------------- Original message ------------------
From: evank
Date: 29-Jan-2012 5:51:30
Robert B. told me about this thread; he is a veteran of the Vintage Computer Festival East, which I produce.
Here's the background ..... in 2004 I co-founded a user group called MARCH - Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists. MARCH members collect, restore, and exhibit computers from the 1960s-1980s, and we're heavily focused on getting the systems into operating condition. As such, just like Amiga fans, we also go to great lengths to obtain books, manuals, parts, software, etc.
MARCH has three major activities. 1., we run a very active mailing list. 2., we operate a bricks-and-mortar, hands-on computer museum in Wall, New Jersey; the museum is co-located at the larger InfoAge Science Center. 3., we host the annual(-ish) VCF East. (Locals: VCF is not the same as the Trenton Computer Festival -- that is "T"CF; which is strictly a modern PC show.)
This year, VCF East 8.0 is scheduled for May 5-6 at our museum. There are lectures and workshops both mornings, and exhibits both afternoons.
Our lecture and workshop schedule, which is still being expanded, is here:
http://www.vintage.org/2012/east/session.php.
You'll notice that the keynote on Saturday is by Dr. Thomas Kurtz, who co-invented BASIC. Also, Commodore's Bil Herd will be involved that morning, and there's a good chance of Dave Haynie also attending.
The afternoon exhibit hall will have 20-30 booths, with everything from DEC minicomputers to S-100 homebrews to 8-bit microcomputers, plus punch cards, teletypes, tape drives, etc. -- all up and running!
In addition, there will be other things to do throughout the days. We're having a book sale, consignment, food, museum tours, prizes, etc.
Details about the event are frequently updated at
http://www.vintage.org and we also have a social networking page at
http://www.facebook.com/vcfeast8 -- we'd be grateful if you all "like" the page and share it on your walls so that other people can learn about it.
Proceeds of the event benefit our museum, which is a non-profit and run exclusively by volunteers. We all joke that our jobs and families interfere with our hobby/museum time.
Nobody should use distance as a reason not to attend VCF East 8.0: ever year people come from other states, time zones, countries, and even continents! (Some also seem like they're from other planets, but that's for a different thread!)
Nor is cost an issue: getting into VCF East 8.0 is just $10/day, $15/weekend, and free for kids. There are many inexpensive motels/hotels nearby.
But if anyone here wants to participate in the show, i.e. by putting on an exhibit, then contact me for details (info is below.)
Meanwhile, if anyone would like to join MARCH, then please do! Most of our members are in the triangle between Hartford, Pittsburgh, and D.C., and we have a strong focus on the local region, but all are welcome to join. We do have some members in New England, the midwest, southeast, etc. .... our club doesn't even charge any dues .... we exist solely on VCF revenue and donations. Even our museum collection, which is perhaps the largest and most comprehensive on the U.S. east coast, consists entirely of donated items.
Our web site (which is kind of lame) is
http://www.midatlanticretro.org -- the online database there is massively incomplete; it contains maybe 5% of our collection. Making a database is easy .... entering records is easy to avoid.
But on the site you will be find a link to our discussion group, etc.
Our group has a tradition of being very open toward new members, as long as they don't think "vintage" means a 386 running "old school" DOS 5.0 .... we don't do anything much newer than Amigas and Newtons. On the other extreme, one of jewels of our collection is a 1965 militarized UNIVAC. You get the idea
Any questions/comments -- please post, or feel free to email me (evan-at-snarc-dot-net) or call me at 646-546-9999.
- Evan K.