce waiting time which was the biggest complaint last year. The prices are reasonable for a food truck and in fact they are lower from their original quote that they gave us. The best thing was that they took care of everything and we were not involved other than turning on fridge, freezer, setting up tables. > > Consignment: Despite some bugs in the Nexopos label-printing system > (which I reported last week; maybe they can be fixed for next year) We will work on bug fixes. > > my overall impression is the larger space with lots of tables and > shelves was way better than before. The space was filled with people > and tons of vintage equipment! Next year having even more tables and > shelving units would be prudent, because word will spread and more We had more tables that we could have used and un-built shelving, but didn't want to make the space too crowded. > > sellers and buyers will come next year. Allowing everyone to look up > what's for sale in Nexopos would be nice, so it would be more like an > Easter egg hunt. > We are working on this. > Preventing items from 'walking away' without being paid for is > We will improve security next year. > > I think it would be good to have a 'public' computer there running > I agree. > Sellers: Not everyone can come to VCF multiple days. I could only > A payout time on Saturday is possible. We will discuss it in our postmortem. Post event survey is coming soon! Jeff Brace

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Anyone in NoVA have a SN76489 IC to sell?
by Ethan O'Toole 09 Apr '25

09 Apr '25

Have an event Friday thru Sunday and looking to source a SN76489 sound IC. Pulled out my old colecovision and no sound from the coleco side. I tested it at the IC pin 7 by feeding that into the RCA audio in on monitor and nada. 2600 VCS adapter audio works fine, futzed with the RF modulator, all that. Going to hit up eStarland around noon and see if they have anything but figured I would ask here. - Ethan

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VCF East - thanks and suggestions
by bernieS 08 Apr '25

08 Apr '25

Thanks to everyone (too many to name!) for another excellent VCF East. The talks, exhibits, management, and so much more were great. I have some suggestions: Food: Having a decent onsite food vendor with a variety of edibles for everyone was well-received by many, and it kept people from leaving the event for food. Their prices were kinda high, but I doubt we could do much better. More vegetarian food options (veggie hoagies, veggie burgers?) would be welcome. Consignment: Despite some bugs in the Nexopos label-printing system (which I reported last week; maybe they can be fixed for next year) my overall impression is the larger space with lots of tables and shelves was way better than before. The space was filled with people and tons of vintage equipment! Next year having even more tables and shelving units would be prudent, because word will spread and more sellers and buyers will come next year. Allowing everyone to look up what's for sale in Nexopos would be nice, so it would be more like an Easter egg hunt. I had a ZEBRA/MOTOROLA TC510K 'walk away'. But an alert and thoughtful consignment staffer noticed it abandoned where buyers line up to pay and he looked up the label info in the system and called my mobile phone to tell me about it. So I was able to come and get it back. Bravo! Preventing items from 'walking away' without being paid for is challenging. Having items checked against a receipt at the exit could work, but would cause a bottleneck and other problems. RFID tags with a de-activator at POS and a sensor/alarm at the exit would be costly, and thieves could simply remove the RFID tag. Maybe some overhead cameras and a DVR could record who's walking out with what for later review. We could have Security volunteers (who don't look like volunteers) walking around covertly watching for 'shrinkage'. I think it would be good to have a 'public' computer there running the Nexpos system for folks to enter items they brought in at the last minute and didn't have time to enter. I brought in my modified Tandy 102 w/TPDD2 drive and a 1974 Commodore RPN calculator at the last minute, but didn't have time to enter them into the system beforehand. Someone asked me, but selling stuff 'under the table' would've deprived VCF of a commission. Speaking of commissions, about how much was earned from Consignment? Sellers: Not everyone can come to VCF multiple days. I could only come Saturday and bringing my items in for consignment that morning was complicated. Later I was told I couldn't be paid for my hundreds of dollars of consignment sales till Sunday--when I'd be 100 miles away. I'd specified 'cash' in the system. There should be a way for sellers to pick up their money at the end of each day, or have a drone or homing pigeon deliver their cash the next day. -bernieS

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