[vcf-midatlantic] Workshop Jan. 30/31 Report

[Evan Koblentz]

Huge thanks to everyone who helped check out the group's disk drives and 
who helped us save warehouse space + increase budget by adopting some of 
the excess!!

A personal thank you to David G. for the PDP-8 operation lesson. I 
previously understood the very basics of how front-panels tell a 
computer what to do and how they report the output back to users -- 
enough to satisfy most museum visitors who ask simply, "How does the 
[Altair / PDP-8 / etc.] work>" -- but David sat me at the controls and 
answered all my questions about how to actually enter his 
chasing-the-lights demo program, verify it, and run. He also showed me 
the 8's interior "restart" switch, so I can demonstrate core memory 
keeping its data after the computer is restarted.

I'll need some more practice (any recommendations for a web-based or 
Linux emulator?), but now I feel pretty comfortable that I can teach 
this same simple lesson to others.