Category: east

Women in Vintage Computers at VCF East 2022

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Vintage Computer Festival


One of the themes for Vintage Computer Festival East is “Women in Computing”. My Idea for this theme started with one woman: Margaret Morabito. She wrote a book titled “Vintage Commodore 128 Personal Computer Handbook” published in 2019. More recently she collaborated on a book with one of the creators of the Commodore 128 computer, Bil Herd. After they both talked about their book during VCF West in 2021 I was curious to know more about her. Through my research I discovered that she was a technical editor for RUN magazine for many years. RUN Magazine was published from January 1984 until December 1992. The magazine contained articles about Commodore 8-bit home computers and peripherals as well as reviews on available software packages. In addition, every issue featured several type-in programs written in BASIC and/or machine language. The magazine’s name came from the BASIC command “RUN”, which started execution of the computer’s program, presumably typed in from the magazine.

Even though I had subscribed to that magazine years ago, I had never heard of her. My original thought was to create a theme around authors of magazines, books and other publications from the vintage computer era. I called to ask her to be a speaker for our show and find out more about her. I learned that she designed and ran the Tutoring Center, the Q-Link Community College and Parent-Teacher Information Exchange. Q-Link was an online service for the Commodore 64 back in the 1980’s when most people connected to each other and to online services through telephone modems. She later ran the school on other services such as GEnie, Delphi, CompuServe, AppleLink, AOL, and PCLink. These were early online services back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Most are defunct, but some like AOL continue to this day. Amazed at her experience, I thought that maybe there were other women in vintage computing besides the “big names” from history that I had read about like Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper and the ENIAC programmers.

Continue reading “Women in Vintage Computers at VCF East 2022”

VCF East 2022 Exhibitor Deadline is April 1

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Events, Vintage Computer Festival

To all those wishing to do an exhibit for VCF East 2022, the exhibitor deadline is fast approaching. The deadline is April 1, so if you want to do an exhibit, then please register for it quickly! We still have room for exhibitors, but it’s going to start filling up quickly.

Exhibitor registration is found through this link: Exhibitor Registration

Check here for a list of currently registered exhibits: Currently Registered Exhibits

Dates are April 22, 23, 24, 2022

Location: InfoAge Science and History Museums, Wall, NJ

For more information on our show: VCF East Info

 

VCF East 2022

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Vintage Computer Festival

The Vintage Computer Federation is proud to announce our Vintage Computer Festival East 2022! Last year’s show was great and this year’s show is looking to be just as big and exciting. Great talks, exhibits, classes and exhibits. We’ve already lined up some great speakers including well known Commodore engineers such as Bil Herd, Dave Haynie, Andy Finkel and many others. Keep up to date with main page here: https://vcfed.org/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/

We have two themes this year:

Women in Computing

Computers for the masses.

If you are interested in exhibiting? Click Here

If you are interested in doing a class Click Here

If you are being a vendor Click Here

 

Workshops and demos and moon bounce, oh my! at VCF East 2021

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Events, Vintage Computer Federation Museum, Vintage Computer Festival

There will be more than just the exhibits, classes, talks and consignment during VCF East 2021. There will also be the following:

GLITCHWORKS

Glitch will be selling and helping people to build various kits at his workshop in the CDL building Friday (10/8), Saturday (10/9) and Sunday (10/10) from 1PM to 5PM during VCF East.

Here is what he will be offering:

* XT-IDE rev 4A kits
* R6501Q SBC kits
* RAM expansion for R6501Q kits
* 8085 SBC rev 3 kits
* CF adapter boards (works with both R6501Q and 8085 SBC rev 3, but really for the 8085 SBC)
* 8255 parallel I/O and prototyping interfaces
* Blank prototyping cards

UNIVAC 1219B
We will demo this machine from 1 to 3PM Saturday and  and Sunday  in the VCF museum.

LEARN TO SOLDER

We will have someone teaching beginners how to solder in the CDL workshop area Saturday and Sunday from 8AM to 5PM

BOUNCE YOUR VOICE OFF THE MOON

Saturday and Sunday from 1PM to 5PM at the Diana site 2 tenths of a mile walk down the road from the InfoAge main building. ISEC has many exhibits to see and learn about:

VCF East 2021 Consignment

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Events, Vintage Computer Federation Museum, Vintage Computer Festival

Hello everyone,

We are *not* doing a swap meet at our event. There just aren’t enough volunteers and the show would be spread out too much. We are however doing consignment for anyone wishing to buy or sell items.

I’ve had some people who were having trouble finding the information about consignment on the website. So I added links to the website, but for convenience here is the main website for VCF East consignment. It’s helpful for us if everyone to filled out the Consignment Sale Sheet before they arrive.

Here are the instructions for filling it out. Here is an example sheet to understand how to fill it out.

Any questions? E-mail vcfeast AT vcfed.org

 

 

VCF East 2021 Covid Protocols and Policies

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Vintage Computer Federation Museum, Vintage Computer Festival

Hello Everyone,

We’ve been asked about the Covid-19 protocols at VCF East 2021. Please forgive the delay. We waited to see how things would be as we got closer to the show. We have decided that the following policies and protocols will be followed:

InfoAge policy is that vaccinated people are not required to wear a mask, but unvaccinated people *must* wear a mask while indoors and maintain social distancing outdoors. 
However as per CDC guidelines we strongly recommend that everyone wear a mask indoors and socially distance outdoors.
New Jersey does not have a requirement for proof of vaccination for indoor events. 
We expect to keep open where practical every available door and window to provide increased ventilation in indoor spaces. 
The State of New Jersey does not have occupancy limitations at this time.

For those that don’t feel comfortable coming in person, we are working on a streaming option as well as Discord channels for those wanting to participate from a distance. Please check on our virtual show page (https://vcfed.org/vcf-east-virtual-show/) for updates as they are created.

If you have any other questions or comments, then please e-mail: vcfeast AT vcfed.org

There will be more announcements over the next week about VCF East 2021. Lots of exciting developments. Or you can look at our show page to see as they are updated: https://vcfed.org/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/

Thank you and hope to see you at the show!

VCF East 2021 will be the biggest show yet!

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Events, Vintage Computer Festival

Ever wonder about the roots of today’s technological society?

Did you spend the Covid-19 lockdown nostalgically playing old video games from the past on an emulator?

Do you want to get hands-on with computers ranging from the 1960’s thru the late 1980’s?

Come to the Vintage Computer Festival East in Wall NJ on October 8th thru 10th, 2021!

On Friday, October 8th, there are classes in everything from CRT display repair to hands-on building your own Intel 8085 board set computer.

On Saturday and Sunday, join us for hands-on exhibits of vintage and classic computers along with talks from the people who were at the beginning of what makes today’s world of technology common place. Talks include Dr. Ted Nelson, the pioneer of hypertext, the building block of the World Wide Web.

Listen to stories from Scott Adams, who brought adventure gaming to personal computers and David Ahl, who literally wrote the book, “Basic Computer Gaming”, that fueled many early home computer purchases.

Hear stories from Bil Herd’s years at Commodore and get him to sign his new book!

Hear from Bill Mensch about how a small microchip company from Pennsylvania in the 1970’s created a 6502 microprocessor that would not only power the home computer and home video game revolution thru the 1980’s but is still in use today in consumer devices.

For tickets, click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vintage-computer-festival-east-2021-tickets-157239897767?aff=affiliate1

Learn more about the Vintage Computer Festival East at https://vcfed.org/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east

Pictures from VCF East 2019: here and here

Click HERE to download our 8 & 1/2″ x 11″ flyer.

VCF East 2021 Exhibitor Registration is open!

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Vintage Computer Festival

Sorry for the delay, but we wanted to make sure everything was in place as we start gearing up for VCF East 2021!

Our assumption is that we will be doing a live show with few restrictions as things are looking really good in New Jersey and are expected to be even better by October.

This is the link for registration of your exhibit for VCF East:

Over the next few weeks we will be sending out updates on VCF East 2021. We already have some exciting speakers lined up for the show and we have some changes to the show that I hope everyone will find exciting and make it a more festive Festival.

=========================================
Jeff Brace
Vice President & Board Member
Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner
Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity
http://www.vcfed.org/
vcfeast AT vcfed.org.

VCF East 2020 Virtual Only – Oct 10 & 11

Posted on by Jeffrey Brace Category: east, Events, Vintage Computer Festival

VCF East will be a virtual only show for 2020.

The dates for the live show will be October 10 & 11. Time will be from 9AM to 6PM.

We will be streaming to YouTube with the schedule to be released soon.

Exhibitors can submit a 5 to 10 minute video or show their exhibit in-person at InfoAge.

Sign up here: https://forms.gle/24CeNpKFDwVmLeMR9

Class Instructors can submit a 30 minute video on their how-to class.

Sign up here: https://forms.gle/kFhoGKuPBcSAWRHKA

I know that this will be a great disappointment to many. I had hoped that after 4 months that conditions would have improved to the point that the show could be in-person, but limitations in indoor capacity makes the effort to organize an in-person show prohibitive. We considered the time, effort, money and safety to make an in-person show.

But don’t despair! Our virtual hybrid show will still be a lot of fun!
We can still make the show great despite being a virtual hybrid.

VCF West, K-Fest and HOPE have shown that a fun show can still be created while being virtual.
THE GENERAL PUBLIC ISN’T ALLOWED AT THE SHOW.
Only staff and a handful of exhibitors will be there in-person

I will be sending out more details about our plans as we develop them.