Vintage Computer Festival East 7.0 - preliminary

This Web page last updated JUne 2 2011.

Introduction

I was a vendor at the May 14-15 2011 VCF-East 7.0 show held by MARCH at Infoage in Wall NJ. I bought a number of systems to show and sell. This is part of my work in 1970's computer repair and restoration. Many of the systems I showed were S-100 computers, a specialty of mine. - Herb Johnson

Systems I brought included an Osborne 1; :black" Apple II Bell and Howell; a Sony SMC-70 CP/M system; Northstar Horizon on display. Also shown were two early IBM PC's, one with hard drive; an AT&T 386/25 desktop. All were working systems. On Sunday I spread the systems out a bit. I sold a few of these systems, passed along some additional hardware, and acquired some hardware as well.

In addition, I handed out flyers for Lee Hart's 1802 Membership Card, a handheld version of the classic ELF design with COSMAC 1802. Here's the flyer and 'card on display

At the show, Bill Degnan and I compared our Polymorphic 88 systems. See the details of my system and Bill's on this linked page.But real work on Bill's system at the show was done by Jonathan Chapman at his exhibit table.

Space

view of the front room exhibit area
the back room with vendors & consignment
busy view of the back room

A sampling of Exhibitors

A full list of exhibitors should be on the vintage.org VCF-E 7.0 site. This is not a complete list.

A 3X3 wall of Apple II displays by Michael Kelly & Ian Primu
Michael Lee, Exhibit of 6502 technology
Mike Willegal's Apple I and II display
what is Jonathan Chapman holding?
Chapman is holding Vector Graphic and a Dajen, S-100 cards
C-NET BBS display of Justin Jernigan
David Gesswein's PDP-8's on display Thanks for David's support.
Mike Lowen's impressive Osborne collection My thanks for his support, check his Web site.
Here's a link to Andy Meyer's Sony SMC-70 Web page, he's shown these Sony systems a number of times.
Digital Group exhibit of Michael Hill. Photo courtesy of Bill Degnan. See my Web page about The Digital Group.
Bill Degnan's 6800 system, also Poly 88. Bill and I are cooperating on the Polymorphic systems.
This digital analyser looked at Bill's Poly...
..and so did this one, I think. about the size of a quarter.
Documents left after the mainframe talk
...including an original Univac manual

Vendors and consignment

one of the MARCH consignment tables There were many systems offered this year.
Apple II and GS newsletter publisher of "JuicedGS" photo courtesy of Mike Loewen
a replica of "The Brown Box", an early video game hardware, exhibit by Leonard Herman, publisher of videogame-history related books. Photo courtesy of Anthony Stramaglia
my table of systems to sell and show.

IBM 1130

MARCH acquired an IBM 1130, various Teletypes, and other items this spring.

The IBM 1130 An inspection was conducted by Norm Aleks & Brian Knittel
the 1130 card reader & printer
what you DON'T want to see in a disk drive
The 1130 backplane - all hand wired

Workshops

TTY workshop

I participated in the teletype workshop operated by Bill Degnan. MARCH acquired a number of Model 33, Model 28, and other TTY's and offered them for sale and check out as part of this workshop. The Sunday workshop was very informative and I'm pleased with the TTY I got. These suffered a bit for years of storage and for mice, but were certainly useful or restorable.

TTY outside cleanup
TTY workshop led by Bill Degnan
TTY's under scrunty as Bill speaks
Herb's TTY - note it's pin-feed paper
Herb's TTY - the case is dirty but complete

Transistor Logic workshop

Dan Roganti ran a discrete logic circuit workshop, where participants built logic from resistors, diodes and transistors. This is part of Dan's interest in a discrete PDP-8 project.

Dan's workshop, photo of Dan courtesy of Mike Loewen

Conclusion

The value of these shows is to bring together owners and restorers of vintage systems as exhibitors. We can compare notes and trade equipment. Also, many people who visit these shows were previous owners, some are restoring and some provide their former systems to MARCH or the participants. THere's a consignment area where MARCH sold a range of items as well as unneeded books and magazines from their archives and donations. Of course, there are talks by people of the vintage period, and they are also informative. But in my opinion, it's the contacts and opportunities for trade and technical support that make the show particularly valuable to me. Contact information:

Copyright © 2011 Herb Johnson