Three history talks at Trenton
Evan announced these events at the Trenton Computer Festival:
12:25-1:20 - Brian Stuart, "ENIAC Then and Now"
1:30-2:25 - Frank O'Brien, "Flying to the Moon / The Apollo Guidance Computer"
2:35-3:30 - Jeff B. & [Evan Koblentz], 8-Bit 'Bots (Capsella, Lego)
..and Neil Cherry posted in reference to his talk: "Do It Yourself: Home Automation & More"; also scheduled at 12:25-1:20 Last night, I had the pleasure of seeing Brian's talk on the ENIAC, on the Princeton University campus. His talk was sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society chapter, and the ACM chapter, hosted at Princeton. They meet together each month for public presentations like Brian's. Brian gave a fine presentation, about the construction of the ENIAC and about its general operation. He demonstrated a visual and operational model of the ENIAC, which runs on modern computers. He described both its physical architecture, and its computing methods. ENIAC design and operation were a key part of computing development in the 1940's and 50's. I believe a video of this talk, may be on YouTube in due course. In attendance was my good friend and colleague, Frank O'Brien - an active member of the sponsoring organizations, and of course he's part of InfoAge. We took time to chat and I caught up with his recent activities. He's given his AGC talk a number of times recently. He tells me he's added some props to give descriptions about the fundamental issues of spaceflight guidance: "where you are, where you are going, which way is up?". So I look forward to seeing his presentation again. I've heard Neil's talks on Home Automation at TCF; they are informative and not "too technical for mere mortals". He's published, and well-versed, on the software and hardware of commercial products; and has championed open-source approaches. The subject is of interest to the vintage computing community, for those who develop or use access from their computers to modern devices and the Web. Another friend of mine, but one not active in VCF discussions, is Jonathan Allen. "Practical Electronics Tricks of the Trade" will be presented by him at 1:30-2:25. Jonathan has repaired and restored TV's and radios for decades. He's very familiar with 20th century test equipment and tools. His talk's content may be of interest to those beginning to restore their vintage computers. There are many other talks at the Trenton Computer Festival. There will be exhibits by computer clubs, including VCF Inc.; and by The Sarnoff Collection which is on the TCNJ campus, and which has vintage computers from RCA. Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net
On 02/17/2017 01:48 PM, Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Evan announced these events at the Trenton Computer Festival:
12:25-1:20 - Brian Stuart, "ENIAC Then and Now"
1:30-2:25 - Frank O'Brien, "Flying to the Moon / The Apollo Guidance Computer"
2:35-3:30 - Jeff B. & [Evan Koblentz], 8-Bit 'Bots (Capsella, Lego)
..and Neil Cherry posted in reference to his talk: "Do It Yourself: Home Automation & More"; also scheduled at 12:25-1:20
I was going to jokingly chime in that there's nothing historic about my presentation but I realized that it would diminish the work done by Jeff B and Evan (no sarcasm or anything). Folks put a lot of hard work in their presentation (as Evan's email chain has shown) and we get a plaque and praise. Yes I think it's worth it. I've given ideas to a bunch of people and I've exchange emails after the presentations also.
Brian gave a fine presentation, about the construction of the ENIAC and about its general operation. He demonstrated a visual and operational model of the ENIAC, which runs on modern computers. He described both its physical architecture, and its computing methods. ENIAC design and operation were a key part of computing development in the 1940's and 50's. I believe a video of this talk, may be on YouTube in due course.
I'm going to miss this one, I'll be next door giving my presentation. Good to hear it'll be on Youtube. I'll look for it.
In attendance was my good friend and colleague, Frank O'Brien - an active member of the sponsoring organizations, and of course he's part of InfoAge. We took time to chat and I caught up with his recent activities. He's given his AGC talk a number of times recently. He tells me he's added some props to give descriptions about the fundamental issues of spaceflight guidance: "where you are, where you are going, which way is up?". So I look forward to seeing his presentation again.
I'm really looking forward to this. NASA is the reason I wanted to get into electronics. I'm hoping there's enough room to see this, I'll stand if I have to!
I've heard Neil's talks on Home Automation at TCF; they are informative and not "too technical for mere mortals". He's published, and well-versed, on the software and hardware
Herb, thanks for the kind words (I really do appreciate that :-) ).
Another friend of mine, but one not active in VCF discussions, is Jonathan Allen. "Practical Electronics Tricks of the Trade" will be presented by him at 1:30-2:25. Jonathan has repaired and restored TV's and radios for decades. He's very familiar with 20th century test equipment and tools. His talk's content may be of interest to those beginning to restore their vintage computers.
I'm going to miss this one, I'll be next door giving my presentation. Wish we could record the presentations.
There are many other talks at the Trenton Computer Festival. There will be exhibits by computer clubs, including VCF Inc.; and by The Sarnoff Collection which is on the TCNJ campus, and which has vintage computers from RCA.
I'm hoping to get time to visit the Sarnoff Collection. Working on the Atari 600xl's video gave me an appreciation of the complexity of TV. I'm also looking forward to Prof Rajkumar's Autonomous Cadillac presentation. Yes AI, ML and the things we take for granted will be historic. Consider what it took to just do voice recognition before 2007 (first year of the Phone). Now we're doing AI/ML in the cloud. We're on the verge of a historic revolution. Our vintage 'junk' got us there. BTW, I found Connor's video on youtube also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45X4VP8CGtk -- Linux Home Automation Neil Cherry ncherry@linuxha.com http://www.linuxha.com/ Main site http://linuxha.blogspot.com/ My HA Blog Author of: Linux Smart Homes For Dummies
I was going to jokingly chime in that there's nothing historic about my presentation
Good point! What I should have put for the subject line is something about "three members' talks at Trenton".
I'm going to miss this one
Of all the talks I ever gave at Trenton, my own ENIAC talk there last year was the biggest success and had the most attendance. It was purely historical; Brian's is technical. That is why it was fun for him and I to team up in a combined talk at VCF East last year.
On 02/17/2017 03:37 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
I was going to jokingly chime in that there's nothing historic about my presentation
Good point! What I should have put for the subject line is something about "three members' talks at Trenton".
Oh wait -- make that four. Me/Jeff, you, Brian, Frank.
On Fri, Feb 17, 2017 at 3:32 PM, Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:
I'm also looking forward to Prof Rajkumar's Autonomous Cadillac presentation. Yes AI, ML and the things we take for granted will be historic. Consider what it took to just do voice recognition before 2007 (first year of the Phone). Now we're doing AI/ML in the cloud. We're on the verge of a historic revolution. Our vintage 'junk' got us there.
it's funny how this mention of the cloud every year has become "compatible" with the population You could say it makes us yearn for those days of getting the urge to dial-up remotely into Time-sharing systems, oh wait..... but then everything is so much faster, and faster now....why don't we just save it all ONE computer ....One Computer -~-~-~-~-> The Cloud........ oh golly gee, but then whenever "The Cloud" has a <software> glitch, suddenly, there is no connection, NO CARRIER, everyone would succumb to a enormous Brain FART the simultaneous eruption in the population of a Brain Fart has never been computed and that would go down in the Guinness Book of World Records
participants (4)
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Dan Roganti -
Evan Koblentz -
Herb Johnson -
Neil Cherry