- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

About that previous message concerning NJ Transit
by Gregg Levine 29 Apr '22

29 Apr '22

Hello! I believe group I was a little rude regarding the bollixed NJ Transit schedule. According to them, the reason why my train for last weekend was deleted was for their work on a bridge. And of course they completely forgot that they were still showing only last year's schedules everywhere. Anyway based, on what I normally work on, I've decided that unless circumstances change, I won't be at the next scheduled repair weekend for NJ. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

3 2

NJ Transit schedules mixup
by Gregg Levine 28 Apr '22

28 Apr '22

Hello! I am now aware that NJ Transit has gone ahead and created schedules that still do not make sense. For example they show a PDF for 3/26/2020 schedule that contains information I would have used to work out how to get to Belmar and then to Infoage for VCF East last week that would have gotten me there on time. And if that schedule was available in hardcopy last week. Then they still had the ones up from the last part of last year. So as of today Thursday, unless circumstances change that confirm I should be where InfoAge and the CDL location is on the weekend, I am still off for the coming one in July there. ----- Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8(a)gmail.com "This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."

1 0

Great Commodore Related moments for me at VCF 2022,
by Christian Liendo 28 Apr '22

28 Apr '22

I wanted to share some great moments for me from VCF 2022. I owned a C64, Amiga 500, Amiga 2000 and Amiga 3000, I worked in an Amiga only store and I worked on their ad campaign. So for me this was a big deal. Where do I start? Albert Charpentier was sitting in the small couch area in building 9010D and he was talking about his history and what he did at Commodore. Why he designed what he did and what he did afterwards. It was wonderful. Some small tidbits: He designed the VIC because he liked video games. I thought that was a great bit of trivia. He wanted to make a "Commodore 80" and he wanted to use an Intel Chip. He never heard of the C64 being called the "VW Beetle" of computers and was surprised with all the people making clones. He knew the VIC-20 and C64 were big sellers but didn't seem to realize the impact to so many people. I have to say, the staff from Commodore really don't know how much of an impact their work did. Later on I took him to see the Univac and he was very impressed. He was also impressed by the PDP-8. He had worked on a PDP-8 at one time and was surprised to see one At the Commodore Panel Hedley Davis admitted they didn't like the look of the Amiga 2000. Personally I like the A2000 case but they explained that the A3000 was an aesthetic choice. I also didn't know about the joystick design issue they had. I also realized I want to buy Andy Finkel's shirt collection.

6 8

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

14 19

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

7 9

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

2 1

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

2 1

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

1 0

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=…

2 1

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.

2 1