#vcfmw10

[commodorez]

My sweet collection of Vintage Computer Festival shirts.

From left to right:  VCF East 4.0 from 2007, VCF East 7.0 from 2011, VCF East 9.1 from 2014, VCF East X from 2015, and VCF Midwest 10 from 2015.  You’ll note they’ve been front and back for a few years now.

VCF East XI is this weekend, so I’ll have another for my collection very soon.  For more information, check out VCFED.org

[commodorez]

Seems that a scheduling error decided to post this a week late.  No matter.

I believe this IMSAI 8080 miniature replica belongs to Josh Bensadon, but I know that the Z-19 terminal is Lee Hart’s.  Also, that’s the top of Oscar Vermeulen’s head behind the (the guy who responsible for the PiDP-8). 

The miniature IMSAI 8080 is sitting on a proper S-100 bus.  I’ve never seen one before, but I wonder if they all use painted LEDs like this one...

Either way, das blinkenlights are beautiful on full size or miniature replica machines.

[commodorez]

VCF Midwest 10 Image Roundup

Alright, I’ve finally posted all of the images from Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 10 that were worth posting.  That took longer than I expected... and I didn’t even get photos of everything I wanted to!  I look forward to visiting next year. 

If you missed something and want to see all of the photos from my set, any of the following tags should show all of my posts regarding VCFMW10:

commodorez-goes-to-vcfmw10

vcfmw10

vintage-computer-festival-midwest-10

[commodorez]

Alright, I spoke too soon about the Elf 2K being the most complex/powerful 1802 implementation. 

The COMX 35 actually holds that title, on account of it having a full keyboard, a color video output, and a floppy disk interface -- a rarity among 1802 computers. There are a whole slew of add-ons for the the COMX 35, and it even has a little joystick instead of arrow keys built in. 

[commodorez]

Lee Hart is a champion, and I would consider him to be the top dog when it comes to RCA 1802 microprocessor knowledge.  Let us commence with the final batch of photos from VCFMW10 with his exhibit.

Starting with the VELF, a COSMAC ELF with on-board video capabilities -- however limited they may be.  It’s decked out with a keypad to complement the usual array of switches, and a composite video output on top of the usual LED smorgasbord.

We also can see a small analog hardware Space War build hooked into a tiny television, and a modern digital kit version of a simple binary puzzle known as the Think A Dot.

[commodorez]

Justin “DJ” Scott also had a SWTPC 6800 on display!  The South West Technical Products Corporation made the Motorola 6800 processor accessible in a microcomputer form factor. 

DJ had his connected to a Hazeltine 1500 terminal, as well as a SWTPC cassette tape adapter, and a SWTPC Minifloppy Disk System.  You will note that the full-height 5 1/4″ floppy drive was replaced with a 3 1/2″ floppy drive. 

Lastly, he had a pair 6800-powered trainers.  One being a Heathkit ET-3400 with the memory I/O expansion, the other being an Elenco XK-300. 

Note the wind-up paper tape spooler for coiling up a tape after it has been spit out of the ASR-33 on the floor. 

[commodorez]

analog-punk replied to your photo “Behold the beauty of a pair of HP-1000 series minicomputers, an...”

This was one of my favs

You make it sound like you were there.  If you were, I wish we had gotten a chance to meet.

[commodorez]

The HP-1000 rack pair had a massive multi-track magnetic tape drive.  Apparently HP made the diagnostics on their tape drives so thorough that if they passed you knew for sure that nothing could possibly be wrong.  They checked everything from the most common faults to weird edge-cases and everything in between to create a robust piece of hardware as big as your refrigerator.  The little stack on the floor I believe is the disk drive, but I didn’t get a chance to look at it.