- vcf-midatlantic - lists.vcfed.org

Commodore 64 floppy disk exerciser
by Jeffrey Jonas 04 Nov '24

04 Nov '24

Someone brought a Commodore 64 diagnostic cartridge to a VCF workshop, long long ago, that did thorough floppy diagnostics: formatted a disk, checked RPM, seek times, etc. What was the cartridge and would you please bring it to an upcoming event? I need to qualify some drives I have. Thanks. -- jeff jonas

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clean old antistatic foam off IC pins?
by Matt Reynolds 01 Nov '24

01 Nov '24

Hi, Do any of you have any information on what is considered the best/most appropriate way to clean off petrified antistatic foam off of IC pins? I have come across some vintage ICs I want to save and try to sell to finance other parts of my hobby. These particular ones are gold plated, but that said, some of them have been corroded through regardless, while some are just ugly looking. I've been using IPA, drafting eraser, and Xacto knife to clean the majority of the crud off, but very few of the pins are looking particularly shiny. I don't want to get too aggressive and break more pins off, but they don't look all that great at the moment. Matt R

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] clean old antistatic foam off IC pins?
by Matt Reynolds 01 Nov '24

01 Nov '24

ooh, good idea. I'll give that a shot. Thanks, Matt On Fri, Nov 1, 2024 at 3:49 PM Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > I’ve used a fiberglass pencil to clean the pins on ICs. Have not dealt > with gold plated ones myself so I cannot speak to them. > > Tony Bogan > > > > On Nov 1, 2024, at 3:45 PM, Matt Reynolds via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > > Hi, > > > > Do any of you have any information on what is considered the best/most > > appropriate way to clean off petrified antistatic foam off of IC pins? I > > have come across some vintage ICs I want to save and try to sell to > finance > > other parts of my hobby. These particular ones are gold plated, but that > > said, some of them have been corroded through regardless, while some are > > just ugly looking. > > > > I've been using IPA, drafting eraser, and Xacto knife to clean the > majority > > of the crud off, but very few of the pins are looking particularly shiny. > > I don't want to get too aggressive and break more pins off, but they > don't > > look all that great at the moment. > > > > Matt R >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] we ARE a club, a group of really good friends
by Jeffrey Jonas 31 Oct '24

31 Oct '24

Ian Litchfield: > We have not really acted as a club in a long time I am active with MARCH/VCF/Infoage because of all the good people I consider friends. The camaraderie of every workshop should be proof enough, particularly Ian Primus giving each and every CRT the TLC they richly deserve, Jeff Salzman's tower-of-power toolkit and traveling Radio Shack (ever since Jeff Galinat moved away), and others I cannot remember fast enough. I traded gifts at the Swap Meet, and folks were extremely generous with helping me with spare PCs to help my neighbors. We're an effective and focused bunch of folks, and mighty friendly to boot! -- Jeffrey Jonas

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Announcement: Administrative and Policy Changes
by Bill Degnan 30 Oct '24

30 Oct '24

Originally we said "Mid-Atlantic", our loose focus was NY, NJ, PA, DE, NJ, MD, Washington DC, VA. But we excluded no one, and invited everyone to all events. Statistically, you're going to get people who live closer. We had events in State College PA, Trenton, Wilmington and wherever it was Bryan lived in South Jersey before we moved into the Wall NJ location. We would advertise on our yahoo mailing list and the volume of messages there was huge. I remember we had over 10,000 messages before we moved the mailing list to the current format. Lots of history there if anyone has this. Bill

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Announcement: Administrative and Policy Changes
by Thomas G 30 Oct '24

30 Oct '24

If we're talking legal ownership... a significant portion of the collection has been 'tainted' by artifacts owned by Infoage (namely the Grabbe collection, or a *portion of* the Grabbe collection) which have mingled with the MARCH/VCFed collection for years. Many details regarding this have only resurfaced recently (as in the past year, though several long-time members have always known some portion of the details) and it's been something of a massive headache to untangle, especially given the lack of a unified inventory for the past 19 years of acquisitions - I've found a few spreadsheets with no more than a few dozen items each, at most, which is nowhere near the thousands of individual artifacts which are now (or were in the past) within the warehouse/collection. It has taken me many, many hours of research, digging, and questioning to identify as much of the Grabbe collection as I have thus far - which could be anywhere between 15% and 75% of the total. There are other Infoage artifacts and collections mixed in - for instance, an entire "ready-to-run" Amdahl mainframe was donated to Infoage by AT&T in 1997. Aside from the 4705 communications processor, which was scrapped over a decade ago, much of the system is still present - but I have no way of knowing just *how* *much* of it is still here because I have no list of items, no photographs of the system as donated, and wide gaps in the admittedly threadbare timeline I have been able to put together for the machine's life since it was donated. Until recently, a number of long-time members believed the entire system to have been scrapped! Until all of these details can be worked out, it is potentially dangerous to assume that everything belongs to VCFed. We are a chapter of VCF, meaning that anything that we own is by extension owned by VCF anyways - but without a formal accessioning policy, the line between 'inventory' and 'collection' doesn't exist, and ownership can remain up in the air. Many recent acquisitions were collected using money from Mid-Atlantic's budget that was itself obtained directly through Mid-Atlantic's own fundraising - an argument can be made that, for such artifacts, VCFed may own them *through* us, but not directly, for whatever difference that even makes. These things need to be defined in writing, not in verbal agreements. Trying to hammer out a formal collections policy - which I have taken on as my personal responsibility - has been severely complicated by the fact that there is no simple answer to the question "what is the collection?" as I've described above, but I'm slowly getting there. And, frankly, the blaring priority as of late has been to address the physical maintenance of the warehouse itself, which we are unquestionably responsible for... alongside Infoage... and Wall township... and, apparently, the Army. Many strange revelations as of late. Feel free to contact me off-list (thomas.gilinsky(a)vcfed.org) if you'd like to directly clarify anything to me regarding how the details of the collection have been argued - I can always use the info! On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 1:06 PM Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Functionally doesn’t change the fact that VCF MA (did we suddenly decide > now it’s MARCH without any further discussion? I want MACE seriously > considered :-) does not own or have any rights to the collection. This was > made abundantly clear to those of us that created the 501c in the first > place almost 10 years ago. > > Additionally, what was originally intended doesn’t change the fact you > just stated. Namely that most of the money comes from National and has > since the start. > > Just trying to keep the discussion real and on point as a lack of > information has been a problem since the start as vid ever by this very > discussion. > > There have been numerous discussions over the years about the collection, > who owns it, what is to be done with it, how it should be managed etc etc. > as well as questions raised by those who have donated or who reached out to > us for a rescue. > > Knowing the potential legal issues that could arise if ever there was an > issue, these are important things to not o ly keep in the discussion but > accurately disseminate to the membership. > > The computers and artifacts are not the property of VCF MA, MARCH or even > MAACE :-) :-) > > Functionality not withstanding. > > I’ve deleted the rest of my response. > > Tony Bogan > > > > > On Oct 29, 2024, at 12:54 PM, RETRO Innovations via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > > > > <mime-attachment> >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Announcement: Administrative and Policy Changes
by Jeff Salzman 30 Oct '24

30 Oct '24

December 14 and 15 at InfoAge On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 11:44 PM bob jeffway.com via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > Well, some good points! > Reminds me, when is Festivus?? I want to come this year! > >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Announcement: Administrative and Policy Changes
by Ian Litchfield 30 Oct '24

30 Oct '24

Regardless of what we call ourselves. The elephant in the room here is still apparent, and this is my opinion (I am sure many have seen it as well.) We have not really acted as a club in a long time. Besides Festivus, when is the last time we did anything club like? People show up to the Swap and leave immediately after many ignoring our post event workshops. The same 5 or so people show up to workshops monthly, barring the one right before VCF East which always has a higher turnout. Very few newcomers appear to stick around, and if they do they just lurk. How many are registered in the list again? Hell it took me about a year to figure out how to even “join” the club because no information was out about how to get involved. I was told to talk to someone and wait for a phone call, which took over 6 months to come in. >From what I have gathered, we have always regarded it as “If you are on the list, you are in” but that is a terrible way, especially for an organization that has grown to our size, as people have put it to keep a member log. We want to grow the local community here, do some outreach, fund fixing the warehouse to protect our artifacts, and eventually expand our museum and assist the other local groups on campus at InfoAge. All of which requires having an active and informed local membership. We are not renaming the organization here, not even the list. Specifically it is proposed to rename and restructure the local chapter that handles the local events, local fund raising, local museum, local warehouse, local artifacts, local workshops, etc.. Did I mention Local? -Ian L. On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 09:04 Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > We are, or were created as one in 2015, an extension/chapter/whathaveyou > of VCF National. > > We don’t necessarily need to remain that, but that is what we are at the > moment. > > Tony Bogan > > > > On Oct 29, 2024, at 8:39 AM, Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < > vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > > > > > <mime-attachment> >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Announcement: Administrative and Policy Changes
by John Heritage 29 Oct '24

29 Oct '24

Central Region Old Timer Computer Hobbyists? On Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 1:40 PM RETRO Innovations via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > On 10/29/2024 12:14 PM, Andrew Diller wrote: > > I read this and also thought "he's asking for an announcement only list" > -- which does not exist. But could be created (but I'm guessing it would be > occasionally forgotten about). > > Sorry, that was not my intent. I actually like the discussion, at least > some of the time, since I work in other related groups and seeing how > you all process things helps other groups. And, yes, the announce list > would suffer from being yet another thing to deal with. > > No, just wanted to make sure it was OK to be on here and if it's OK, > noting that those like me necessarily can only watch and add bit of > value from afar, please don't hate that we didn't sign up to volunteer > at all the cool things you do. > > Jim > >

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Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Announcement: Administrative and Policy Changes
by Chris Fala 29 Oct '24

29 Oct '24

Tony makes a good point, communication seems to be the actual issue. And I agree with his MACE suggestion, Mid Atlantic Commodore Enthusiasts! On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 12:30 PM Tony Bogan via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic(a)lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > As mentioned in my first response, I’m fine with whatever the group wants, > I don’t have any feelings either way. > My goal was to point out the pertinent facts revolving around the > discussion. > > Forgetting all the conversations I’ve had with people over the years, just > the responses in this thread show me that the perceived “confusion” > revolves far more around how information is disseminated to the public and > how things are organized as opposed to what the group is called. > > Changing the name won’t fix that, but at the same time changing the name > is not a problem or something I like or dislike. It is what it is. > > My vote is for MAACE (or MACE) > > Mid-Atlantic Apple Computer Enthusiasts > ;-)

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