I'll chime in with my $0.02. I agree with Jim, Drew, Evan. We all have identified the problems. All it takes is time and money (the talent we have in spades). Evan mentioned my involvement with the TR20. We also, when that project is completed, will start thinking about restoration of "George", however, all these projects require the donated extended time, parts, specialized test equipment to get this (in some cases 50yrs old) stuff resurrected. We all have lives outside of this venue. Having said that, the obstacles should not deter us from pushing ahead. Here's my idea.... One of the projects I plan to have ready for East XIII exhibiting is an IBM, USA made '286 (640k soldered to the motherboard), under plexiglass, so that viewers, expert and novice, will see how we made things in that era. It is planned to have 2 ESDI drives and an Intel Above Board EMS memory card fitted. For a "hands on", I plan to have that machine running Win3.0. controlling a Z80 based materials testing machine. The OEM's DOS software (1987era) of the test machine will be running on Win3.0 . This testing machine has plenty of visuals (blinkin lights) and octal displays for the eye candy. We plan on crushing soda cans and showing the stress strain curves of the testing. Begrudgingly (LOL), Evan has given the nod to this display. Quoting "it's time to display 286 artifacts". After East is over, it is my hope that this display can be brought into the museum as a "computational device of the month" to show there were other things done with PC's in this era, other than games, and financial forecasts. The testing is safe and will be easy to demonstrate by the docents. Bill Degnan's year of the appliance computer, comes to mind with this project. The point of the droning on, is to show that other fresh ideas can be considered to bring more life into the museum (and hopefully more donations) while the main projects continue at the slow methodical pace they need to take. Feel free everyone to tell me I am way off base with my idea. I can take the hit, otherwise...... Let's start brainstorming ideas. Bill Inderrieden In a message dated 6/13/2017 12:04:38 P.M. EDT: Drew Notarnicola writes: Message: 1 Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2017 12:41:51 -0400 From: Drew Notarnicola <drew.notarnicola@gmail.com> To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Museum pictures
If we are willing to enhance the experience from viewing lifeless artifacts to showing operating equipment and a good bit of hands on I think it would be some mighty strong gravity. The problem is half our artifacts are lifeless because they either don't run yet or they can't have monitors hooked up. And we don't have anything yet that visitors can do that's hands on.