Author: mbbrutman

We had a great time last weekend!  Congratulations to our award winners!

• Max Tonnage Award, Josh Dersch, 40 Years of the Three Rivers PERQ Workstation
• Youngest Exhibitor, George Amores, Commodore 64 vs. Commodore Plus 4
• Most Interactive, Joerg Hoppe, BlinkenBone, Program a PDP-11/70 over reanimated front panel
• Best Display, John Ball, AppleTalk – Apple’s First Generation Network Protocol
• Most Interesting Presentation, Rick Bensene, Wang Laboratories’ Electronic Calculators
• Most Complete System, Jason Howe, Atari 800 Productivity
• Garage Queen, Stephen M. Jones, SDF Public Access UNIX System
• Best Restoration, Chris Henkel, Early PC based Engineering Workstations
• What the heck is that?, Kaylin, Hayes, & Papenhoff, PDP-6 emulation with interface to PDP-6 Console and 340 Display
• Kill-A-Watt, Madeline Autumn-Rose, CompuServe and Their PDP-10 Clones
• The Overachiever Award, Ian Finder, Only Amiga Makes It Necessary and The GRiD
• Best in Show, Sergey Kiselev, Retro Brew Computing – Do-it-yourself 8-bit Single Board Computers

It was my first time handing out awards, so I apologize for the flubs and wonderfully awkward moments. 🙂

Links to the presentations can be found on the event page at https://vcfed.org/vcf-pnw/.

If you attended the event please consider adding your pictures to the shared photo album at https://photos.app.goo.gl/e2rzk4iT4aHrQUoy6.  It helps others to see the show from a different perspective, and it helps us who were too busy to take pictures.

And one last request – help us make VCFed events even better!  If you were at VCF PNW 2019 please fill out a short survey for us: https://goo.gl/forms/V3DiyxwkpbIOCKn73

See you in 2020!
Mike, on behalf of VCFed

VCF PNW 2019 is this weekend in Seattle!

Come check out the 30 exhibits, enjoy six presentations, and go hunting for treasure in the consignment area.  And of course come for the people – they are what make a VCF event so fun!

Details can be found at https://vcfed.org/vcf-pnw.  We hope to see you there!

Mike on behalf of the VCF PNW crew

If you were thinking of joining us for VCF Pacific Northwest 2019 in Seattle then now is the time to let me know!

The event is March 23-24th (Saturday and Sunday) with setup the day before. We still have room for some more exhibits if you are interested in joining us. If you are going to join us I need to know by Friday, February 8th. If you have told me you were coming but did not complete the registration form, well, now is the time …

A description of the event can be found at https://vcfed.org/vcf-pnw. General information for exhibitors including pictures from last year, a link to the registration form, and a FAQ can be found at https://vcfed.org/vcf-pnw-exhibitor-registration/. Also, yell at me directly if you have questions.

Thanks,
Mike

mbbrutman@brutman.com or michael@vcfed.org

PS: Not exhibiting at the event but interested in unloading some tonnage? We are hosting a consignment area again!  The consignment area is open to everybody; now is a good time to start cleaning and testing things that you might want to sell.

Just some quick updates on VCF PNW 2019

• So far we have 11 registered exhibitors plus a few more who have expressed interest.  We are looking for 20 to 25 exhibits and probably have room for up to 30 so don’t be shy.  (We would like to have exhibitor registration complete in mid-January so we can start working on the show layout.)
• We are also still looking for a few more speakers who want to present their topics.  Being a speaker at VCF PNW is a great way to share your knowledge with a very friendly crowd.
• We are hosting a consignment area again!  Have an old machine or gear that you want to find a new home for?  Now would be a great time to get it cleaned up and ready for sale.

VCF Pacific Northwest 2019 will take place March 23-24, 2019 at Living Computers: Museum+Labs in Seattle, Washington.  Details can be found at https://www.vcfed.org/vcf-pnw. 

(Mike re-posting for Oscar)

Just a heads-up: there will be a Vintage Computer Festival in Switzerland again this year!

Like the last two years, it’ll be in Zurich’s Rote Fabrik cultural center, at the shore of Lake Zurich. November 24 & 25…

Here’s an impression of last year’s event.

There’s a new & nice line-up of exhibits and presentations. Including two World Premieres, the Unibone (PDP-11 hardware! Attach Simh to a physical Unibus, or connect all sorts of emulated peripherals to a real PDP-11 Unibus – the thing works both ways) and an FPGA remake of the RPC-4000. We’ll also have Swiss Jazz & computer music pioneer Bruno Spörri and a related section on vintage synthesizers. Like always, the kids can be left safely at the Vintage Gaming podium…

Details on Twitter and on www.vcfe.ch. Switzerland is really not that far away, so no reason not to come 

Kind regards,
Oscar

VCF PNW 2019 will take place March 23-24, 2019 at Living Computers: Museum+Labs in Seattle, Washington.  We had a great time last year and we are going to try to make it even better this year.

Exhibitor registration is open.  I am also looking for speakers and volunteers to help me run the event.  It seems early but time tends to speed up at the end of the year. Getting an earlier start should also help people who need to make travel arrangements.

Are you thinking about traveling from outside of the region?  There is plenty to do in Seattle while you are here, including the Connections Museum, the Pacific Science Center, MoPOP, the Boeing factory tour, etc.

Interested?  Check out https://vcfed.org/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-pacific-northwest/ for more details or send me an email.

Thanks,
Mike
michael@vcfed.org

Thank you to everyone who volunteered, exhibited, presented, and attended Vintage Computer Festival West XIII. Send us your photos! We’re posting in the VCF archive. Ping us: info@vcfed.org

Many people asked, and now we’re answering! There are three incredible events happening soon.

Vintage Computer Festival Southeast 6.0 (produced by our friends at the Atlanta Historical Computing Society) is April 21-22 in the Atlanta area (Roswell, Georgia). Vintage Computer Festival East XIII is May 18-20 at the Vintage Computer Federation museum in Wall, New Jersey. Vintage Computer Festival West XIII is August 4-5 at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley (Mountain View, California).

Exhibit registration for Southeast and East is now open. Don’t delay: these events get full quickly!

VCF PNW 2018 is now officially a memory. Nothing caught fire, so we could not hand out that award. We had a few glitches but overall, things went very well.

If you have pictures send them along and we’ll post them (and give you credit, of course …)

Thanks again to our exhibitors, speakers, and VCF volunteers for their effort, LC:M+L for giving us a place to make the magic happen, and Hackaday for helping to fund our adventure.

Michael Brutman
michael@vcfed.org or mbbrutman@brutman.com
Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest 2018 producer

The first ever Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest (VCF PNW) starts Saturday February 10th. Come join us for a weekend filled with vintage computers, presentations, and some of the people who make up the community. The show is being held at Living Computers: Museum+Labs in Seattle, Washington. The museum is a great attraction by itself but on this weekend you can enjoy both the museum and the show for the same price of admission.

We have 20 exhibits ranging from original “old iron” to modern enhancements for old systems.  Exhibits are interactive and the exhibitors will be happy to spend time showing you their projects and talking to you. (See VCF PNW 2018 Exhibitors for the current list.)

Our six presenters will cover topics from the history (and future) of microprocessors to recent experiences while writing an emulator for a classic machine.  Don’t miss the live demonstration of the LC:M+L time-sharing systems or the panel discussion on restoration techniques used on DEC and HP systems.  (See VCF PNW 2018 Presenters for the full list.)

Are you looking to sell some of your vintage computing collection? Or are you interested in acquiring somebody else’s treasure? If so, VCF PNW 2018 will have a consignment area to help connect buyers and sellers of vintage computing equipment.  Click here for details.

Coming to Seattle for the first time? If so, check out our list of local attractions to visit while you are here.

We hope to see you at the show! More details can be found at the VCF PNW show home page.

Michael Brutman on behalf of VCFed.org