Mattel Aquarius. Lots of fun game playing went on.
Mattel Aquarius. The keyboard has little rubber keys--not so easy to type on. On the right is the memory expander with a game cartridge inserted into one of the two slots.
Aquarius tape deck (no disk drive was released) and working printer. The controllers were similar to those on the Intellivision. Game carts came in colorful boxes such as the one pictured.
OSI Exhibit.
Bill Sudbrink's Ohio Scientific exhibit. This entire exhibit was packed into a Mini Cooper, along with two people! I don't know how Bill did it.
The famous MARCH table, where you could purchase a VCF t-shirt (nice design this year), back issues of Byte magazine, Commodore 64s, an Osborne,TI-99 and more. Most of the items seemed to sell out.
Jeffrey Jonas' Z-80 CPU exhibit. He had lots of examples of computers using the Zilog Z-80.
Timex Sinclair 2068 - sporting a Zilog Z-80 processor.
Jeffrey Jonas' exhibit "Z80 Ain't Dead Yet"
Timex Sinclairs
Vince Briel's kit computers. The KIM and Apple I Replica were both present and available to build at his workshop.
Vince Briel's Micro-KIM and Apple I Replica kits.
The Apple I Replica mounted in a wooden case. The case is modeled after the one in the Smithsonian.
Micro-KIM kit.
Apple I Replica kit. I built one of these in Vince's workshop at the festival.
Dan Roganti's floating point exhibit. His IMSAI 8080 was up and running.
Dan's Imsai 8080.
System Support 1 S100 card from CompuPro.
Dan's Zenith terminal connected to the Imsai.
Bill Degnan's exhibit included an Apple III, Apple II, Commodore PET and SAGE II.
Mike Loewen's exhibit on Cold War Computing and the SAGE air defense system. He also had a cool binder showing the different Hollywood movies that used parts of the SAGE system as background props. Lots of blinky lights.
Mike Loewen's SAGE exhibit - center item is part of the Long-range Radar Inut Test Pattern Generator Control Panel
More SAGE parts. Two books on the story of SAGE include "From Whirlwind to MITRE" and "The SAGE Air Defense System".
Mike's Cold War Computing backdrop
David Gesswein's PDP-8 minicomputer with working paper tape reader.
Sridhar's AT&T UNIX workstation.
Walter Humphrey's fascinating talk on the MOBIDIC and Fieldata mobile computer systems.
MOBIDIC specs
MOBIDIC performance vs. other computer systems of the period.
Ian at the helm of the AT&T workstation.
Claude Kagan talked about his time at Western Electric / Bell Labs from the 1950s-70s. Many entertaining stories.
Evan and Jim at the MARCH table.
Nice turnout on Saturday in the exhibit room.
Ben hacking away on an Ohio Scientific computer.
Game playing on the Aquarius. The little fella asked why I didn't bring a Playstation 2 instead.
How to play Utopia on the Mattel Aquarius.
Many marathon games of Utopia were played on the Mattel Aquarius.
Utopia screenshot on the Mattel Aquarius. This was one of the early Empire/Civilization type games.
John Allain's MicroVAX 3400
MicroVAX 3400
SAGE II advertisement.
Bill Degnan's SAGE II computer. Upon first glance I thought it was just a dual disk drive, but there's an entire 68000 computer under the hood.
Terminal hooked up to the SAGE II.
The original Apple II.
Apple III prior to the Profile hard drive smoke and burn.
The Commodore SuperPET SP9000 running the interactive VCF Computer History Quiz.
The dinner trek on Saturday.
Vince Briel starts off the kit-building workshop on Sunday. He was an enthusiastic teacher and patient with us beginners.
My Apple I Replica kit starting to take shape with the first batch of resistors in place.
Parts, tools, instructions...
The resistors just before soldering. After soldering the leads are clipped.
Clipping those leads...
Clipped leads on the resistors.
Soldering the 6502 socket.
Vince's board is well labeled. Notice the oval pads around the holes--makes it easier for beginners to get good contact between the iron tip and the leads.
The sockets are all in place.
Look ma, I'm soldering.
Vince does some troubleshooting on my kit. He had it working in no time.
Adding the rom chip.
Eleven people showed up for the workshop. A variety of KIM and Apple I Replica kits were built.
Testing the final product.
A multimeter helps troubleshoot problems.
Five hours later I was finished!
How many OSI computers can you fit in a Mini Cooper?
Packing up on Sunday. The room is almost empty.
The long drive home.
