[HN Gopher] Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 16
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Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 16
Author : erickhill
Score : 83 points
Date : 2021-09-01 03:06 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (vcfmw.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (vcfmw.org)
| Silent700 wrote:
| Good Lord, that website rules.
|
| ;)
| tsak wrote:
| Note the lack of HTTPS and social media preview tags.
| grp000 wrote:
| It feels cozy. I can already hear the faint buzz of the CRT and
| see my dim reflection on the curved glass.
| unrealhoang wrote:
| I hear the sound of my 56K dial-up modem dialing.
| redisman wrote:
| Beautiful. Some real geocities vibes
| diskzero wrote:
| We all need more blink tags in our lives.
| poetaster wrote:
| 3d rotating text banners, I've missed you so. Not to forget the
| flying cows.
| abraae wrote:
| Fuck covid, I want to be there.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Kind of off topic, but I always wonder who decided that Chicago,
| Ohio, and that whole corridor count as "mid-west".
|
| When I see mid-west, I think the Dakotas, Minnesota, and
| southwards. I'm always disappointed to see that actually what
| most people think is "mid-west" is pretty far from me. Shouldn't
| those areas be called the mid-east?
| breput wrote:
| Iowa is peak midwest. It drops off as you move away from that
| center. I will postulate that the American midwest is mostly
| areas settled by Scandinavian immigrants with a little bit of
| German, Polish, and Dutch mixed in, mostly settled in the late
| 1800s by farmers. My own family was in this group and they were
| in direct contact with Native Americans, who watered their
| horses in their troughs.
|
| Minnesota - definitely.
|
| Wisconsin - definitely.
|
| North Dakota - No. Might not actually exist.
|
| South Dakota/Nebraska - mostly, but just the eastern quarter.
| The rest is West.
|
| Missouri - Maybe a little bit on the border but mostly no. Iowa
| fought a war (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey_War) to keep
| Missouri out of the midwest.
|
| Illinois - It's complicated. The northwestern corner is but no
| further than Rockford and nowhere south.
|
| Kansas - probably not. It is mostly West.
|
| Indiana - No.
|
| Ohio - definitely not. Go find your own classification.
|
| Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| As someone who lives on the west coast I'm similarly struck by
| the occasional realization that states like Nevada and Colorado
| are considered in "the west".
|
| I'm guessing it's because the terms were all defined by people
| on the east coast some time ago.
| Cyberdog wrote:
| I grew up in Northern California, as in one county away from
| the Oregon border, and was confused by a child when people
| referred to the Sacramento and San Francisco areas as
| "Northern California" since we had to drive several long
| hours south to get there.
| breput wrote:
| There is a spectrum and it isn't just a east coast thing.
|
| I think you can basically divide it out where the primary
| crop is wheat vs. corn/soybeans, and where the crop
| irrigation starts. As you drive from east to west, you can
| feel exactly where this line occurs.
|
| People move around a lot - and let me tell you about what
| actual western residents like old CO front range and Montana
| residents think about SV California people moving in. But
| there is a bell curve-type shape as you move west of a
| certain kind of individualism, which tails off in central CA.
| You don't have to get much east beyond SF/Mountain View to
| get to the "real west".
| dexwiz wrote:
| Those states where originally the Midwest territories, which at
| the time were much more central than they are now.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Like half of them were originally the Northwest territory,
| the Midwest territory was never a thing.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| As someone from Illinois I'm always surprised Nebraska and
| Dakotas are considered the same region! But we all share a
| certain flatness and the central time zone. We're not the
| mountains, we're not the east coast, we're the middle.
|
| Like my sibling says, it also helps to remember that Peoria, IL
| used to be the last settled town before you were in the western
| frontier, St Louis a little later (that's what that arch is all
| about).
|
| The etymology dictionary has an interesting note on the matter
| [0]:
|
| " Midwestern (1889) in reference to a group of states
| originally listed as West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee,
| Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas "
|
| 1889 Is the same year Montana and N/S Dakota was created !
|
| [0] https://www.etymonline.com/word/Midwest#etymonline_v_14805
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| I exhibited at VCF West this year, my first time. It was a lot of
| fun. I hope that visitors had a good time, but the interactions
| between exhibitors were almost as fun.
| code_duck wrote:
| That's my favorite part of doing conventions, especially for
| fields in which one typically labors alone most of time.
| degenerate wrote:
| To save a few clicks, Elmhurst is a suburb of Chicago, IL.
|
| Do people lug their vintage machines to the event, or is it more
| of a software-based meetup?
| Silent700 wrote:
| Absolutely heavy on the hardware. Lots of micros, obviously,
| but there are always a few minis (PDP-8/PDP-11/HP 1000/etc),
| Unix workstations and odd stuff. This year there is even an IBM
| Midrange display (System/34, /36, AS/400).
|
| Appropriate vendors are welcome and loads of stuff changes
| hands.
| brian_herman wrote:
| There are vendors that sell some stuff and there is a place
| where people drop off unwanted vintage equipment that you can
| take home for free.
| LarryMade2 wrote:
| I've exhibited at VCF West many times, you get part of a table
| or more depending on your exhibit, its a good time/place to
| show off your stuff and share your excitement of it.
|
| Since it is mainly just enthusiasts, and limited to "vintage"
| (see event exhibitor info for the definition) it is a great
| place to reminisce and find some old hardware/software/media as
| well.
|
| Here's some pics I took from when I attended (2002-2006) Later
| ones probably have the same vibe, and as it has grown in
| popularity you may see more tech luminaries attend/present.
|
| https://portcommodore.com/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=photos:start
| tcbawo wrote:
| I'm a huge fan of Dave Murray's. It's great to see that he'll be
| there demoing the Commander X16. He has a great way of making
| vintage technology accessible and relevant as a teaching tool.
| I've spent some time watching his videos with my son. I think the
| technology of that era is great for learning computing basics
| from first principles.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Neat, just watched his video on how to brighten yellowed
| plastic on old computers.
|
| A great storyteller I enjoy is the professor from
| computerphile:
|
| https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUTypj9XuPp4YBaHucPvr-z...
| jdkee wrote:
| This was my first vintage computer con I attended back in the
| pre-pandemic days. It was a wonderful experience and the people
| were great. Looking forward to attending next month.
| Silent700 wrote:
| Here's a gallery (and video) of previous shows that may give some
| more insight into what goes on at a VCF:
|
| http://vcfmw.org/past.html
| [deleted]
| paulkrush wrote:
| I used to go to the computer show at DuPage County Fairgrounds to
| check out the new computers, that are well, vintage now...
| Silent700 wrote:
| That was a decent show. Great place to find AT cases, SIMMs and
| imported knock-off Sound Blasters in identical blue/orange
| boxes.
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(page generated 2021-09-01 10:00 UTC)