- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

BBS the documentary is free to download
by Jeffrey Jonas 16 Dec '25

16 Dec '25

BBS the documentary is free to download! The Wikipedia overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBS:_The_Documentary the web page: http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/ http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/order/ the 3 image files: https://archive.org/download/BBS_Documentary_DVD_Set/BBS%20Documentary%20Di… https://archive.org/download/BBS_Documentary_DVD_Set/BBS%20Documentary%20Di… https://archive.org/download/BBS_Documentary_DVD_Set/BBS%20Documentary%20Di…

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OT: Anyone working/playing with AI professionally?
by Herbert Johnson 16 Dec '25

16 Dec '25

> Code and enjoy the actual results of what you want and need, not the arcane creation of it. If you say "i enjoy the creation of it" then stop reading here and go fuzt around and enjoy your own thing. I want the results of the programming, i.e. the program! - Andrew Diller No criticism, but my understanding of what you are saying, is that these AI tools are turning "craft" into "production". That's not a bad thing for those consuming the production, or profiting from it. Not so good a thing for the crafters, except for those who go into production, or those who do very-custom work. If I'm correct, the more fitting analogy would not be "printing press" - that automated printing, scaled up production of texts. AI coding is about automating content (re)creation. Consider textiles. Automated cloth production changed clothing into a commodity and also made patterns easy to produce and change; and yet crafted clothing is still valued. So in a way, cheaper/better cloth supported more tailoring and design jobs, sales support, etc. So we'll see how far up the food-chain that AI coding will eat jobs, careers. Will the AI's "pull up the ladder" of learning to code, by eliminating what amounted to on-the-job training? An ironic comparison might be with shoemaking, as in the history of "saboteurs". People already mess with AI training to confuse and misdirect the models. But sometimes the models misdirect us, "we become the product" as suggested before. Just to add some vintage computing relevance. Consider how vintage computing advanced as various parts of computer production were automated, or made standard/regularized. Standard logic chips (RTL, DTL, TTL, CMOS), common microprocessor brands/models. Certainly building blocks like memory chips and modules. "the IBM PC" became a templates computer design down to bus and modules in the X86 architecture. S-100 worked across platforms. all these, made it easier to design products, and brought prices down to increase the customer base. Applications followed. Arduino (the IDE, the library, the flavor of C used) allowed fairly ordinary techies to build embedded applications just for fun, on ever-cheaper little ARM boards (discarded cell-phone system-on-chips). Further back: regularized high-level languages versus assembly language. Those were technical achievements in their time, to have computers run programs that could process "conversational" logic statements and produce machine codes based on standardized and tested libraries of functions, interfaces, calls to operating systems. another vintage thought. some of this AI stuff will (maybe has) become "vintage" computing, things people remember using, designing, producing, selling. Might be fun to come up with example vintage AI technologies, as things and codes to save, restore, display. I'll stop with that suggestion, that seems the most productive idea I've mentioned. Regards Herb Johnson -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey USA https://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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VCF East Vendor Registration Starts Wed. Dec. 17
by Jeffrey Brace 15 Dec '25

15 Dec '25

Look here for the link on Wednesday! Take care! Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President VCF East Showrunner VCF Fundraising Manager VCF Evangelist Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/>

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VCF East Exhibit Registration starts Wed. Dec. 17
by Jeffrey Brace 15 Dec '25

15 Dec '25

Sorry for the delay. I wanted to make sure all the changes were correct and accurate. Look for it here and around the interwebs! Take care! Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President VCF East Showrunner VCF Fundraising Manager VCF Evangelist Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/>

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Breaking down Festivus, any helpers?
by Ian Litchfield 14 Dec '25

14 Dec '25

Joe, I get your frustration on this, but blasting the mailing list to call people out the day after the party is not the way to go about. I’ll be honest I had zero intentions of showing up the next day, I was not a volunteer. I did not reach out to do such. I only came to attend in the allotted time on saturday, and have fun and I did. I want to thank you for those who worked to plan this event, setup, and break down. But I agree that others were not properly informed that breakdown would happen at 9am. Many of us are over an hour away, and not everyone has a vehicle that up to the task of driving through snow and slush. You can’t fault anyone for “the roads” not being ‘bad’ because I assure you I have a picture that cannot be sent on this mailing list due to technical restrictions, that not every town was plowed by 10am. We ended up getting snowed in this morning. I’m going to be really honest the whole issue of a lack of communication and the constant finger pointing and blaming is one of the reasons why I rarely show up anymore… I hope everyone who came had a festivus! -Ian L.

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Breaking down Festivus, any helpers?
by Joseph Giliberti 14 Dec '25

14 Dec '25

I know it was discussed at the town hall that people need to step up more often to help out. Why is it that Jeff and I are the only ones cleaning up today? The roads aren't that bad. No one should have needed advance notice that we would need to clean up after the party. Come on, people!

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Missing TV
by Joseph Giliberti 14 Dec '25

14 Dec '25

There was an Apex brand 20 inch TV that I had set up for Festivus games that has disappeared. Not to sound disrespectful, but WTF???

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Festivus entry Sat. Dec. 13 starting at 10AM
by Jeffrey Brace 14 Dec '25

14 Dec '25

The door will be closed, but you can pull it open to get in. NO CODE NEEDED. Take care! Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President VCF East Showrunner VCF Fundraising Manager VCF Evangelist Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/> <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> Virus-free.www.avast.com <https://www.avast.com/sig-email?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campai…> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2>

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Breaking down Festivus, any helpers?
by Connor Krukosky 14 Dec '25

14 Dec '25

Joe, What was discussed was the lack of communication from event runners letting people know ahead of time what responsibilities need to be covered by helpers and volunteers. Many people involved in this org for 10+ years have stepped up, worked hard, and done a lot. We would show up, someone would say “hey can anyone help with setting up tables” and we would. But over the last few years we’ve showed up. Seen people working, ask if we can help, and get confused “I don’t know, you’d have to ask someone in charge.” Etc. The roads aren’t too bad, I agree, but some people have multiple hour drives to airports to catch a plane home. Some people have multiple hour drives home, etc. We used to stay on site and plan to stay longer. But most of us can’t justify $400~ for multiple nights of hotels to show up a night early and stay an extra night after. Also announcements about asking for help the day of or day before or day after while people are driving is not enough heads up. You need to be discussing this when the event is announced. I am looking back now, the original announcement in May for Festivus was just saying it’s December 13th. I had it on my calendar, I had plans to be here one day. Then a few weeks before I see the second announcement in November also saying Saturday only, no overnight stays, only event is 6pm town hall. Then a million links, which now looking closer I do see the volunteer sign up sheet near the bottom which is the only thing mentioning Friday and Sunday. And I see zero people put their name on there, meaning I was probably not the only person who didn’t see it. Either way please speak to the volunteers who owe this org nothing, which includes yourself, with more respect. You and everyone who helps no matter how little they do deserves recognition and respect. -Connor K > On Dec 14, 2025, at 11:01 AM, Joseph Giliberti via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > I know it was discussed at the town hall that people need to step up more > often to help out. Why is it that Jeff and I are the only ones cleaning up > today? The roads aren't that bad. No one should have needed advance notice > that we would need to clean up after the party. Come on, people!

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Festivus Breakfast at Diner
by Jeffrey Brace 14 Dec '25

14 Dec '25

Tomorrow Sat at 9AM at Blue Swan. See you there! Take care! Jeff Brace VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President VCF East Showrunner VCF Fundraising Manager VCF Evangelist Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity https://vcfed.org/ <http://www.vcfed.org/>

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