24 May
2010
24 May
'10
1:58 p.m.
On Monday 24 May 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
That is one of my reservations about the VCF. It would
applear that
if a private collector taks a machine along, the public are going to
be able to try to use it.
Now, it's one thing to allow a fellow enthusiast to play with a
classic machine. They will know how to treat it. Not to hit the
keyboard hard. Not to stick things in the cooling slots. And so on.
But I for one do not want a totally non-knowledgable user typing on
one of my machines.
At all of the VCF/Midwest events I ran, I never had any problem with any
of the public doing anything to harm exhibits, and the exhibitors have
complete control (within reason anyhow) of their own exhibit.
Tony, while you may be able to conjure up ideas of how a VCF may be such
a horrible place for you to be, I seriously doubt most of what you
envision is true.
At my last one (final VCF/MW that I'm running), I had a VAX-11/780 up
and running 4.3BSD, and some pieces I wasn't using, to show a typical
system, and the power may have been somewhat jerry-rigged, but for the
most part everyone had a good time. The only problems I had were from
fellow collectors at the show, complaining about my abilities to
organize the event (which is why I have finally decided to stop running
the VCF/MW). I've worked out the misunderstandings, but technical
people are the main reason that I've seen a VCF type event "fail" (I'm
willing to include myself in that category).
Pat
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