Growing the hobby

[Evan Koblentz]

Hello cctalk'ers,

We at the Vintage Computer Federation would like to thank everyone for 
making 2016 an incredible year.

Most of you know us by now, but just in case you don't -- we're a 
501(c)3 non-profit created a year ago to organize the Vintage Computer 
Forum, VCF East, VCF West, and the official VCF Museum (at our NJ 
headquarters). Our goals are simple -- to empower collectors and spread 
awareness of computer history.

We accomplished great things in 2016. We doubled the size of our museum, 
hosted the 11th edition of Vintage Computer Festival East, resurrected 
the former Vintage Computer Festival West, and joined forces with the 
Vintage Computer Forum.

Now we’re asking for your help to keep the momentum going. Can you make 
a tax-deductible gift to us this holiday season? Over at our 
contributions page you’ll find four options — Binary ($10.00), Phreaker 
($26.00), 555 Timer ($55.50), S-100 ($100), and Variable (enter your own 
amount).

If you’d like to do something truly awesome, and you happen to live in 
or will be traveling to the San Francisco / Silicon Valley area, then 
bid on lunch with Lee Felsenstein through our friends at CharityBuzz 
(https://www.charitybuzz.com/catalog_items/lunch-for-3-with-personal-computing-social-media-icon-1198500). 
Lee is a technical and social media legend — he was a spark behind 
Community Memory, moderator of the Homebrew Computer Club, and a top 
engineer for both the Processor Tech Sol-20 and Osborne-1. Bring a few 
friends, have lunch with Lee at your mutual convenience, and we’ll pay 
the bill!

Where will your money go? We are planning even more things for 2017 and 
beyond. Vintage Computer Festival East XII will be held March 31 through 
April 2 at our museum. We are currently planning Vintage Computer 
Festival West XII and will announce the dates soon. We’re considering 
expansion of the Festival to other cities, we’re looking to incubate 
additional regional chapters, we are planning to offer more resources 
online, and we’re preparing a slew of improvements to the physical 
museum. If you thought we were active this year, then 2017 is going to 
exhaust us — but we love every minute of it!

If you want even your news even more frequent and granular, then you’ve 
got options! Read our blog at vcfed.org, join the discussion forum 
there, like us at facebook.com/vcfederation, and follow us through 
twitter.com/vcfederation.

Finally, if you have questions or comments, then please feel free to 
contact me directly.

Thank you,
Evan Koblentz
Director, Vintage Computer Federation
Evan at vcfed.org