[vcf-midatlantic] Swap meet and workshop experience

[Gregg Levine]

Hello!
Actually the Swap Meet was a lot of fun. And even though I only found
a few items, I managed to see a lot of items I might want to find
later, if possible. Alexander were you the fellow who I chatted with,
and the person noted that the smartwatch started complaining?

That's the trivial roots to the whole event.
-----
Gregg C Levine gregg.drwho8 at gmail.com
"This signature fought the Time Wars, time and again."


On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 7:37 PM Alexander Jacocks via vcf-midatlantic
<vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>
> It was great to have you there, Bryan! I hope to get to speak to you in
> person, soon.
>
>
> - Alex
>
> On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 6:57 PM W. Bryan Caudle via vcf-midatlantic <
> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>
> > As a noob to both the swap meet and workshops, I wanted to take a moment
> > to express my thanks to the VCF team, volunteers, and participants for
> > creating such a successful weekend.  I truly had no idea what to expect for
> > either event, but I was impressed with the turnout and enthusiasm that
> > everyone shared.  As others have shared, I am looking forward to future
> > events.  As far as suggestions go for the swap meet, I overheard
> > conversations about having food trucks next time, and I agree with that
> > effort.  I also think including the HAM radio folks was a good move.  I
> > would encourage additional outreach to other similar audiences, one in
> > particular might be the retro gaming community.  I know that some folks
> > might have a different opinion, but I think gaming and computing are
> > inexorably linked as both sides have driven innovation on the other side.
> > I also know that game collectors are passionate as well about their systems
> > and many crossovers exist between gaming consoles and 8/16 bit micros in
> > particular.  Perhaps engaging some local retro game shops could help with
> > promotion of the event, and maybe they might even want to participate as
> > vendors to liquidate some excess inventory.  I’m sure there are other ways
> > to engage this community as well.  I managed to sell some games and know
> > other vendors did as well, so there was some level of demand and/or
> > nostalgia at work there. Just something to think about.
> >
> > For me personally, I may not have sold as many items as I had hoped, but I
> > had a variety of things and didn’t always have the best price points on
> > certain items.  I learned a lot from this and will be better prepared for
> > next time.  I was happy to pick up a couple of things (Apple IIc and
> > Magnavox Odyssey2) along with some software and small bits from the free
> > bins .  I could still see out of my car for the drive home so I’d call it
> > a success.  While this was my first computer swap meet, I am experienced
> > with vendor fairs in other genres, and have sometimes found it to be
> > helpful when the organizer tracks the vendor spaces.  They can be assigned
> > spaces, but don’t have to be.  Just assign each vendor a number/sign/tag
> > for their vehicle or space so that questions like “who was that commodore
> > guy” can be more easily answered.
> >
> > For my workshop report, again I was overzealous in my expectations and
> > brought along 3 projects.  Thankfully I was able to make progress on one
> > system, the Commodore Pet 2001.  With great help and advice from Ian and
> > others, it went from totally dead and disassembled, to a working power
> > supply, working CRT, and mainboard that initializes and boots (with a
> > corrupted display).  Hopefully replacement video ram will correct that and
> > leave me with a working pet.  Again, the opportunity to work alongside
> > others and share ideas was amazing and is such a nice change from doing
> > these projects in isolation.
> >
> > It was good to see some familiar faces, and to make some new friends.  I
> > look forward to another event in the future, and thank you guys for giving
> > a reason to get out of the house after being home for the past year!
> >
> >