VCF East 8 2012 pre-announcement

[RobertB]

     This May 5-6 the Vintage Computer Festival East returns to the Info Age Science Center, 2201 Marconi Rd., Wall, New Jersey, USA.  VCF East 8.0 is brought to you by the Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists club -- http://www.marchclub.org
     Commodore Business Machines engineer Bil Herd will be running a workshop on the topic of Commodore maintenance and repair.  The keynote speaker will be Tom Kurtz who co-developed BASIC while at Dartmouth College in the mid-1960s.

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://videocam.net.au/fcug

[RobertB]

     Further clarification and now a tentative schedule.  Bil Herd will speak Saturday from 10:00-11:30 a.m. in what is called at the moment, "Part 2 of the History of CBM", a continuation of Chuck Peddle's video talk given at VCF East a few years ago.  Bil will relate CBM stories from 1984 to 1986.  Then Bil Herd will watch over (but not necessarily lead) the next session, "Intro to Commodore 8-bit Maintenance", which will run from 11:30-12:30.

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://videocam.net.au/fcug

[RobertB]

------------- Forwarded message ------------------
From: evank
Date: 29-Jan-2012 5:51:30


Robert B. told me about this thread; he is a veteran of the Vintage Computer Festival East, which I produce.

Here's the background ..... in 2004 I co-founded a user group called MARCH - Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists. MARCH members collect, restore, and exhibit computers from the 1960s-1980s, and we're heavily focused on getting the systems into operating condition. As such, just like Amiga fans, we also go to great lengths to obtain books, manuals, parts, software, etc.

MARCH has three major activities. 1., we run a very active mailing list. 2., we operate a bricks-and-mortar, hands-on computer museum in Wall, New Jersey; the museum is co-located at the larger InfoAge Science Center. 3., we host the annual(-ish) VCF East. (Locals: VCF is not the same as the Trenton Computer Festival -- that is "T"CF; which is strictly a modern PC show.)

This year, VCF East 8.0 is scheduled for May 5-6 at our museum. There are lectures and workshops both mornings, and exhibits both afternoons.

Our lecture and workshop schedule, which is still being expanded, is here: http://www.vintage.org/2012/east/session.php.

You'll notice that the keynote on Saturday is by Dr. Thomas Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC. Also, Commodore's Bil Herd will be involved that morning, and there's a good chance of Dave Haynie also attending.

The afternoon exhibit hall will have 20-30 booths, with everything from DEC minicomputers to S-100 homebrews to 8-bit microcomputers, plus punch cards, teletypes, tape drives, etc. -- all up and running!

In addition, there will be other things to do throughout the days. We're having a book sale, consignment, food, museum tours, prizes, etc.

Details about the event are frequently updated at http://www.vintage.org and we also have a social networking page at http://www.facebook.com/vcfeast8 -- we'd be grateful if you all "like" the page and share it on your walls so that other people can learn about it.

Proceeds of the event benefit our museum, which is a non-profit and run exclusively by volunteers. We all joke that our jobs and families interfere with our hobby/museum time.

Nobody should use distance as a reason not to attend VCF East 8.0: ever year people come from other states, time zones, countries, and even continents! (Some also seem like they're from other planets, but that's for a different thread!)

Nor is cost an issue: getting into VCF East 8.0 is just $10/day, $15/weekend, and free for kids. There are many inexpensive motels/hotels nearby.

But if anyone here wants to participate in the show, i.e. by putting on an exhibit, then contact me for details (info is below.)

Meanwhile, if anyone would like to join MARCH, then please do! Most of our members are in the triangle between Hartford, Pittsburgh, and D.C., and we have a strong focus on the local region, but all are welcome to join. We do have some members in New England, the midwest, southeast, etc. .... our club doesn't even charge any dues .... we exist solely on VCF revenue and donations. Even our museum collection, which is perhaps the largest and most comprehensive on the U.S. east coast, consists entirely of donated items.

Our web site (which is kind of lame) is http://www.midatlanticretro.org -- the online database there is massively incomplete; it contains maybe 5% of our collection. Making a database is easy .... entering records is easy to avoid.

But on the site you will be find a link to our discussion group, etc.

Our group has a tradition of being very open toward new members, as long as they don't think "vintage" means a 386 running "old school" DOS 5.0 .... we don't do anything much newer than Amigas and Newtons. On the other extreme, one of jewels of our collection is a 1965 militarized UNIVAC. You get the idea

Any questions/comments -- please post, or feel free to email me (evan-at-snarc-dot-net) or call me at 646-546-9999.

- Evan K.

[RobertB]

I wrote:

> This May 5-6 the Vintage Computer Festival East returns to the Info Age Science Center, 2201 Marconi Rd., Wall, New Jersey, USA.
> VCF East 8.0 is brought to you by the Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists club -- http://www.marchclub.org

Then I wrote:

> Further clarification and now a tentative schedule.  Bil Herd will speak Saturday from 10:00-11:30 a.m. in what is called at the moment,
> "Part 2 of the History of CBM", a continuation of Chuck Peddle's video talk given at VCF East a few years ago.  Bil will relate CBM
> stories from 1984 to 1986.  Then Bil Herd will watch over (but not necessarily lead) the next session, "Intro to Commodore 8-bit
> Maintenance"...

     It is now confirmed; CBM engineer Bil Herd is going to teach the C=
repair class at VCF East 2012.

          Truly,
          Robert Bernardo
          Fresno Commodore User Group
          http://videocam.net.au/fcug