[vcf-midatlantic] great day at the museum

[Jeffrey Brace]

Nice sign! People were having trouble finding us since our sign blew down.

On Sat, Feb 4, 2017 at 9:20 PM, Evan Koblentz via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vintagecomputerfederation.org> wrote:

> Adam and I were at the museum today. Lots of awesome things happened.
>
> - VCFed owns two Laser 128 computers. Both fire up and both have working
> drives. One computer works completely, the other has a bum keyboard. The
> good one is missing the drive door handle. We had to turn the pin sticking
> out with pliers. We took both computers apart and tried swapping the
> drives, but they are different model drives and don't fit quite the same.
> Both computers said "128" but with different logos. I didn't get pictures.
> Neither said "EX" so I am unclear about which version(s) we have. Tony
> stopped by and said he may have a Laser or two available to us for parts,
> so we'll investigate that next weekend at the workshop.
>
> - We don't have any Laser power supplies, but we tried two //c supplies
> and they both worked fine with these computers.
>
> - Using the working computer and pliers to turn the drive door handle, I
> was able to successfully test the Lego software with our replica Apple Lego
> card (from Jon C.) in the Laser's expansion slot. The slot is made for a
> two-slot expansion box, but we don't have that and it works fine when you
> plug in a card directly.
>
> - The bad-keyboard Laser has a switch on bottom for configuring the
> expansion as slot 7 or slot 5. The working unit didn't have any switch. I
> tried the Lego software configured for slot 7 and it worked the first time.
>
> - This is good news (once we get the drive door handle settled). Laser 128
> and a //c monitor use much less space than a //e and traditional monitor
> for the Lego programming demo station, and it's also much easier for me to
> bring on traveling demos. Less space, no separate drive needed, etc.
>
> - The reason Tony came over was to bring part 2 of a NeXT donation that he
> began bringing on Wednesday. This is a complete system from a woman in the
> DC area. It includes all hardware and a large assortment of original
> software/manuals. Very nice!!!
>
> - Roddy (the art guy across the hallway from our museum) finished putting
> our VCFed banner outside the building doorway. It's attached to a thick
> piece of white plexiglass which is held up by garden stakes. It looks very
> good. I'm going to get some white paint and go over the bolt heads.
>
> - There were several families who visited today. They all stayed for full
> tours.
>
> - Adam spent a couple of hours organizing part of our videogame console
> collection. He focused on systems and Atari VCF/2600 cartridges.
>
> - Some pictures:
> http://www.vcfed.org/evan/nextlogo.jpg
> http://www.vcfed.org/evan/next1.jpg
> http://www.vcfed.org/evan/next2.jpg
> http://www.vcfed.org/evan/sign.jpg
>
> ________________________________
> Evan Koblentz, director
> Vintage Computer Federation
> a 501(c)3 educational non-profit
>
> evan at vcfed.org
> (646) 546-9999
>
> www.vcfed.org
> facebook.com/vcfederation
> twitter.com/vcfederation
>



-- 
Jeff Brace - ark72axow at gmail.com