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ENIAC 75th Anniversary Celebration
by Brian L. Stuart 11 Feb '21

11 Feb '21

This evening begins a series of events celebrating the 75th anniversary of the unveiling of the ENIAC at the University of Pennsylvania. On the 11th and 18th, the Philadelphia Venture Cafe will be hosting virtual round tables with a number of us who have some connection to the ENIAC and Philadelphia technology. Included among the people present will be: - Bill Mauchly and Chris Eckert, sons of the ENIAC creators - Bill Mensch, part of the 6502 engineering team - Kathy Kleiman, producer of the ENIAC programmers documentary (And yes, I'll be there for anyone who wants to get nerdy and talk about the technical aspects of the machine and its programming.) Monday, the 15th is the day of the anniversary, and there will be a full day of webcasting. Starting at 10:30 EST, UPenn will be holding a mini-symposium in recognition of the ENIAC. Then at 3:30 EST, Unisys will be webcasting an ENIAC celebration video that includes a number of panel discussions, as well as clips from early newsreels, and happy birthday wishes from the various locations housing ENIAC artifacts. More details and links to all the events can be found here: http://www.eniacday.org/events/ BLS

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Amiga (Classic) BBS Terminal Program Questions
by John Heritage 11 Feb '21

11 Feb '21

Dear VCF, I was a long time BBSer on the Atari 8bit, Atari ST, and then later PC until the mid 1990s; I had occasionally dialed Amiga BBSes from the PC but never actually used an Amiga to dial out to a BBS. I was curious: - What are some recommended Amiga terminal programs (A-Term, Termite, etc?) for use on Amiga OCS that people have used back in the day? - Can Amiga OCS handle 80 columns and 16 color ANSI? (It was always disappointing the Atari ST could not..) Any serious serial port speed restrictions in this mode? - What terminal program would do 80 column + full color ANSI, and also be good for file transfers (Ymodem-G, ZModem) for example? - Bonus: Did anyone write any terminal programs for the Amiga that display ATASCII graphics from an Atari 8bit BBS? :) I will actually be using an Amiga 1200 for messing around but would like to see what the 'authentic' experience was like back in the day. Thanks! John

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Stickers Please Re: 2021 Event T-Shirts
by Michael Brutman 09 Feb '21

09 Feb '21

The stickers were returned to NJ along with the unsold 2020 shirts when I left the national board. I am particularly proud of them; two out of three were my design. The t-shirt was my design too. I had a great year as a graphic designer. ;) On Mon, Feb 8, 2021, 6:15 AM Sentry TV via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Jeff > At the next workshop, I would not mind laying out some money for a shirt > and stickers if available. > Mike Rosen > > On Monday, February 8, 2021, 08:49:51 AM EST, Jeffrey Brace via > vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 8:07 AM Christian Liendo via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > Whatever happened to the stickers idea? > > > > We had some stickers done for VCF PNW back in March 2020. I will have to > see if we got those back over here in NJ. This is something that I will > think about and work on as I make plans for VCF East 2020 and or the Swap > Meet in April. > > > > > > I know there was some discussion but I don't know what happened? > > > > Covid-19 happened. We had put out a survey of 10 sticker designs and I > believe we took the top 3 and made them. We were going to sell at VCF PNW, > which was cancelled and then VCF West and East went virtual so there was no > opportunity to sell in-person and it wasn't practical to sell online at the > time. I have to check in the boxes of stuff that was shipped back to NJ > from Seattle to see if the stickers were included in the shipment. We had > the swap meet in November, but the stickers and the 2020 t-shirts were in > Seattle at the time. The swap meet was quickly arranged and it was our > first one so there was little time to plan. We will have the VCF 2019 and > remaining VCF 2020 t-shirts for the next Swap Meet April 24 (with rain date > of April 25). Keep in mind there is limited sizes for the t-shirts, they > are just leftovers that didn't sell before. We don't plan on printing new > ones for the swap meet at this time. Also we have plenty of VCF polos in > every size available. > > We also don't want to get too many of any particular swag before we have an > idea of how well they will sell in-person. We have been brainstorming for a > while about what kind of swag will sell or not sell. We will often try it > out with a small quantity to see what will sell before scaling up or buying > more for the next year. I know with East from 2019 there was a lot of > interest in swag of all kinds and we sold out of many items that sat around > not selling for a while from previous shows. It's always difficult to gauge > what will interest people. We had coffee cups made for VCF West and PNW and > very few sold and sat around for 2 or 3 years and then at East 2019 every > single one sold out. > > > > > > On Sat, Feb 6, 2021 at 10:56 AM Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic > > <vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > > > > Hi Everyone, > > > > > > With the news that VCF East has been postponed to the Fall, we are > > > able to move forward with one of many projects to give members more > > > input into the day to day running of VCF. > > > > > > To that end, we're going to try a new approach to designing the T > > > Shirts. For those who may not know, we design one t-shirt for all > > > events in the year (VCF East, VCF West, and, historically, VCF Pacific > > > Northwest). > > > > > > >

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Univac Demo
by Duane Craps 08 Feb '21

08 Feb '21

Woo Hoo Bill Dromgoole's UNIVAC Demo Has 1000 views in the first week UNIVAC 2021 Update - Full Boot and Diagnostic - YouTube <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_d1QbeiOu0> - DuaneCraps sdɐɹɔ ǝuɐnp

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Altair 680/Dan Roganti
by Dave McGuire 07 Feb '21

07 Feb '21

I'm trying to find out what happened to Dan's Altair 680. Does anyone here have it, or know anything about it? Please contact me off-list if so. Thanks, -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA

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Tomorrow is Bring Your Atari to Work Day
by Andrew Diller 07 Feb '21

07 Feb '21

And take a photo and submit it at RetoBattleStations on Reddit! February 7: Bring Your Atari to Work Day <https://twitter.com/benjedwards/status/1225782929282027520> (observed Monday February 8) https://old.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/laiwqb/calendar_of_up… <https://old.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/comments/laiwqb/calendar_of_up…> With WFH still going on for some of us this should be a piece of cake. Submit away. -andy

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Super Sketch drawing tablet for Commodore 64
by David K 07 Feb '21

07 Feb '21

I recently bought a Super Sketch drawing tablet for the C64 from eBay. I was surprised by how sophisticated it was and how much fun I had trying it out. I have a video about it on YouTube that features: -unboxing of the tablet and all the extras that were included -a demonstration of drawing and the many other functions (2:57) -a look inside at how it works (21:20) My question is about the last part; about how it works. When I opened up the drawing tablet there were two, what I believe to be, linear potentiometers. Since the tablet plugs into the joystick port I was surprised that the C64 could "read" the potentiometers. There was not an IC (?) in the tablet itself but when I opened up the plug there was indeed an IC that I assume converted the variable voltage of the potentiometers into something the C64 could read. If anyone has feedback on whether I got this right and whether this was a unique feature I would appreciate it. The link to the video is: https://youtu.be/pLvQVJhRx2o. If that gets scrubbed you can likely search "Super Sketch vintage drawing tablet for Commodore 64 - also made for TI-99 / 4A and Atari 800 XL" to find it. Interestingly I had initially bought another Super Sketch on eBay that said it was for the C64 but when I received it the plug was not correct (which is why I bought the second one). Interestingly the non-C64 tablet has different circuitry in it and does not have the IC in the plug or anywhere else. So any help with this is appreciated. David K

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Repair Workshop on March 6, 7, 2021
by Jeffrey Brace 07 Feb '21

07 Feb '21

Our next repair workshop will be March 6 & 7, 2021 Signup here: March Repair Workshop Signup Sheet <https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XE6z0-LwO77hg7BIhphhP6eSjbo5AhJ5Jdc…> Jeff Brace ========================================= Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

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VCF East 2021 rescheduled
by Jeffrey Brace 07 Feb '21

07 Feb '21

Hello everyone, I hope that everyone is safe, healthy and still able to enjoy our vintage computer hobby these days. As you can see Covid-19 persists across the country and vaccines are not yet at the levels that we want them to be. Large crowds will not be possible in April and likely not be for at least a few months. So I am rescheduling VCF East to our backup date of October 8, 9 & 10, 2021. I'm hoping that 8 months from now we will be in a place where we can have an in-person event. I will make a final decision by August 1 whether we will stay in-person or go virtual. I will be starting to make plans for this event with the hope that we will have an in-person event. Take care everyone, be safe, and be well! Jeff Brace ========================================= Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

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Snow and Repair Workshop this weekend
by Jeffrey Brace 05 Feb '21

05 Feb '21

So the forecast is for snow to start around 4AM Sunday morning and get heavier around 2PM. For those traveling far, I advise either leaving Saturday night or after breakfast Sunday morning. We are expected to get 6 to 8 inches in our area during Sunday. Jeff Brace ========================================= Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey(a)vcfed.org cell: 732-759-1783

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