[vcf-midatlantic] Topics for Bil Herd at VCF East 2021

Andrew Diller dillera at gmail.com
Thu Jul 1 23:00:10 UTC 2021


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-for-the-a8/



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 at 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 at 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 at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Andy’s idea +100
>>> 
>>> On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 6:38 PM Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <
>>> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> On Thu, Jul 1, 2021 at 4:02 PM Adam Michlin <adam.michlin at 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 at 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 at vcfed.org
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 



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