VCF Gazette Volume 1 Issue 1

VCF Gazette Volume 1, Issue 1 A Newsletter for the Vintage Computer Festival March 13, 2002 Hello Vintage Computer Fans! Welcome to the first issue of what is guaranteed to be an irregularly published newsletter to keep you up to date on the latest events and happenings of the Vintage Computer Festival. There is a lot going on this year. We have two major events, VCF Europa 3.0 and VCF 5.0, and an Open House at our Oakland, California, facility. VCF Europa 3.0 -------------- The third annual Vintage Computer Festival Europa is being held April 27th and 28th in Munich, Germany. If you have a chance to be in Munich during the last weekend of April, you should certainly attend. You'll get a taste of the vibrant computer industry and the varied computers that were produced in Europe from over ten years ago and beyond. For more information on VCF Europa 3.0, visit: http://www.vintage.org/2002/europa/ --or-- http://www.vcfe.de/ VCF 5.0 ------- As you may well be aware, VCF 5.0, originally scheduled for September 15th and 16th, was cancelled due to the tragic events that occured on September 11, 2001. The necessity for the cancellation slowly became evident as events transpired over the course of the three days following September 11th. At least three speakers were not going to be able to attend due to the grounding of all U.S. air traffic. It was uncertain whether more attacks would come. In hindsight, cancelling VCF 5.0 was still the right decision to make, as it was uncertain whether anyone would even want to come to such an event in the wake of the tragedy. A statement was posted to the VCF 5.0 website on Thursday, September 13, informing of the cancellation, and a message was sent to the VCF mailing list. We appreciate the understanding we received. Now that things have thankfully returned to normal for the most part, it is time to reschedule VCF 5.0 for 2002. Planning is underway to hold VCF 5.0 sometime in September. Negotiations are underway for securing a venue in Santa Clara (our first choice) or San Jose (our backup choice). VCF 5.0 will be more exciting than ever this year. We plan to offer more great speakers and many excellent exhibits, but we also plan to expand attendee participation by adding retro-programming contests and other events. Of course we will still have the Nerd Trivia Challenge to vex even the most ardent vintage computing nerd. More details to come! VCF 5.0 will also be part of a larger smorgasbord of events which is tentatively being dubbed "GeekWeek". The VCF will partner with the California Extreme Classic Arcade Show, the Xtreme Games Developers Conference, the first San Francisco International Conference of Hackers, an Atari 30-Year Anniversary Party, and several other accompanying events including LANtrocity and Super Auctions (coin- operated amusement auctions). This exciting combination of events will become a yearly mecca for geeks from all over the world to come together and celebrate the joys of geekdom! Information for each event can be found at the following URLs: Vintage Computer Festival 5.0 http://www.vintage.org/2002/main/ California Extreme http://www.caextreme.org/ Xtreme Games Developers Conference http://www.xgdc.com/ San Francisco International Conference of Hackers http://www.gism.net/sfich/ Atari 30-Year Anniversary Party (Atari Historical Society) http://www.atari-history.com/ LANtrocity http://www.lantrocity.com/ Super Auctions http://www.superauctions.com/ VCF East 2.0 ------------ Last year's first Vintage Computer Festival East, held in Marlborough, Massachusetts, in July of 2001, was every bit as fun and exciting as the main VCF. Five speakers, including Eldon Hall, designer of the Apollo Guidance Computer, and eleven exhibitors, including the Retro- Computing Society of Rhode Island who brought along a PDP-12 running Spacewar!, provided a vintage computing retrospective for over 80 attendees. The next VCF East is being planned for Spring of 2003. We will begin booking speakers, exhibits and vendors in the fall of this year. VCF Open House at the ACCRC --------------------------- As of Fall of 2001, the Vintage Computer Festival Archive has found a happy new home at the Alameda County Computer Resource Center. The ACCRC is an organization that accepts donations of old computers and electronics, refurbishes the working computers to be donated back to schools and charities, and recycles the rest. Nothing at the ACCRC is thrown out. Everything gets recycled! ACCRC computers are located on every continent on Earth including Antarctica. The VCF is busily sorting, organizing and cataloguing the VCF Archive at the ACCRC. Shelving is being assembled, walls are being built, and floors are being swept in preparation for the first VCF Open House. The VCF and the ACCRC will welcome the general public to come in and see how we operate. There will be plenty of activities, tasty things to munch on, and tours of the VCF Archive and the ACCRC operations and pet programs (including the ACCRC Beowulf Cluster and KOOX internet radio station). The VCF is also in the process of setting up a computer museum at the ACCRC and building facilities for our documentation and software archive library so that it can finally be offered for use by the general public. We're hoping to finish the remodeling effort within a few weeks but we're still searching for needed materials. We'd like to find recycled computer flooring to improve the floor in the area where we are setting up the library. Might you know of where we can get some? If so, please let us know by sending an e-mail message to <vcf(a)vintage.org>rg>. Any flooring donated will qualify as a tax deductible charitable donation to the ACCRC. Once we have the archive organized and the library completed, we'll announce the dates for what will become the first annual VCF Open House. We're very excited at the prospect of finally having a public venue to share the VCF Archive on a year-round basis. For more information on the Alameda County Computer Resource Center, please visit their website: http://www.accrc.org/ To listen to KOOX internet radio, visit their Screaming Streaming Audio website: http://www.koox.net/ If you have computer flooring to donate, or know of someone who does, please contact us at <vcf(a)vintage.org>rg>. VCF on MediaTelevision ---------------------- MediaTelevision, a Canadian program that "looks inside and behind the media process", will be airing this week a segment that they produced on the VCF. Watch for it on a station that airs MediaTelevision's program. For information regarding MediaTelevision's segment on the VCF, visit: http://www.mediatv.net/ VintageTech ----------- The Vintage Computer Festival is proud to announce a new off-shoot for business and industry. VintageTech provides services such as patent litigation support and prior art searches, consulting and props for the film and photography industry, data and media conversion, vintage computer appraisals and sales brokering, and general computer history consulting. To inquire about VintageTech services or for more information, visit VintageTech today: http://wwww.vintagetech.com/ Classic Tech Eletter -------------------- Michael Nadeau, long-time computer industry journalist and former editor of Byte magazine, has launched a new newsletter that caters to the vintage computing audience. The Classic Tech Eletter is a monthly newsletter delivered right to your e-mail box. Each issue contains news and stories concerning happenings in the world of old computers and the folks who collect them. Subscribe to the Classic Tech Eletter and see back issues at: http://www.classictechpub.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- That wraps it up for this first issue of the VCF Gazette! Until next time... Best regards, Sellam Ismail Producer Vintage Computer Festival http://www.vintage.org/ The Vintage Computer Festival is a celebration of computers and their history. The VCF Gazette goes out to anyone who subscribed to the VCF mailing list, and is intended to keep those interested in the VCF informed of the latest VCF events and happenings. The VCF Gazette is guaranteed to be published in a somewhat irregular manner, though we will try to maintain a quarterly schedule. If you would like to be removed from the VCF mailing list, and therefore not receive any more issues of the VCF Gazette, visit the following web page: http://www.vintage.org/remove.php ;) -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *