VCF/PNW Exhibit & Trip Report - The Old Calculator Museum

Hi, everyone, Myself and my friend Mike, representing the Old Calculator Museum, exhibited the line of Wang Laboratories electronic calculators at the Vintage Computer Federation's Vintage Computer Festival/Pacific Northwest edition, at the Living Computer Museum+Labs in Seattle, Washington this past weekend. This was the 2nd annual VCF/PNW, and it was clearly a success, as it was significantly larger than the first event last year (which I went to, but didn't exhibit at). There were 30 exhibits, all of which were really interesting, and a good-sized consignment area, as well as quite a group of guest speakers who had interesting topics to present. Of course, being held in the Living Computer Museum+Labs was a bonus, as the museum is an amazing place, with lots of vintage computers up and running and accessible for people to actually use and experience. The Old Calculator Museum exhibit consisted of a Wang LOCI-2 and punched card readers (1st and 2nd-generation card readers), a Wang 360E w/320K keyboard/display unit;362E with 370 Programmer and 371 Punched Card Reader; 360SE 4-terminal timeshared calculator package with two 360KT trig keyboards, 360K, and 320K keyboards, all running simultaneously off the 360SE electronics unit; a Wang 720C; Wang 600-14TP; Wang 500-14TP; Wang 462 and 452 Programmable calculators; and a Wang C-52. These are representatives of all of the lines of calculators that Wang Laboratories made during its years in the electronic calculator market (1965-1974). All of the machines were running and available for visitors to play with, with the exception of the LOCI-2 (which has a thermal issue that manifests after about 3 minutes of operation) and the 500-14TP, which has some kind of problem that renders it catatonic that I've not yet had a chance to try to diagnose/repair). Also shown was an original Wang Labs factory spare parts kit for the 300-series calculators & peripherals, another Wang 360SE electronics package opened up so people could see the insides, a number of circuit boards from Wang 300-series keyboard/display units, as well as core memory boards from 300-series electronics packages, core memory and circuit boards from Wang 700-series calculators, and original sales documentation for Wang's 700, 500, and 600-series calculators. The exhibit turned out pretty well, though I didn't have time to make up signs to identify the stuff until we actually got there and made hand-written signs, which turned out to be good enough -- it seems that people could actually read my chicken-scratch handwriting. The signs included the retail price at the time the machine was introduced, and people were stunned that in 1971, a Wang 720C outfitted as the exhibited machine retailed for $7,000. A lot of people asked how much that would be in today's dollars, and I was able to use my phone to find out...about $50,000. The exhibit was almost constantly busy both days for the whole time the museum was open, (10 AM - 5 PM), and the folks were all very careful with the old machines, and had really great questions about them. I was pretty surprised at how much interest there was in these old beasts. The crowd was pretty mixed in age, from folks who actually used examples of the machines in school, to youngsters who were totally shocked that this is what calculators were like 50 years ago. The machines ran the whole time the exhibit was open, and amazingly, despite the old Germanium-based transistors in the Wang 300-series calculators, as well as fussy magnetic rope ROMs and core memory in the 700 and 600-series machines, they ran trouble-free. A lot of folks had trouble getting the machines to give answers they expected because of Wang's unusual math entry method. Once they were given a simple explanation of the way the machines worked, they caught on quickly, and got answers they expected. It was a lot of fun to explain and demonstrate the machines to the visitors. The Wang 370 Programmer hooked up to the 362E electronics package was popular. I had a little program punched up on a card that would perform an iterative approximation of Pi. It'd run for 100 iterations, then stop and display the approximation it had come to thus far. People were fascinated by the "spinning" Nixie Tubes as the machine churned away on the iterations. People also liked the 360KT keyboards hooked up the 360SE simultaneous timeshared calculator electronics package. They enjoyed it when I demonstrated the two 360KT keyboard/display units running the Sine of 45 degrees at the same time. The timesharing between the two terminals was obvious as the calculator switched back and forth between each of the keyboards as the calculation, which takes about 25 seconds, was being performed. Nixie tubes were a big attraction. Many younger folks had never seen them in person before, but almost everyone knew about them. I think that the popularization of Nixie tubes in the form of clocks using Nixie tubes for display has brought Nixies to the attention of folks that didn't experience them in the day, but have seen stuff online about Nixie tubes. I did get a little time to wander around the event and look at the other exhibits (there were 30 this year!), and the stuff the folks had was amazing. I was really impressed by Josh Dersch's exhibit of PERC workstations...it was truly amazing to see these rare machines running! I really liked Vince Slyngstad's PDP 8/e with a custom Omnibus board that replicates the vintage (and rare) X/Y analog output board using a CPLD and a couple of DACs such that the PDP 8/e was running actual SPACEWAR code and displaying on a Tektronix display tube. There were a lot of other really great exhibits, including a very complete Atari 800 systems running office productivity tools that made what was considered a gaming computer into a true office machine that was ahead of its time. There was a great exhibit of some classic Silicon Graphics machines running, an exhibit of just about every type of floppy disc and optical media ever produced (some of which are very rare), and a couple of exhibits related to accurately emulating classic computers using contemporary microprocessors to either run vintage "lights & switches" front panels, or even miniaturized front panels built to look and run like the original computers. All of the exhibits were well presented and truly interesting. Just before the event closed, I took a few minutes so I could go upstairs to the computer room and take some photos of the KA-10(which I'd have to say is my favorite vintage computer), when my friend and exhibit helper Mike came through the doors of the computer room, pointed at me, and motioned for me to come with him. I had been talking to two very nice young gentlemen who had a lot of questions about the KA-10, and had to beg their forgiveness as I had to leave. I followed Mike down the stairs, and a big crowd of people was there. I didn't realize it, but the awards ceremony was going on while I was upstairs. Mike guided me to Mike Brutman, the event organizer, and he presented me with "The Most Interesting Presentation" award! I was completely stunned. I never would have thought that a couple of tables of old calculators with hand-written signs would merit such an award, but I was very honored and humbled to receive it. The event was very well-organized. The Living Computer Museum+Labs staff and volunteers did an amazing job getting the museum set up for the exhibits, with tables, tablecloths, and chairs all in place and ready to go when we arrived Friday. Mike Brutman was fantastic! He was so nice, accommodating, and supportive of my exhibit (which, by definition, was somewhat outside the "Vintage Computer" realm), as well as doing a completely amazing job of organizing such a complicated event. Everything went off smoothly, from the set up Friday night, through the two days of the event, awards Sunday after the doors closed to the public, and tear-down and haul out. Our exhibit was the last one out the door, as it's rather tedious packing these old machines up, making sure that they are cozily packed within the crates with a lot of padding in between them. It took my about 2 days to get everything packed to head up there, and we had a little over two hours to repack it all after the event closed...we were running like banshees to get everything packed safely and loaded into the van. The trip home went smoothly with no problems. I was totally exhausted Monday afternoon when we got home. Mike and I unloaded all the crates and stuff from the van into the museum building, and Mike headed home. I went to the house, sat down on the sofa and turned on the TV, and was dead to the world when my wife got home from work a few hours later. I don't remember anything from the time I sat down until she got home. I haven't unpacked anything yet...I needed a day yesterday to get a bunch of errands done, and reply to a backlog of Emails that stacked up while I was away and didn't have time to tend to them. Later this afternoon, I'll get everything unpacked and back on the display shelves, and test 'em out. Hopefully everything will work fine after the trip home. I want to take this opportunity to thank my long-time and cherished friend, Mike Weiler, for taking three days off work to come help with the exhibit. He was a real trooper, helping people understand how to use the machines, manning the exhibit when I wanted to wander around and look at the other exhibits and the new machines at the Living Computer Museum+Labs (including the awesome KA-10 PDP-10 running in the machine room upstairs...what a treat!), as well as fielding questions when I'd get engaged with a visitor discussing these old calculators. Not to mention all of his help packing the stuff up before we left, hauling all the stuff into the museum when we arrived Friday afternoon, helping get the exhibit set up and organized, tearing everything down and packing it up after the event closed and hauling it out to the van and getting it all packed in for the trip home, and helping to unload it all once we arrived home. Along with all of that, Mike was a godsend in terms of helping me keep my cool when I'd get stressed out about stuff. There's not a ghost of a chance I could have done all of this myself. I'd also like to thank Mike Brutman for all of the effort and determination it takes to successfully pull of an event like this. It was all stunningly well-done! My thanks also go out to the other exhibitors at the event, many of which who came over to visit the Old Calculator Museum exhibit and compliment us about having these old machines running and available for visitors to touch and operate. Last, but certainly not least, thanks to the Living Computer Museum+Labs staff and volunteers for all of the work and support that they provided for this event. The venue amazing, and makes a perfect place for a vintage computer festival. With the success of this year's event, only its second time in the Pacific Northwest, it is sure to grow even more next year. I am looking forward to next year's VCF/PNW, where I plan on doing a similar exhibit of old electronic calculators from the Friden Calculating Machine Co., with an example of every line of calculator that Friden/Singer made available for visitors to play with. I just hope my friend Mike will be up to doing again it next year. Just before we left, Erik Klein, the organizer of VCF/West, held in Mountain View, CA at the Computer History Museum during the first week in August, came to me and invited me to bring the Wang exhibit down to the event his summer. I was surprised that there'd be interest, but he was emphatic that it'd be wonderful to have the exhibit there. I was honored by this request, and told Erik I'd do all I could to try to make it to this event. Perhaps if I make it, I'll actually have printed signs to identify the stuff rather than hand-written signs that I made "on the fly" as we were setting things up, because I ran out of time to make decent signs. :-) It's a long trip down there from the Portland, Oregon vicinity, but I'm going to do all I can to make it if at all possible. The experience was amazing. I've never done anything like this before. I discovered that there's really something special about seeing people amazed by how much things have changed since the 1960's. The calculators really make it so clear just how amazing it is to have an HP calculator emulation running on a smartphone...and that the smartphone has far more compute power, storage, and capability than all of the Wang calculators on display together, with the emulated HP calculator running far faster than the original calculator it emulates. It's really crazy just how far we've come in 50 years...and I just can't even begin to envision what we'll have 50 years from now. I wonder if the tech we use today will be on display at vintage computer events in 2069? A funny note. The whole time I was there on Saturday and Sunday, I was wearing on my wrist a classic HP-01 wristwatch/calculator. A total of five people noticed it and commented, and of the five, three knew what it was, and two were just curious about it because it caught their eye, but they didn't know what it was. The two that were curious were completely blown away when I demonstrated it to them. I would have expected that more folks would have noticed this big gold hunk on my wrist. So, that's my "trip report". To all the ClassicCmp'ers that came to the event, thanks for coming. See you maybe down at VCF/West, and, fates willing, next year at VCF/PNW. Rick Bensene The Old Calculator Museum http://oldcalculatormuseum.com