Vintage Computer Festival East XIII, held May 18-20, 2018 at the InfoAge Science Center in Wall, NJ, featured dozens of hands-on exhibitions of historic computers, peripherals, and software.
Most of the exhibits focused on 1970s-1980s microcomputers such as S-100 “homebrew” systems of the mid-1970s (Altair, IMSAI, SOL, etc.) and home microcomputers of the 1980s from companies like Apple, Atari, Commodore, and RadioShack. Other exhibitors demonstrated homemade software and modern hacks, robotics, and early digital computerized video systems.
The InfoAge center is also home to a computer museum hosted by Vintage Computer Federation (VCF), which is the nonprofit organization that leads the Festival series. The museum’s artifacts include gems such as various analog and digital mainframes from the 1950s-1960s–even a restored and operating UNIVAC mainframe that formerly belonged to the US Navy.
The next edition of the VCF series is Vintage Computer Festival West, held August 4-5, 2018 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA.
Note: TechRepublic contributing writer and the author of this gallery Evan Koblentz is VCF executive director.
This mainframe from the late 1960s belongs to the Vintage Computer Federation museum, which is open year-round at the science center. It was meant for use aboard US Navy cruisers and destroyers. VCF members Bill Dromgoole and Duane Craps are primarily responsible for its upkeep. Components (left to right) are the CPU rack, tape drive, signal data converter (radar to computer to weaponry), and I/O console (paper tape and teletype).
Slide rules were the dominant personal computing method of the first two-thirds of the 1900s, although their origins are in the 1600s! Most slide rules are a foot long. Bob Roswell of System Source brought along this novelty slide rule that is as long as a whole banquet table!
RB5X is a computer programmable robot kit from 1983. We assume its similarity to another four-character robot starting with “R” isn’t an accident! This droid gave its master Ethan Dicks some technical trouble, but we’re sure it will be operating again soon when Ethan and his servant return home to Ohio.
MOBIDIC–Mobile Digital Computer–was a transistorized computer designed into two 30-foot tractor trailers in 1956. Only six were made. Jeff Salzman showed his emulator, which is a work-in-progress using an Arduino and this homemade front panel. He even brought a stuffed sperm whale.
Alexander Pierson won the award for the most innovative exhibit. He built a computer using the legendary MOS 6502 processor with its own front panel–from scratch! Alexander calls it the Cactus.
Tony Bogan, Dan Cooper, and Ken Golumb teamed up for a massive exhibit of Apple II computers showing off creative peripherals and expansion cards. Other computers such as the Commodore 64 and Tandy TRS-80 series are also expandable, but not to the degree nor simplicity of the Apple II series.
Daniel Cooper traveled to VCF East XIII from Florida and brought his tricked-out Apple //e Platinum. He installed a see-through top cover and custom buttons/indicators for aftermarket cards that increase speed and storage. Apple II fans on Twitter went nuts!
Mike Lee drove in from Chicago with his Diversi-Dial BBS, giving visitors the chance to reminisce–and some younger ones to hear for the first time–what it’s like to deal with modem handshakes and one line of text at a time.
Jeffrey Brace brought out two of his trusty Commodore 64 computers and the Computer Eyes kit. One computer processes an image from any composite input and saves it to disk; the other prints it in dot-matrix fun!
Admit it, you yearned for an SGI workstation in the 1980s and 1990s. Ethan O’Toole owns these–envy him! These machines were very powerful for their time and had the looks to indicate it vs. all those horrible beige boxes.
Corey Cohen demonstrated his Processor Technology SOL-20 with the rare Music System software. You could make and edit music with a four-octave range, three voices, and stereo output.
Bill Sudbrink showed this amazing video processing setup for a MITS Altair computer. It may be the last such setup around. Who knew homebrew computers from 1975 could do this?
Doug Crawford, Chris Fala, and Todd George got together and made an exhibit of “microcomputers with an identity crisis”–computers with multiple processors allowing them to run different operating systems.
Anthony Becker and Bill Winters, known across YouTube for their Commodore Amiga technical videos, brought some of their coolest hardware to the show. They demonstrated how to put text and special effects onto video, 16-bit-style.
Jeremie Marsin, who traveled all the way from Ontario, and Thierry Mazzoleni demonstrated a variety of European computers rarely seen here in America. A fan favorite is Alice, which is hard to miss in her red case.
RCA and specifically computer engineer Joseph Weisbecker invented an impressive array of personal computing devices in the 1970s. Flori Pierri, of the Sarnoff Collection at The College of New Jersey, brought several of these to display.
Bill Lange brought everyone’s favorite 1980s desktop publishing packages: The Print Shop and The Newsroom. Many a dot-matrix printer ribbon met its death at the hands of these ink-heavy applications! Bill’s hardware of choice are Atari computers.
Mike Loewen brought out a few portable computers–from back when “portable” meant it weighed 20-30 pounds and still had to be plugged into the wall–all running the CP/M operating system. A standout was the Zorba computer on the right.
Anthony Stramaglia is a musician and collector, so naturally he showed retro MIDI hardware based on Atari and Commodore computer systems combined with a period synthesizer.
Allan Bushman exhibited artifacts from Atari Program Exchange, which was a division of the company set up to sell user-submitted programs via catalogs–a primitive “app store” of sorts.
Evan became a technology reporter during the dot-com boom of the late 1990s. He published a book, "Abacus to smartphone: The evolution of mobile and portable computers" in 2015 and is executive director of Vintage Computer Federation, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization. His vices include running and Springsteen.
