Topics for Bil Herd at VCF East 2021
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about? Reply here or send me a message privately. ========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
Two thoughts. 1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook". 2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest. On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook".
I'm sure we could dig up a vintage phone book from the 80's for him to read. ;)
2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest.
I was able to make a list by looking at the VCF East archives: 2007 - Bil Herd/Bob Russell/Chuck Peddle/Dave Haynie — 30th Birthday of Commodore Computers 2012 - Commodore History Part II 2014 - CRT and video repair 2015 - Vintage Microcomputer Architecture 2016 - Growing the 8-bit generation 2017 - Surface Mount Technology 2019 - Component Aging/Heat 2020 - Commodore show and Tell with Dave Haynie I'm saving Commodore History Part II for next year.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker.
He
is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
Andy’s idea +100 On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:38 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook".
I'm sure we could dig up a vintage phone book from the 80's for him to read. ;)
2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest.
I was able to make a list by looking at the VCF East archives: 2007 - Bil Herd/Bob Russell/Chuck Peddle/Dave Haynie — 30th Birthday of Commodore Computers 2012 - Commodore History Part II 2014 - CRT and video repair 2015 - Vintage Microcomputer Architecture 2016 - Growing the 8-bit generation 2017 - Surface Mount Technology 2019 - Component Aging/Heat 2020 - Commodore show and Tell with Dave Haynie
I'm saving Commodore History Part II for next year.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker.
He
is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas
to
suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
I will pay him $100 to finally admit how much better designed the Atari chips were. SID is ok, but POKEY, SALLY, ANTIC and GITA were transformative for the industry and all of computing. It was the first GPU in a way. -andy
On Jul 1, 2021, at 6:39 PM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Andy’s idea +100
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:38 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook".
I'm sure we could dig up a vintage phone book from the 80's for him to read. ;)
2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest.
I was able to make a list by looking at the VCF East archives: 2007 - Bil Herd/Bob Russell/Chuck Peddle/Dave Haynie — 30th Birthday of Commodore Computers 2012 - Commodore History Part II 2014 - CRT and video repair 2015 - Vintage Microcomputer Architecture 2016 - Growing the 8-bit generation 2017 - Surface Mount Technology 2019 - Component Aging/Heat 2020 - Commodore show and Tell with Dave Haynie
I'm saving Commodore History Part II for next year.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker.
He
is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas
to
suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
On stage moderated debate with Joe Decuir and/or the ghost of Jay Miner. On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:43 PM Andrew Diller <dillera@gmail.com> wrote:
I will pay him $100 to finally admit how much better designed the Atari chips were. SID is ok, but POKEY, SALLY, ANTIC and GITA were transformative for the industry and all of computing. It was the first GPU in a way.
-andy
On Jul 1, 2021, at 6:39 PM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Andy’s idea +100
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:38 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook".
I'm sure we could dig up a vintage phone book from the 80's for him to read. ;)
2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest.
I was able to make a list by looking at the VCF East archives: 2007 - Bil Herd/Bob Russell/Chuck Peddle/Dave Haynie — 30th Birthday of Commodore Computers 2012 - Commodore History Part II 2014 - CRT and video repair 2015 - Vintage Microcomputer Architecture 2016 - Growing the 8-bit generation 2017 - Surface Mount Technology 2019 - Component Aging/Heat 2020 - Commodore show and Tell with Dave Haynie
I'm saving Commodore History Part II for next year.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great
speaker.
He
is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
I seem to recall the chips were better, but the documentation was not (read: non-existent). Kind of a tree falls in the woods... if the hardware is better, but no one (other than Atari) knows how to use it properly, is the hardware really better? On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:44 PM Andrew Diller via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I will pay him $100 to finally admit how much better designed the Atari chips were. SID is ok, but POKEY, SALLY, ANTIC and GITA were transformative for the industry and all of computing. It was the first GPU in a way.
-andy
On Jul 1, 2021, at 6:39 PM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Andy’s idea +100
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:38 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook".
I'm sure we could dig up a vintage phone book from the 80's for him to read. ;)
2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest.
I was able to make a list by looking at the VCF East archives: 2007 - Bil Herd/Bob Russell/Chuck Peddle/Dave Haynie — 30th Birthday of Commodore Computers 2012 - Commodore History Part II 2014 - CRT and video repair 2015 - Vintage Microcomputer Architecture 2016 - Growing the 8-bit generation 2017 - Surface Mount Technology 2019 - Component Aging/Heat 2020 - Commodore show and Tell with Dave Haynie
I'm saving Commodore History Part II for next year.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker.
He
is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas
to
suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
There is an argument that there is more active Atari8 bit development going on now in the world than there was back in the 80s. There are new entire systems using real chips: https://thebrewingacademy.com/collections/myteks-576nuc-atari-computer https://thebrewingacademy.com/collections/atari-800-xl-xe-xel-xld - Ability to connect your atari to the internet load all Atari software via NFS, tweet, IRC, ssh, and web-browse https://fujinet.online/ - New Games being developed https://atariage.com/forums/topic/319986-the-last-squadron/ https://atariage.com/forums/topic/320140-8bit-strike-official-trailer/ https://atariage.com/forums/topic/298914-unicorns-season-prince-of-persia-fo... There are also dozens of hardware projects to upgrade old Atari Hardware. I'm sure there are things of this nature for the CBM systems- maybe the talk could evolve into: "Running a modern 8bit System in 2021 - a hardware review for Atari and Commodore" I recall that when JoeD gave his keynote in 2019, he just started to touch on these topics at the end of his talk... and he didn't have a chance to continue to discuss them. -andy
On Jul 1, 2021, at 6:48 PM, Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
I seem to recall the chips were better, but the documentation was not (read: non-existent).
Kind of a tree falls in the woods... if the hardware is better, but no one (other than Atari) knows how to use it properly, is the hardware really better?
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:44 PM Andrew Diller via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I will pay him $100 to finally admit how much better designed the Atari chips were. SID is ok, but POKEY, SALLY, ANTIC and GITA were transformative for the industry and all of computing. It was the first GPU in a way.
-andy
On Jul 1, 2021, at 6:39 PM, Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Andy’s idea +100
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:38 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook".
I'm sure we could dig up a vintage phone book from the 80's for him to read. ;)
2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest.
I was able to make a list by looking at the VCF East archives: 2007 - Bil Herd/Bob Russell/Chuck Peddle/Dave Haynie — 30th Birthday of Commodore Computers 2012 - Commodore History Part II 2014 - CRT and video repair 2015 - Vintage Microcomputer Architecture 2016 - Growing the 8-bit generation 2017 - Surface Mount Technology 2019 - Component Aging/Heat 2020 - Commodore show and Tell with Dave Haynie
I'm saving Commodore History Part II for next year.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker.
He
is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas
to
suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
Bil often peppers his talks with allusions to the task of designing a system for low cost and mass production. I don't think any of the existing talks delved into those points specifically, but rather tangentially. It would be nice to have a discussion where he could show a tuples of designs, with one being the normal design or the one that would most likely work in almost all the cases, and then the one that had to be used on the +4/C128 or whatever, to ensure high yield and no loss, with lowest cost, or whatever. * If he wants to riff on this, he could show an example of: o The way to properly fix some last minute issue in the C128 after FCC testing was done o The way they did fix it using transistors, since transistor additions would not trigger the need to redo the FCC cert. I bet, if you scan through his talks, he's noted a half dozen of these, but they are always played off as incidental to the conversation at hand. I think it'd be worthwhile to really dig a bit deeper in the world of design for mass manufacturing and for lowest cost, and what lengths designers have to go to in order to succeed there. Jim
I'd love Vintage Microcomputer Architecture, personally. On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:37 PM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey@vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook".
I'm sure we could dig up a vintage phone book from the 80's for him to read. ;)
2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest.
I was able to make a list by looking at the VCF East archives: 2007 - Bil Herd/Bob Russell/Chuck Peddle/Dave Haynie — 30th Birthday of Commodore Computers 2012 - Commodore History Part II 2014 - CRT and video repair 2015 - Vintage Microcomputer Architecture 2016 - Growing the 8-bit generation 2017 - Surface Mount Technology 2019 - Component Aging/Heat 2020 - Commodore show and Tell with Dave Haynie
I'm saving Commodore History Part II for next year.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
Yes, Adam, great idea! On Jul 1, 2021, at 6:46 PM, Adam Michlin via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: I'd love Vintage Microcomputer Architecture, personally. On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:37 PM Jeffrey Brace <jeffrey@vcfed.org> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin@vcfed.org> wrote:
Two thoughts.
1. Repeats are not bad. I've never had the chance to hear him speak on anything and am happy to be quoted as saying "I'd love to hear him read the phonebook".
I'm sure we could dig up a vintage phone book from the 80's for him to read. ;)
2. Do we have a list of what he has done in the past? Both so we don't make suggestions that have already been done and give us better context as to what we might suggest.
I was able to make a list by looking at the VCF East archives: 2007 - Bil Herd/Bob Russell/Chuck Peddle/Dave Haynie — 30th Birthday of Commodore Computers 2012 - Commodore History Part II 2014 - CRT and video repair 2015 - Vintage Microcomputer Architecture 2016 - Growing the 8-bit generation 2017 - Surface Mount Technology 2019 - Component Aging/Heat 2020 - Commodore show and Tell with Dave Haynie
I'm saving Commodore History Part II for next year.
On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 3:48 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
I suggest he do an overview of the Atari 8bit line of computers and compare and contrast the custom VLSI chip sets both Atari and CBM. -andy — Andrew Diller 267-353-2203
On Jul 1, 2021, at 3:48 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
2nd idea: Work w/ the Fujinet team and design and build a FujiNet for the C64/C128. Present it at VCF-East. Sell hundreds of them. team--> fujinet.online -andy
On Jul 1, 2021, at 3:47 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Bil Herd has come to VCF East many times and is always a great speaker. He is out of ideas of what to talk about. So do any of you have any ideas to suggest for him to talk about?
Reply here or send me a message privately.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org
participants (6)
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Adam Michlin -
Andrew Diller -
Chris Fala -
Dean Notarnicola -
Jeffrey Brace -
RETRO Innovations