william degnan posted: He quoted my either-or statement, "either accept a narrow target audience, or to enhance the real-time experience so that mere mortals can appreciate it on exhibit." Then Bill described his approach to his exhibits, and noted ways to cross-appeal over generations. Bill's exhibits are very well designed and thoughtful as professional-class presentations of his concepts for the exhibit. Glad my comments caught his attention; and that he presented his process too. He makes the point that "the hardware" [operating with its software] is the "meat and potatoes" of the exhibit. As a digital engineer myself, that's my inclination too. These machines are self-demonstrating to a point, at least for the generation of people who saw these as revolutionary. And they were often sold that way - "here's what it can do for you". But for younger participants, computers that do stuff is normal - but some of that old stuff isn't so normal for them today. Word processing, gaming. Those are examples where the experience is judged by younger people, the platform by older people. There's other divisions of audience of course, I'm making a point. But as an old man myself, the younger audience is the least accessible to me. I'd not sum up my post as an either-or better-worse proposition for EVERY exhibitor. In the aggregate, the whole event will be exhibits of each or both kinds, and so all bases will hopefully be covered. Everyone can't do it all, nor should they. For instance, contrast to Bill's example: one exhibit not long ago, was of a 1960's military computer. It consisted of showing ALL the boards, organized and titled by function, on a horizontal display. And there was access to original manuals, themselves a representation of 1960's documentation. I liked it. Why? Because where and when, are you gonna see such a thing? And open for examination at the component level if you are a tech? And if not, it's visually impressive by size for function - all them boards, all that PAPER - for so little computing power, but with a critical mission. It was a show of industrial art, accessible at many levels - simply presented as-it-is. Brilliant in simplicity. Moral: The exhibit-event, is a place to bring actual hardware, exercise actual software. Youtube and Web sites can show pictures, videos, textual content at the viewer's convenience. Even some interaction through simulators and hookups (!) to real hardware. (Bill Degnan's Telnet to PDP-11's, etc.) But VCF-East is eyeballs on and hands-on. That's a critical difference, and Bill points that out, in less words than I. Herb "compound sentence" Johnson retrotechnology.com