Bio for *Ethan O’Toole* Thanks for the consideration! I started life in the Atari 8-bit world, then moved to PC (Tandy 1000sx!) Since those days I have gone through stages of collecting including a strong UNIX system fandom (SGI and Sun.) These days I have mostly been sticking to smaller systems that are not refigerator sized such as Atari, Amiga and Macintosh systems. My first VCF East was probably 2016 or 2015. Recently I have assisted with streaming and recording at VCF East. External to VCF I have been involved with or volunteered with a number of events including MAGFest, MAGStock, B-Sides Charm, HOPE, Ring of Fire CON (Virginia Beach), Freeplay in Chesapeake VA and a number of other events. Outside of vintage computer stuff I poke at synthesizer/MIDI equipment repair, arcade and pinball machine repair, LASER show and light show systems, SCUBA diving and other geeky hobbies. On Tue, Nov 23, 2021 at 3:24 PM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
It is almost time for the VCF Mid-Atlantic steering committee member election. As a reminder, there will be a voting form sent to this list on 11/27/2021. There will be two seats up for re-election this year, so please vote for up to two candidates.
Here is a list of candidates and their bio where one has been made available. If a bio is not listed, I encourage the candidates to send them to the list.
*Ethan O'Toole*
*Dean Notarnicola*
*Dave McGuire* I’m an engineer in my early 50s, and I’ve been passionate about technology since I was a child. As a teenager in the mid-1980s, I lucked into a DEC PDP-11/34A, a powerful computer system about the size of two household refrigerators placed side-by-side, and it resided in my bedroom. It wasn’t an “antique computer” at the time; it was just old enough to be mostly unwanted in a typical commercial environment. But it belonged to a class of systems known as “minicomputers”, which are powerful, serious machines designed for scientific or business applications. While all of my friends were playing games on their little Atari, Apple, and Commodore systems, I taught myself a half dozen or so programming languages on that big PDP-11. This naturally and directly led to my career as an engineer.
Using large, powerful computers both at work and at home is just how my life has always been. I loved my systems, and I ended up just keeping the old ones as I upgraded, occasionally running them for fun an nostalgia in my free time.
I’ve been peripherally involved with VCF for many years, starting early in the MARCH era, helping out here and there behind the scenes with hardware donations and swaps, donation transport, and general advice and guidance. If elected to a Steering Committee seat, my intention would be to provide further, much closer guidance and technical assistance on the “big iron” side, to round out the VCF presentations a bit. And, as the head of LSSM in Pittsburgh, another big focus of mine would be much closer collaboration and involvement between VCF and LSSM.
*Jason Perkins* I've been fiddling with computers, and by proxy vintage computers about as long as I can remember. When you're just getting started cast-off old machines are your playground!
In 2003 my father and I made the trip from Michigan to DC to visit the Smithsonian museums. At that time there was a whole section at the National Museum of American History dedicated to the history of computers. I was really looking forward to this - and was so disappointed. Static machines, turned off, behind plexiglas. There was an Alto that either had the worst case of screen burn, or the CRT replaced with a plastic slide. In either case it wasn't illuminated. There was an IBM PC and Mac 128k, behind plexiglas, turned off.
This is one of the main things I like about VCF: We are able to present systems that work, systems you can touch, systems you can experience. Having a static display of "Oh, look at this hunk of metal and beige plastic" just doesn't do it for me.
If elected to the board, I'll continue this tradition of making the full experience of a system available to our guests.
*Jeff Salzman* My own personal history, experiences, curiosity, and affinity toward vintage computing has set me firmly in a hobby that I enjoy. I believe in the goals of the VCF-MA, not only for the preservation of vintage computer systems, but for the opportunities the organization provides to the public for those who want to discover and learn about the earlier days of computing. It would be an honor to be a committee member in part of the process that helps to define the operation and future vision of the VCF-MA.
As suggested, here is a brief bit about myself... (OK, maybe not a "brief bit", but the text will still fit on a SSDD floppy disk of any kind.)
I have been a "vintage" computer fanatic since back when these systems were called "cutting edge." I was the guy, um... kid, who would walk into a Radio Shack, much to the chagrin of the store manager, to play with the TRS-80 computers they always had on display. That is, of course, after I ran out of money at the mall arcade first. :)
Throughout my childhood and young adulthood, I have always been into computers. Especially after getting my first computer, a Commodore VIC-20, back in October 1981 (which I still own, BTW). Shortly after that, I bought a second computer for myself, a TI-99/4A.
(WHA...??? What kind of nerd wants TWO computers for themselves in 1982?!? ---- >THIS NERD, That's who!!!)
Since then, I have rolled on personal computing as a commonplace activity in the home. I just happened to do so by riding on the Commodore bandwagon throughout the 1980s (please don't hold that against me. LOL) and had to have the newest model of their computers as soon as I could afford them. I had an appreciation for other systems that were available to consumers, but just didn't have the space or income at the time to support the continued ownership and upgrade of two or more cutting edge systems from multiple manufacturers. :(
I got a Commodore 64 in 1985, then a Commodore 128 in 1987, then a Commodore Amiga 500 in 1989, selling each previous system to be able to afford the new one. Staying informed about what computers could do, and the growing pains within society as they grew into important appliances for work, home, and fun, turned personal computing into a hobby which I have continuously explored to its limit.
Then the 1990s came...
I found myself unable to continue the run of what are considered uniquely vintage computers today, along with the other specialized home computer systems that were earning a vintage status even then. Trends were changing. 8-bit was dying. 16-bit was even dying... I ended up (GASP!!!) buying my first IBM PC compatible, a 386DX. And like a junkie, I fell deep into the monotony and dependence of the architecture. I sold my soul to the industry, repairing and upgrading PCs for a living... in hopes that I could get a hit on a slightly used and outdated 30-pin SIMM that was leftover from the customer's upgrade. Maybe even a disk drive/multi-I/O controller card, or if luck graces me, a 2x CD-ROM with sound card!!! All just to keep my frankenstein PC alive and contemporary as the years went by. I still remember a lot of the "PC compatible days" from the 1990s, and even the 1980s. Many still consider them too closely tied to modern PCs, but as the recent VCF-East showed everybody, they are far enough removed from their modern cousins to break the perception of those close ties. But I digress. In the 1990s, I missed the 'ol 8-bit days. And there was hope... I was able to find those now near vintage 8 and 16-bit home computers, the ones I couldn't afford to buy more than one of in the 1980s, for next to nothing at many of the flea markets and yard sales I visited. Some people actually GAVE them to me because they thought they were junk at the time... Hello WHAT?!?
So now I find myself at the turn of the century. I'm knee deep in a lot of vintage 8 and 16-bit home computers that I just HAD to have, and could not see going to scrap. I had quite the collection, and I started to work through that collection, repairing and using them, reliving my youth, and enjoying every moment of it.
Then somewhere around 2004, I learned about M.A.R.C.H. and what the organization was all about. I was even asked to design the organization's logo. It was then that I knew I wasn't the only one who (secretly) held a fondness for vintage computing, thus re-energizing my hobby toward the appreciation and preservation of vintage computing.
I eventually found myself attending the VCF East as an exhibitor so I could show off what I had in my collection, and demonstrate to the next generation what we had available to us in my generation. I have been doing a completely different exhibit each year in an attempt to show off the variety of vintage computers, along with an array of uses.
As my attendance as an exhibitor continued, I became increasingly involved with M.A.R.C.H. events, like the Workshops and Festivus. When my kids got older, I found even more time to become involved with the (now) Vintage Computer Federation. You would (and still could) find me at almost every Workshop, if not for working on my own stuff, but working through items in the warehouse and museum.
I hate to see broken vintage computer systems. The Workshops give us an opportunity to do our part in keeping these systems alive, and even more so, allow us to share that experience with others bearing the same interests. Those are just a few of the many reasons VCF-MA exists for the avid hobbyist, or the piqued interest of a museum visitor, or whatever insight the organization discovers that can promote the knowledge and history of vintage computing.