UNIVAC 1219B mainframe

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).

Not all computing fits in your pocket

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!

Do you know the laws of robotics?

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.

A whale of a good exhibit

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.

Cactus 6502 homebrew

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.

Apples, Apples, everywhere

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.

The talk of Twitter

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!

A dial-up bulletin board

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.

Computer Eyes

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!

The lust of Silicon Graphics

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.

Software Technology Music System

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.

I am your phone camera's grandfather

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?

Micros with an identity crisis

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.

Commodore Amiga Genlocks

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.

Meet Alice

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, who knew?

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.

Welcome to the Print Shop

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.

CP/M portables

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.

Retro MIDI studio

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.

Atari Program Exchange

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.

Also see

• Technology that changed us: The 1970s, from Pong to Apollo (ZDNet)
• Photos: Tandy, Symbolics, Atari, Sun, and more at Vintage Computer Festival Pacific-Northwest (TechRepublic)
• Photos: Frogs, Enigma machines, Tandy, and more at Vintage Computer Festival East XII (TechRepublic)
• Photos: Apple II clones, an ENIAC emulator, and more from Vintage Computer Festival East XI (TechRepublic)
• Photos: Homebrew CPUs, IBM mainframes, amazing replicas, and more from Vintage Computer Festival West XI (TechRepublic)
• Ghosts of tech past: Photos of data storage from the 1950s – 1980s (TechRepublic)
• Computer hardware depreciation calculator (Tech Pro Research)