Commodore and Amiga at Bay Area Maker Faire 2017

[rbernardo]

Once again there will be a Classic Computers’ exhibit at Maker Faire Bay Area 2017! Once again my fellow exhibitors and I will be displaying classic personal computers for fairgoers to enjoy. To celebrate its 35th anniversary, I'll be bringing in a Commodore 64 with JiffyDOS (or RAMLink with JiffyDOS), 1541 or 1571 drive, and SD2IEC card drive. To celebrate its 30th anniversary, I’ll have an Amiga 2000 with a Blizzard 2060 50 MHz board, Amiga OS 3.1, 128 megs of Fast RAM, 2 megs of Chip RAM, SCSI CD-ROM drive, SCSI controller board with 8 megs of RAM, NewTek Video Toaster, Digital Processing Systems Personal TBC, A2065 Ethernet card, Digital Processing Systems Personal Animation Recorder (PAR), 4 gig SCSI main hard drive, and 500 meg SCSI hard drive for the PAR. Also because of attendee demand, I’m bringing back the Texas Instruments TI-99 4/A with Peripheral Expansion Box, various cards, and various cartridges, including the new SD card cartridge.

The other Classic Computer exhibitors will be bringing in their machines, like the Commodore PET 2001, Tandy, and Apple II (to celebrate the 40th anniversary of these computers), Apple IIGS, Altair, and various Ataris.

These are the dates and times for Maker Faire 2017 -

Friday, May 19: 1 pm - 5 pm

Saturday, May 20: 10 am - 7 pm

Sunday, May 21: 10 am - 6 pm

Location: San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Dr., San Mateo, California, USA

http://makerfaire.com

100,000 fairgoers come to Maker Faire, and hundreds will be walking through our Classic Computers' exhibit! You, too, can be at Maker Faire 2017!

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://togausergroup.org

[rbernardo]

I'll be squeezing an Amiga 500, rev.8, in box onto the tables. Just in case, there are those who are not satisfied with the A2000.

Truly,

[rbernardo]

(forwarded) Visit Computer History Museum at Maker Faire, May 19–21, 2017, San Mateo County Event Center.

Celebrate Maker Faire's 12th anniversary in the Bay Area, showcasing creative and resourceful people in the areas of science, technology, engineering, food, and arts and crafts. CHM will be taking its 026 key punch from the 1401 system and other artifacts to share with the Maker Faire crowds. Stop by our booth for activities and fun for the whole family

(The CHM booth has been next to/near the Classic Computers' exhibit for the last few years.)

[rbernardo]

Our fearless leader, Erik Klein, has sent the information for the Thursday, May 18 set-up day. My helper, Roy T. of The Other Group of Amigoids, and I will be coming in that afternoon with the C64, Amiga 2000, TI-99 4/A set-ups and A500 display. All weekend parking passes are on discount that day.

Truly,

[rbernardo]

I'll be bringing in a Commodore 64 with JiffyDOS (or RAMLink with JiffyDOS), 1541 or 1571 drive, and SD2IEC card drive.

More for the C64 exhibit -- 1581 drive, Commodore 300 or 1200 baud modem (I could hear the kids say, "What's that?"), and instead of an LCD monitor, it will be the Sony GVM-1311Q multi-scan CRT monitor. Why a CRT monitor? Because there'll be the Flexidraw lightpen for attendees to use (and a lightpen reads phosphors off the CRT screen). Plus a bunch of classic C64 games and other apps (SAM, Write Stuff, etc.) and their original packaging.

How historical,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://togausergroup.org

[rbernardo]

I should be at the San Mateo County Event Center (a.k.a. San Mateo fairgrounds) at 2 p.m. tomorrow to set up all the equipment. So much to bring... so little room in the car!

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://togausergroup.org

[rbernardo]

I should be at the San Mateo County Event Center (a.k.a. San Mateo fairgrounds) at 2 p.m....

I arrived at just after 5, due to a late departure for the event center, wrong directions from the GPS (which sent me 9 miles off the track), and the bad traffic on HIghway 101. When I got there fellow exhibitors Erik, Dwight, Duncan, and Gabriele all gladly welcomed me. Dwight immediately started explaining to me about his modded KIM-1, and Gabriele was eagerly talking about the machines at his booth (which was near ours).

I was able to park the car near the Expo Hall and used Erik's cart to move the mass quantity of C=, Ami, and TI goods to our tables. I suppose I miscalculated how much tabletop space I had, because the 3 systems took up all the 8-foot space with little room to display the classic peripherals and software. Most of all, I had brought too much Commodore!

By 8, they were throwing us out for the night, but with the help of Duncan, all the systems were up and running. Just some more software preparation for tomorrow morning when they let in the Makers at 7:30 a.m.. Friday, the show starts at 1 p.m. for the general public.

Duncan and I went out to a nearby Mexican restaurant for dinner, and then I made my way to the Motel 6 for a few hours of sleep. Wake-up time - 6 a.m.!

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://togausergroup.org

[rbernardo]

...for a few hours of sleep. Wake-up time - 6 a.m.!

The few hours of sleep was really few. I tried to go to sleep, perhaps slept a couple of hours, and then woke up, unable to go back to sleep. It must have been nerves before the show the next day. At 6, I started getting ready and got out at 7:30. After putting some gas in the car, it was another visit to FedEx Kinko's to print out more photocopies -- this time, Ray Carlsen flyers and FCUG flyers (the previous night I had photocopied CommVEx and PaCommEx flyers and a descriptive flyer for each computer at my table).

I arrived at the fairgrounds at 8:25, and our leader, Erik, was already there with Dwight. Erik mentioned the free pastries and coffee for all Makers, and I was off for the food. When I returned, Duncan showed up with speakers for my A2000. After I ate my chocolate muffin, it was time to organize and put away all the boxes and bags which held all my equipment. That took some time... which hardware/software would I leave in view for the fairgoers to see and which was not really necessary. The limit was my table space. Amazingly, I was able to hide much under the tablecovers, thus presenting a less clutter tabletop look.

Eric was at Maker Faire again with his booth of the Monster 6502. His 6502 was improved from one year ago; now it was clocked at 50 KHz and was running a game at a good speed. Gabriele of GGLabs spoke to me again of his GEORam clone and showed me the empty board. I remarked about how small it looked in comparison to the original GEORam. He promised he would build one for me and give it to me tomorrow.

Just before 1 p.m., the influx of interested fairgoers started coming through our booth. On the C64, I had the Koala Paint running with Koalapad; on the A2000 I had Commando running. On the TI-99 I had the game, Parsec, running. Throughout the afternoon, I would change the programs, just to keep the crowds interested. And by crowds, I mean dozens of fairgoers (tomorrow Saturday there will be hundreds!). There were plenty of children and teenagers along with their parents. The reactions -- "I haven't seen this in years!" "I used to have one of these," "I didn't know there was a pad for the C64," "I didn't know there was a lightpen for the C64," "I love what you've done here!".

By 5:30 it was time to shutdown for dinner. I made a direct bead for the free dinner for Makers -- free popcorn, free combination paella or vegetarian paella, and free beer (2 cup limit). Just like in previous years, hundreds were in line. I waited 1 hour, 20 minutes in the warm sun, but finally got the food and sat down with my iced tea. The gentlemen next to me talked about their exhibit, and I talked about the Classic Computers' exhibit. One of them had worked for Intel, and we discussed Intel back in the day, branching out to Windows and circling back to Amiga OS. They were both surprised that there were new AmigaOne computers being produced and using the modern Amiga OS 4.1 Final Edition. (That is always a shocker. )

After dinner, I headed back to hotel and crashed.

A longer, better sleep tonight,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://togausergroup.org