VCF West

Hello and Happy Pi Day!

With VCF East coming up fast that is the current focus of the Federation, but that doesn’t mean we can’t multitask!

VCF West is scheduled to occur on August 2nd and 3rd (Friday and Saturday) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.

This year’s show will be a little bit different than previous iterations as we are now a full partner with the CHM and not just a sponsored rental event. That will give us a bit more flexibility in how we use the space and should make the advertising for the show a whole lot better. It also means that there will be one admission price for both the event and the museum, taken at the CHM front desk.

We’re going to work on how to integrate our pre-sales and membership discounts into that in the coming months.

We have already started signing up speakers for the event but there is room for a whole lot more. Please contact me if you are interested in hosting a talk or if you know someone who would be.

As usual, we’d also like to use the classroom(s) for actual classes, if anyone wants to sign up to teach what you know. Again, please contact me with interest!

We are also hoping to host a gathering after we close the doors on Friday Night. We’ll use the patio area out back of the CHM, and maybe some of the indoor space, to let people eat, mingle and geek out.

As always, we’re going to need a lot of volunteers to help with the event. Please let me know if you’re willing to jump on board and share some of your time and enthusiasm for this show or for any other VCFed related events in the Bay Area. We’d love to do swap meets, meet and greets, repair workshops, etc. All we need is folks willing to take the lead… Please, again, contact me if you are willing.

VCF East 2024 – Update #2

Tickets available now!

Jeff Brace will be giving updates on the current status of VCF East.

Streaming live: VCF East updates on Saturday, February 10 at 6:30PM EST

VCF East Main Page

Some important links:

Exhibit Registration (Only 8 tables left as of 2/4/2024)

Vendor Registration (Only 8 tables left as of 2/4/2024)

Speaker Registration (Room left for 1 more speaker)

Volunteer Registration (It always helps to have volunteers)

Hotel Blocks (Still some rooms available!)

Consignment registration will start March 12. We are programming the new system which will be ready by the end of the month.

More updates to come!

VCF East 2024 is coming! April 12, 13, 14 @ InfoAge

Happy New Year everyone!

Streaming live: VCF East updates on Saturday, January 13 at 6:30PM EST

VCF East 2024 planning is into motion! We will still be at InfoAge. Dates are April 12, 13, 14.

Some important links:

Exhibit Registration

Vendor Registration

Speaker Registration

Volunteer Registration

Hotel Blocks

Consignment registration is coming soon. We are redoing the consignment process and it will be even better than last year! Also we have a new location for consignment that is twice as large!

More updates to come!

 

Vintage Computer Festival 6 talks recovered!

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It’s been 20 years now since VCF 6.
VCF 6 took place October 11-12th, 2003 at the Computer History Museum
Due to the extraordinary efforts of Kay Savetz, Clay Cowgill, and Josh Malone over the past two years, some of the talks from Vintage Computer Festival 6 have been recovered!
The recordings were in very poor condition and took extreme measures to recover. The audio is often not good. Sometimes it is very bad. But this is the best that they could do from very bad recordings.
C. H. Ting, Jef Raskin, John Ellenby, and Gary Starkweather are dead now, so these are voices from those who passed.
They have the audio of the five recoverable sessions from VCF 2003 up at Internet Archive.
Len Shustek – Computer History Museum
Bruce Damer – The Joys and Trials of Computer Collecting
David Jaffe / C. H. Ting / Kevin Appert / Dwight Elvey – Forth
Jef Raskin – Apple and the Humane Environment
John Ellenby / Gary Starkweather / Dave Robson / Peter Deutsch / Charles Simonyi – Xerox Alto panel
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Jeff Brace
VCF National Board Member Chairman & Vice President
Vintage Computer Festival East Showrunner
VCF Mid-Atlantic Event Manager
Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity

Introducing VCF SoCal!

Introducing VCF SoCal!

We’re pleased to announce the newest addition to the Vintage Computer Festival lineup – VCF SoCal in Orange, California on Presidents’ Day weekend, February 17-18, 2024.

Tickets will be on sale shortly, but hotel rooms are available to be booked now. Visit VCFSoCal.com for more details.

The city of Orange is in the heart of Orange County, minutes from Disneyland, beaches and skiing – with easy access to John Wayne airport.

Reserve your spot at the retro-filled, inaugural weekend in SoCal!

We’ve come a long way, but we’re set for another edition of VCF West, 20+ years removed from the picture above!

Please join us on Friday August 4th and Saturday August 5th at the Computer History Museum for what promises to be an amazing show!

We’ve set records for exhibitors (56!) and speakers with our first, the amazing Jeri Ellsworth, kicking off festivities at 10:00 AM on Friday!  Gates will open at 9:30 to get everyone seated in time! Book your tickets now!  Or pay at the door when you arrive.

If you’re a collector looking to add or subtract from your collection it looks like our consignment space will be overflowing with goodies! Sellers need to sign up in advance, so please hit that link above!

See you soon!

VCF West 2023 Update

Planning for VCF West 2023 is moving along nicely!  This is a good thing since there is less than a month left!

The show will take place on FRIDAY AUGUST 4th and SATURDAY August 5th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

Please note that this year’s show is Friday and Saturday. There is no event on Sunday for 2023.

The Exhibitor list has been posted and registration is now closed. Amazingly, we have more exhibits than we’ve ever had before!

If you missed the deadline please contact us via the link on the Exhibitor page and we’ll do our best to accommodate.

For those already registered, look for an email containing our standard set of Exhibitor instructions in the coming days.

Our cast of Speakers is absolutely outstanding this year! This will be finalized along with a schedule in the very near future. Thanks to Bil Herd and others we have a packed speaker schedule with tons of exciting talks!

We have a new space for Consignment this year!  We’ll have lots more room and a more streamlined system. This will, however, require some extra help from those participating in consignment. The instructions on our page will be updated very soon.

Thank you all for the encouragement and support.  This show can’t happen without you all. 

VCF West 2023 is a GO!

It has been a long time coming, but we’ve finally made arrangements to have a 2023 VCF West.

I’ll share some of the boring details later, but, for now, I want to encourage everyone interested in this year’s show to get ready for a great event, but one with a very short runway.  So get those exhibits prepared and registered, get those talks planned and free up your time for FRIDAY AUGUST 4th and SATURDAY August 5th.

Yes, you read that right.  One of the big hang-ups with getting 2023 off of the ground was that our traditional, and preferred, venue, the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, is not available for Sunday on our normal show weekend.

So this year’s event will be Friday and Saturday with setup on Thursday.

While this scheduling issue was the main holdup to getting the show off of the ground – It took a while to come to terms with the CHM for the rental, dates, etc. and that’s on me – the good news is that the CHM are very excited to have us back and they will help us promote the show, hopefully increasing our attendance even with the awkward days.

That said I do apologize profusely for the delays and inconvenience this will cause.  I also apologize for “ignoring” most of the emails from folks asking about our progress.  I really wasn’t sure until just today that the show would even go on and I didn’t want to spur a rumor mill in advance of an announcement.

Thankfully the announcement is a positive one!

Exhibitor registration is now open.  Because of the short timelines I’m encouraging everyone to sign up ASAP.

The same goes for speakers.  If you’d like to speak at the show please let me know soon.

Thank you all for the encouragement and support.  This show can’t happen without you all.  Once again I apologize for compressing all of the planning.  This won’t happen again.

VCF East 2023 is coming! April 14, 15, 16.

VCF East 2023 will be again at The InfoAge Science and History Museums in Wall, NJ.

The dates are April 14, 15, & 16. Updated information can be found here: https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/

We will have a great lineup of speakers and exhibitors!

Click here for the VCF East main page: https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/

Exhibitor Registrationhttps://forms.gle/iKZNPqFPSeobjnau5
Vendor Registrationhttps://forms.gle/zGsPxCcuDQBXm3fb7
Volunteer Registration:  https://forms.gle/UEbiFYvgEiBk9MS27
Speaker Registrationhttps://forms.gle/yvV311ucBEWXzqpx9

 

VCF West 2022, Aug 6 & 7! Great speakers, exhibits and consignment!

VCF West is breaking records for VCFs with more exhibits and more speakers than ever! We won’t have 12 original Apple 1s, as in this photo, but there will be several there for you to see, including the first ever! There will be lots of other great exhibits with the current list here. Speakers are selected and can be found here. Lee Felsenstein will be there to give a talk about his Pennywhistle along with almost a dozen other speakers. Consignment, as always, will be very active with more space than ever with lots of sellers bringing lots of awesome stuff. If you are interested in consignment, look here.

The show will be August 6 & 7, 2022 at The Computer History Museum. Show information can be found here. Tickets can be pre-bought on Eventbrite. The first 100 Two day ticket buyers get a unique custom badge for this event.

Other VIPs who will be at the show include Liza Loop and Dan Kottke.