Vintage Computer Festival in San Jose 94
K2 noted the Vintage Computer Festival taking place in California ... apparently MIT does this too (not that this matters to us midwesterners). At least there's a lot of interesting looking reading material on the site that those of us who aren't there can read (the true Apple story, archives on vintage computers, petitions to sign wrt releasing specs of vintage hardware into the public domain etc).
whoo! (Score:1)
MIT Flea (Score:5)
Those who are interested in the MIT event should probably check out the flyer [mit.edu].
It's a relatively well-attended event, although the hardware (and software) available ranges from antique (vacuum tubes and all) to the relatively new (PII-range tech). Decent prices, however, and you can generally get whatever you're looking for.
Vintage computers? (Score:5)
I mean, I can reasonably deduct that anything from the 70's and earlier is going to be a good qualifier, but what other lines of machines can we expect to see?
Their website doesn't seem to go into much detail on it; would this include the first Macs that hit shelves? How about my old Amiga 500? An itty bitty Sun IPX?
What is classified as a "vintage" computer?
All I want (Score:5)
jred
www.cautioninc.com [cautioninc.com]
jred
www.cautioninc.com [cautioninc.com]
caution, inc.
Nice Move, /. (Score:4)
I guess everything is vintage under the
Vintage what? (Score:3)
Is that anything like a Renaissance Faire?
"Hail and well met! Prepare to eat fiery death from my Vic-20, knave!"
love,
br4dh4x0r
Re:Vintage what? (Score:1)
you lose.
Re:Nice Move, /. - Mirror (Score:3)
Hot date Locale?!?! (Score:2)
Certainly the MacAquarium will be on the list...
Maybe I'll be able to gather ideas about what to do with my P3 and case...ya know....seeing as the P4 isn't compatible and all....
TI-99/4A (Score:2)
a haiku: (Score:1)
like anyone gives a shit.
Slashdot wastes bandwidth.
Further information on this topic may be found here [slashdot.org].
Define Vintage (Score:1)
Maybe someone should define the term vintage when it is in relevance to computer tech.
My 2 cents would say that any
five year old system would be vintage.
any suggestions or has someone already defined
the term "vintage"?
Hosted on a vintage computer? (Score:2)
Charity (Score:3)
If what you've got is just loose components there are still options. There is a charity, "Computer Bank Charity" if I remember correctly, here in Seattle that takes older computers and computer parts, rebuilds and refurbishes them and supplies them to lower income families - an effort to breach the "digital divide". I'm certain there would be something along those lines in your area.
A previous slashdot article about computer charity in general : http://slashdot.org/askslashd ot/00/07/01/226259.shtml [slashdot.org].
One question: (Score:1)
The mission of the Vintage Computer Festival is to promote the preservation of "obsolete" computers
I mean, sure I still enjoy a good 'ole Gameboy "LAN party" every now and again;) But how long can Tetris entertain a guy? Even a beer-swiggin' Gameboy afficionado?
And trying to do any decent 3D modeling at work on an 8086 might be a little trying...
--
Re:All I want (Score:1)
Age of a vintage computer should be... (Score:2)
Re:TI-99/4A (Score:1)
-----
Definition of vintage (Score:1)
At least that's a guess.
Cheap Slashdotting cure! (Score:4)
Slashdotted methinks (stuck loading front page).
Cheap trick gets round slashdot effectso you can actually read something and be able to post with intelligence ;) is :
use Google's Advanced Search [google.com] and search vintage.org for a word like "computer" or "old" like this :-) [google.com] and load up the cached pages of the site [google.com]
should work for any slashdotted site, just pick a word not too generic to be eliminated by Google's engine bu tlikely to appear on every page, and enjoy the cached files!Don't you just love Google?
Karma whoring for my /. soul please look away if this is obvious to you
Re:Age of a vintage computer should be... (Score:1)
Doh!
what are the criteria? (Score:2)
At the current rate that computers get obsolete, the machine I bought last year, would qualify too.
In the beginning... (Score:2)
Ug picked up on this, making his own wheel and distributing it with the notion that it was _his_ idea. Oog was not happy, but nevertheless wanted to share with the world his discovery. After Ug sold his patent and namesake, the 'UgRoll' (as it was then called) sold like hotcakes, amazing the world and caveman society alike. And all the while, Oog gave away his free wheel. Ug soon had him destroyed, by a pack of mean, nasty dogs and a bodyguard named Stomp.
Generations later, there was Bill. Bill was a skinny, geeky kid, and he had an idea. He had a proposterous idea. And he was going to find other people to make it work. So he did. And they flourished. Soon, he was the richest man in the world! There were parties. Women. Cars. Etc. But, somehow, it didn't make him happy. He couldn't be satisfied with being number one. He had to have EVERYTHING. So he began bullying, and terrorizing. And threatening. And soon, he was known throughout out the world for his actions, and a bad rep was attained in a few short years.
But alas! There is hope! Years earlier, a young man by the initials L.T. and something to do with a penguin made an amazing discovery: if you give it away, it will be better. Who needs this 'money' and 'stock'. Who needs 'coporations' and 'takeovers'. Give it away! He screamed. Give it back!
A bitter battle ensued, with the now heartless and evil Bill battling L.T. to the end. L.T. wanted nothing, and Bill wanted it all. They fought for years, in all battlegrounds imaginable. It was bloody, and violent. One 'Del' lead to another 'rm -rf'. One '.xls' lead to '.whatever-you-want-your-extention-to-be'. Lives were lost. Programmers were saddened. Many funerals were attended.
And in the end, it goes back to Oog and Ug and who wanted to make the best wheel. One wanted his wheel to be the bestseller, and the other just wanted it to give it away. Sometimes you want to do the right thing, and other times you get your balls cut off while screaming "Freedom!!!" Does it make sense? Will it ever? Only the future knows that secret, and it never tells...
Re:All I want (Score:1)
jred
www.cautioninc.com [cautioninc.com]
jred
www.cautioninc.com [cautioninc.com]
caution, inc.
go sign the petition (Score:3)
The Festival site links to a petition on an important topic (well, important to vintage computer users anyway): legalizing `abandonware'.
These old computers would be even more useless without software, and a few thousand signatures might help convince some of these companies to release their old, all-but-forgotten software into the public domain.
So, go sign the petition [mivox.com], before it gets slashdotted too.
Re:Age of a vintage computer should be... (Score:1)
"No one understand quantum mechanics." - Richard Feynman
love,
br4dh4x0r
Re:Cheap Slashdotting cure! (Score:2)
Re:All Right! (Score:1)
Re:TI-99/4A (Score:2)
Especially with the Speech Synthesizer module that plugged in the side for games like "Parsec". I was blown away by the fact that a computer could say "Entering Asteroid Belt" that realistically. (For the time, that is)
And the adapter for saving files on cassette tapes... The manual even said something like "You know the tape is being loaded when the tape recorder is making sounds like a love-sick gorilla."
You don't see that kind of documentation with today's drives, do you?
Everything old is new again (Score:2)
--
Vintage? (Score:3)
Ah, but those simple days of pre-gHz processing are all but gone out here in the real world. Being the leading edge guy I am and obviously needing to keep up with the times and after hours of putting it off, I finally made the upgrade to the 1133 mHz P3.
Oh, sweet nostalgia! The 1133 performs as well as my pre-pre-gHz 850! Why, it seems like only months ago when the most I could get out of my desktop was a paltry 180 fps in Q3A. Happy days are here again!
How did our ancient pre-gHz brethren survive with such quaint technology?!
J
Re:Vintage what? (Score:2)
"Uh... sir, I bumped it by accident."
"Whaat? The RAM module was bumped? All those hours of coding lost! We have been defeated."
Re:fuck you!! PIRATE!!! THEIF!!! (Score:1)
#2 I know this was probably a joke, but I wasn't talking about expensive software that cheapskates like myself refuse to buy. Personally, I support copyrights inasmuch as even if "information wants to be free", I still have no right to "liberate" software that someone else refuses to share. I think the issue with abandonware is software not available _at any price_ because no one sells it anymore.
Re:Vintage computers? (Score:3)
I also consider it a perfect platform to run a proxy to spread the penis bird gospel.
<O
( \
X
8===D
Re:Cheap Slashdotting cure! (Score:1)
yeah, the mirror definately kicks butt for simplicity :-)
so if there's a legit mirror, and the main site is real suffering, why don't the editors put your link on the front page story?
hope you're not paying for that lovely bandwidth I just enjoyed to get to the mirror . . .
but, tho' i say it myself, the Google idea I posted *will work for any indexed site* even if there's no mirror
or if the mirror gets slashdotted, he he ;-)
Is my Atari 800 a museum piece yet? (Score:1)
I don't know if my first personal computer, an Atari 800, counts as vintage, but I sure loved it. It's gotta be like a hundred years old in computer years, right? That's a classic for sure!
Anyway, I put a little note with my personal info inside it before I left home for college. I have no idea where it is now.
I wonder if I'm the only kid that thought their computer might become a collector's item someday and wanted to be sure they, as the original owner, would be credited on the plaque in the museum.
If you open your very expensive, classic, museum-quality Atari 800 and there's a note in there from Sherman, please send it home! I miss it. You'll have to actually open the case to find the note - not just the cartridge/RAM "hood".
Re:TI-99/4A (Score:1)
Re:Vintage computers? (Score:1)
maybe :) (Score:1)
Re:Cheap Slashdotting cure! (Score:1)
The only problem is when the google page's slashdotted.
"We apologize for the slowness of the news. The servers resonsible have now been /.ed" -CmdTaco
"we apologize for the slowness of the cached pages, those resonsible for /.ing have now been /.ed" -CmdTaco
*Insert flashing lights and wacky accordian music*
And CA Extreme (classic arcade games!) (Score:3)
Old computers. Old video games. These are a few of my favorite things...
Oh Boy! (Score:3)
San Jose, here I come!
Re:TI-99/4A (Score:1)
The TI-99/4A ran on a 16 bit TMS-9900 CPU running at a speedy 3MHz.
For more info, check out the TI-99/4A Home Computer Page [99er.net]
--
Jonathan Hunt
Re:Cheap Slashdotting cure! (Score:2)
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:URL
Or just type:
cache:URL
into Google's "search" box.
This all assumes that Google has visited the site already so it's in the cache.
Its funny how big a cockpit arcade is -- (Score:2)
They have lots of room inside for adding a couple of FeeCee motherboards - for Amiga's, Ataris, MAME, or other emulators.
Most had giant powersupplys and PCBs by todays standards.
Those wood-ish chassis gave good sound, control, and airflow, and are easy to work with.
Lots of great memories will be for sale! SO REMEMBER: ~"Those that do not study history are doomed to repeat it---"
If you want to score a machine, bring lots of $$:
Cash TALKS - Credit balks!
Slashdot has to win this ;-0) (Score:1)
Go and read this google cached link [google.com]
No it's not a link to something sick - it's a competition page on the vintage.org site.
Surely Slashdot wins *de facto* HANDS DOWN?
"No really, check it out . . .
[sig]I wasn't concentrating, really I didn't mean to Karma whore . . . "
Re:a haiku: (Score:1)
No, Charities want decent computers (Score:1)
I've spent the last 6 months trying to give away a business basement full of 808*, Sun 6/60's (You know, the 10 year old workstations), old printers, Mac Classic's (No HD). Free, I'll help to haul 'em.
I called several dozen charities in the San Francisco Bay Area, nobody wants this shit. The monitors are worthless and toxic (16-color greyscale, lead. $5 disposal fee), the hard drives are too small (and probably dead), and the processers are too slow for any decent applications.
If it can't run Win95 or MacOS 7.5.x , then forget it. I've had dreams of organizing a Linux installfest for these aging systems, but to you still need a decent computer to run a GUI.
atari (Score:1)
Re:MIT Flea (Score:1)
Proud owner... (Score:1)
- TRS-80 Model I
- An original Apple II (no, not the II+ or
//e)
- Two Commodore 64s
- An Atari 800, 800xl and 1200xl
In the past I've owned several PDP-11s (had to chuck 'em because of a move ARRRGH!), (11/03, 11/23+, an 11/34, and an original Hexbus 11 with a wirewrap backplane and 8KW of core. I'm not listing all the Suns, SGIs, HP9000s, and VAXen/Alphas... they're to "modern", all being at least 32 bit.I love old computers.
Re:No, Charities want decent computers (Score:1)
Well I can only vouch for the good will here in seattle, but...
An unforunate lucky bid at a university surplus auction landed myself and 2 roomates with 7 flats stacked 4 feet high each with old computer equipment. the good will sent over a truck and picked them right up.
Though the likelihood of them wanting anything other than x86 and apple/mac hardware is pretty low, you'd be surprised what people can do with dirt old hardware. I'm sure quite a number of people would find DOS and Word 1.0 sufficient for their needs - or Linux and Pine, or whatever their installation of choice.
Re:TI-99/4A (Score:2)
TI-99/4A--What a piece of crap. My parents bought that for me one Christmas because they didn't know any better. You couldn't do jack with it unless you shelled out for the "expansion module" which was like, $1000. Their business model was "sell them the machine, so they have to buy the expensive peripherals".
It took months to convince them to get me a C-64, which I adored and used from 10th grade through the middle of college.
Re:All I want (Score:1)
I believe it is only about 9 years old, not quite vintage by the definitions I've seen here.
Re:TI-99/4A (Score:2)
Broken vintage computers? (Score:1)
Re:TI-99/4A (Score:1)
Re:atari (Score:1)
Re:No, Charities want decent computers (Score:1)
hmmm.... there's actually a specific computer Goodwill here in Pittsburgh PA and they take all kinds of stuff...
in fact they recently got a donation of something like 50 Sun IPCs and IPXs... I've even see old HP Apollos in there...
Of course I have no idea if Goodwill has these stores anywhere else in the country....
.technomancer
Re:Vintage? (Score:1)
at least, i HOPE it's supposed to be funny....
-------
Re:No, Charities want decent computers (Score:1)
What's so great about California? (Score:1)
Slashdot wins Vintage site competition! (Score:2)
Add a link to the VCF from your website and each time you refer a visitor to the VCF from the link on your website from now until VCF 4.0, you'll receive a point. The website making the most referrals (and therefore earning the most points) will win $50 cash and will be featured on the home page of the Vintage Computer Festival website!
Slashdot Wins!
Surely? Unless you've registered and goth the $50 for yourself ;-)
Re:In the beginning... (Score:1)
Re:No, Charities want decent computers (Score:1)
Re:Define Vintage (Score:3)
I'm guessing the most importaint factor is that it has been abaondoned by its maker. Things like a Sun 3 are vintage while a sparcstation 1 isn't (yet). A PDP-11 and most vaxen are but the Microvax isn't yet [slashdot.org] at least till the end of the month.
I also expect that a minium of 5 years (or should it be 10) is needed. My web server [abnormal.com] is running on a Sparcstation 1 that is now over 11 years old and its not vintage yet so maybe 10 years should be the cut-off.
I do know the the first computer to do music [mu.oz.au] that they are installing accross the street from my house [vic.gov.au] counts as vintage since its now 50 years old [abc.net.au].
Vintage dumbterminal for bedside chat (Score:1)
Guiness: Vintage Computer still rules most sales (Score:1)
Flipping through it, on the computer page, was a nice big colour picture of a Commodore 64, which a decade and a half later, still was the most popular computer of all time.
---
"And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold."
Re:Oh Boy! (Score:1)
Will my computer make it? (Score:1)
i sincerely doubt the propriator saw this coming.. (Score:1)
if you are reading this sysadmin of vintage.org... well, sorry.
Re:Is my Atari 800 a museum piece yet? (Score:1)
The games.... who can forget those. We had a few cartridges (defender, pac-man) which were FAR superior to the 2600. But the best games were loaded off of cassette tapes (5 or 10 minutes to load a game!)
My favorite was Dog Daze, which was a 2-player game where you had to control your little dog and either pee on a blue fire hydrant, or throw your bone at it to turn it your color.
A couple years later, that gave way to a shiny new Apple
I still have all the old Apple Basic programs I wrote (and some games including the original Wolfenstein) running on my apple2 emulator. Good things never die.
Re:Vintage computers? (Score:1)
GUI, ha ha ha! You mean WIMP? (Score:1)
Sounds like Decent=MS.Slave, I mean latest release compatible, Winblow2k or something. It's sad that some people are like that, they will never get anywhere. If they don't have the best around, they won't even try.
Easy entry to Linux world starts at 386 with 8MB ram and 150MB hard drive. This includes most PS2's, though they are hard to support. A fellow grad student sold me the monitor I'm typing this on for $20, iff I removed his dead PS/2 with it. He had Debian running on it, 486 with 32MB ram and two nice little scsi. The video ram was burn and it failed to boot. The case is really nice and modular, and I wold feel bad stripping it, but I will if I ever buy a scsi controler! It might work well work well with my 8MB RAM, 33 MHz 486 that runs Debian and DOS 6.2 off a 210MB hard drive. More space is nice. I use it and my old amber monitor for mail at school.
I'm dreaming of my old Peee Ceee tonight!
Re:Vintage computers? (Score:2)
People are guessing that to be designated as "Vintage", hardware should be 5-10 years old. I must disagree. The Pentium started shipping 6 years ago, and I don't consider a Pentium Processor as "Vintage" by ANY stretch of the imagination.
I think in the computer world, "Vintage" can't be an absolute, except in the idea of being older. Starting at about 10-15 years old seems about right, but it depends on the circumstance. The Commodore 64 and the i286 were introduced the same year - Which do you think is more a "Vintage" piece of hardware?
Personally, I'd side with the C64, but that's due to personal nostalgia. But hey! Vintage equipment is SUPPOSED to invoke nostalgic feelings, so the definition is in the eye of the beholder.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Re:And CA Extreme (classic arcade games!) (Score:1)
Any suggestions? -- Tricot
Does my computer qualify? (Score:1)
vintage computers (Score:1)
Re:One question: (Score:1)
Why?
Here's my answer [intergate.ca]. Some of the other articles on my page are also germane.
-Gareth
Cult Computing (Score:1)
My household encompassed a Sinclair, an Osbourne, some funky thing that was a suitcase computer for the lottery system, a couple of Vic-20s, a dozen or so of the Commodore 64s and even an Amiga 500.
*g* I left all of those and took the AMD K6 when I moved out.
---
Somebody should have labeled the future 'Some assembly required.'
Re:Cheap Slashdotting cure! (Score:1)
Maybe /. should start wrapping links with the akamai trick [slashdot.org] so they are automatically cached.
Old hat not redhat (Score:1)
Re:Vintage dumbterminal for bedside chat (Score:1)
S5:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty ttyS1 DT9600 dumb
that probably isn't the right terminal emulation , in fact , i believe 'tvi910' would be the proper termcap entry to use. But it works , halfassed, but good enough for irc
it took a lot of playing around with , with no success.. then one day, my system rebooted itself after the power went out, then everything worked fine.... knock on wood. Maybe I was playing with setserial too much
Steve Jobs and the Divine Mother? :-) (Score:1)
Re:Proud owner... (Score:1)
Now I still have a *lot* of 5,25" diskettes with a lot of fun games on them. Do you have any idea how I could read them to my PII-300 running the A2 Emulator?
---
Re:MIT Flea (Score:2)
The MIT Flea looks more like a swap meet. There's nothing wrong with that, mind you, but I do want to point out that the Vintage Computer Festival [vintage.org], while it includes a flea market, is much more than that. There will be exhibits, speakers, and even a Nerd Trivia Challenge. The Vintage Computer Festival [vintage.org] is more scholarly (well, kinda) than just a flea market. Attendees should expect to learn, as well as buy or sell.
Re:Vintage computers? (Score:2)
An excellent question, and one that gets almost continual discussion amongst computer history buffs. Ten years seens to be a popular rule of thumb, but I'll give you my take on it. As I see it, there are three types of vintage computers:
But why not come to the Vintage Computer Festival [vintage.org] and decide for yourself?
Re:Age of a vintage computer should be... (Score:1)
Windows 2000 was written in Visual C++. Try writing UNIX in PERL.
Makes as much sense.
Re:a haiku: (Score:1)
Let this poor sad fool
With no sense of history
Choke on his own bile.
(And your last line is a syllable too long.)
Re:Does my computer qualify? (Score:1)
Re:One question: (Score:1)
And trying to do any decent 3D modeling at work on an 8086 might be a little trying...
Hey, Wizardry ran on a 6502, man! These modern 3D apps are all code bloat.
Re:Hot date Locale?!?! (Score:1)
Re:Does my computer qualify? (Score:1)
Absolutely. But you ought to "upgrade" it -- my IBM "portable" has a 486 mobo, 32 megs RAM, 1.2 gig IDE drive and a NIC. I have it running Slack 2.0.36 but no X because of the built-in 9" yellow screen 80x25 monitor. That doesn't matter because we all know that CLI rules anyway!
--
You think being a MIB is all voodoo mind control? You should see the paperwork!
Re:What about Acorn? (Score:1)