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Less than 2 weeks 'til VCF East 8.0!

E

EvanK

VCFed Founder
Joined
Aug 14, 2003
Messages
1,017
Location
New Jersey
Hellooooooooooooooo world.

Vintage Computer Festival East 8.0 is less than two weeks from now: it happens on May 5-6, 2012, at the InfoAge Science Center (2201 Marconi Rd., Wall, New Jersey, USA.)

This year's VCF East will be the biggest ever. As of last weekend, we're up to six lectures, eight technical workshops (the newest being an all-weekend, kid-friendly "learn to solder" class), and two dozen hands-on exhibits. You'll also find our book sale, consignment sale, lunch, museum tours, prizes, and more.

This year's lectures are highlighted by keynotes at 12:30 each day. Saturday's keynote is Dr. Thomas Kurtz, who co-invented the BASIC programming language. Sunday's keynote is Daniel Kottke, who was Steve Jobs' college buddy, India travel companion, Apple 1 board debugger, and Apple II, III, and Macintosh engineer. We are thrilled that Kurtz and Kottke accepted our invitations!

Admission to VCF East 8.0 is very inexpensive. Adult tickets are just $10 per day and $15 for the whole weekend. Anyone 17 and younger are admitted free. Tickets are sold at the door. Directions, lodging, and related details are also on the VCF web site at http://www.vintage.org/2012/east/ and be sure to 'like' us at http://www.facebook.com/vcfeast8.

All questions, such as admission, how to exhibit, how to become a VCF sponsor or vendor, etc., as well as any other questions from the public and from media, should be addressed to event producer Evan Koblentz -- evan@snarc.net, or call him at (646) 546-9999.

Proceeds from the VCF East 8.0 benefit the InfoAge center, which is a grassroots, all-volunteer educational facility, and the MARCH user group (Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists).

Thanks, and we hope to see you at the VCF East!
 
Anyone from here planning on being there? (hopefully yes!)
I'll be there. This will actually be my first festival, so I'm excited to see what these things are all about.
Happy to meet fellow VCF'ers there if you're there too.
 
hargle said:
Anyone from here planning on being there? (hopefully yes!)
I'll be there. This will actually be my first festival, so I'm excited to see what these things are all about.
Happy to meet fellow VCF'ers there if you're there too.
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I know of several people from this forum who are attending. But many of them are lazy about posting. :)

I guarantee you'll have a blast. It's like a weekend-long party at vintage computer camp .... lectures, workshops, exhibits, food, museum tours, and (my favorite part) the camaraderie.
 
Sounds like fun , sadly I live in Chicago so waaaaay to far. Make sure to take tons of pics! :D

At least I have VCF Midwest to look forward too! Yeay! :D
 
Hargle - You must have more vacation time than I do. ; - 0

(That's an inside joke.)

I'm going to miss this one, but I'm hoping to make the Midwest one in Sept. I need to find a way to get away with it ...
 
Compared to how close I live to where the midwest VCF will be, ya its pretty far >.> esp with no vacation in sight. :( . I live less then an hour in traffic, 30 mins with none, from where its to be held in Lombard. Sadly I missed last year, had to work. :(

Will the guest hosts be filmed at all? I love to be able to hear the stories and history... *crosses fingers someone records everything. I am going to try to record everything at the midwest fest @ end of summer. Not sure if I should use a digital or Betamax video recorder though! LOL
 
EvanK said:
Not at all: I've heard from people attending from all over the U.S., Canada, and even other continents.
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Unfortunately, distance isn't the sole contributing factor that often limits one from attending such events. For me, time away from work and the money involved in the trip itself are often prohibitive factors... sadly.

I think we need to have one in Daytona - great beaches, great *ahem* sights, and uh... it's close to home! :)
 
Maverick1978 said:
I think we need to have one in Daytona - great beaches, great *ahem* sights, and uh... it's close to home! :)
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That's unlikely. :) There's no large support base down there, and nobody to run the event.

But I just got this testimonial today from Woz .... he wrote:

"Seeing the early equipment at VCF is an amazing experience. For many of us, it's better than a museum. It touches on all the hopes and dreams of the time and the many efforts to achieve what others thought would never happen. It brings back memories of a revolution in the making. And we see the humble devices that we could actually understand and hold each piece in our hands and even construct ourselves. Every new device back then signaled a change in life forever. A lot of young people look in awe upon those days too, the way they might look upon the founding music of rock and roll. The people you meet at the VCF are amazing. Most are older and more accomplished but every single story of those days that they tell is the type you hinge on and feel inside what they were doing, often against the grain of our culture and against what was supposedly possible. It was a time of few rules and little conformity, all because there weren't billions of dollars visible yet for this new industry. How much we were up against is one thing you take home after this event."
 
There might be people able to put together a smaller vintage computer party though, and as they get experience and it grows, eventually get recognized as a VCF (tm) event. I've seen there are vintage computing and more commonly vintage gaming events all over the world, virtually a handful every weekend so the amount of people running different kinds of meetings should be pretty many. However I'm sure you're right that there might be nobody (in Florida) able or interested right now to organize an event of the size that a proper VCF should be.

Personally, I might never fly to the states for a such event but this year seriously considered Munich. However another retro gaming party on colliding dates took precedence, as it is an event where I might market and attract visitors to the vintage computing/gaming event I am arranging later this year.
 
carlsson said:
There might be people able to put together a smaller vintage computer party though, and as they get experience and it grows, eventually get recognized as a VCF (tm) event. I've seen there are vintage computing and more commonly vintage gaming events all over the world, virtually a handful every weekend so the amount of people running different kinds of meetings should be pretty many. However I'm sure you're right that there might be nobody (in Florida) able or interested right now to organize an event of the size that a proper VCF should be.

Personally, I might never fly to the states for a such event but this year seriously considered Munich. However another retro gaming party on colliding dates took precedence, as it is an event where I might market and attract visitors to the vintage computing/gaming event I am arranging later this year.
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Carlsson alludes to three important points:

1. There are many ways to have on-topic get-togethers without the hassle of making them into formal events like a Vintage Computer Festival. Just find a few like-minded people, go to someone's home, office, or shop, bring some vintage computers and food, and have fun. If it grows into something more, then great. If not, that's okay too.

2. Although there is * some * overlap between the Vintage Computer Festival events and other events, there are more differences than similarities. For example, only at a Vintage Computer Festival will you find homebrew-era computers and minicomputers, vs. just 8-bit micros (but we've got plenty of those too!) And only at the Vintage Computer Festival will you findthe technical workshops and historical lectures. Microcomputer retrogaming is fin but it should NOT be confused with the vastly wider nature of a Vintage Computer Festival. :)

3. VintageTech Inc. and its partners try not to make a huge fuss about this, but that company founded and owns the Vintage Computer Festival, and not just any event could call itself one. There are all kinds of agreements and rules, etc. -- that's the reality of operating the largest event in our field. Anybody who is serious about forming a new regional edition of the Vintage Computer Festival should contact us, but you need to be prepared to do a LOT of work. (Of course, anybody can have a computer history event, but if you want it to be a smash hit then you'd be dumb not to work with us.)

4. In case anyone's still unaware, the Vintage Computer Forum and Vintage Computer Festival are separate entities owned by different people. Erik, who owns this forum, was kind enough to let us hawk VCF East here. :).

Back to my daytime job now ... Five more days, and then I'm taking off next Thurs/Fri to prepare for the show!
 
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