Vancouver Retrocomputing Expo 24

[falter]

Had a really great time at the Expo which was a subset of the larger Retro Gaming Expo. I gave my first talk to a room of nice people. Rob Carnegie is a super nice guy and you could tell he knew how to organize stuff. He gave a great talk about Canadian contributions to computing technology that was super interesting.

Really appreciated being invited and getting to experience a taste of a VCF-like event in my own backyard. I was very recently diagnosed with type II diabetes and have to learn how to manage blood sugars better, especially for whole day for events like that - at the end I could just barely lift everything back to the car and just booked it back to the hotel and practiced being dead for 12 hours. But it was so worth it and hopefully we do it again and I'll be a reformed, responsible diabeetus patient next time. Really nice to meet a few people in person from these forums and see the awesome stuff they brought, and lots of other like minded people from our area. Grant's GRiD collection and super clean Altair 8800 was amazing. John's Four Phase system I think stole the show. I can't believe he hauled that all the way from Kamloops. My back ached just looking at it!

I did my best to capture some video although being an exhibitor myself I didn't get much time, and also didn't feel comfortable filming people without getting their attention and permission. But I hope to assemble a short vid to capture the flavor of the event. Just really nice to have something local that doesn't involve a passport and a plane ride to get to. I brought my Mark 8, COSMAC ELF, OSI 300, RCA Microtutor, my TVT prototype replica, reaction tennis game, and digital group z80. I can't believe the z80 was able to keep Lunar Lander running for nearly 5 hours without detonating something!

Here's just a few pics! The gaming expo was downstairs and I regret I didn't get any time really to check that out. But there was so much to see in our area!

Special thanks to Rob Carnegie for the invite and awesomely organized event!

 

[NeXT]

I really liked your table setup Falter. IT was really fun to look over the documentation you brought along with your 1802 and Mark-8 sets.

 

[Klyball]

I wish i had a better chance to look over the other displays, and talk more with the exhibitors, it got pretty hectic and was pretty packed , it was really nice meeting you Falter , i was surprised i only had to toggle in kill the bit once and it ran almost to the end, usually people find a way to mess it up pretty fast,

 

[falter]

I really liked your table setup Falter. IT was really fun to look over the documentation you brought along with your 1802 and Mark-8 sets.

We voted for your Four Phase setup to win! I've only ever gotten to see big machines like that in photos. Was amazing! Did they announce the contest winner? People seemed to be skedaddling to get out of there pretty fast once 7 hit lol

 

[falter]

I wish i had a better chance to look over the other displays, and talk more with the exhibitors, it got pretty hectic and was pretty packed , it was really nice meeting you Falter , i was surprised i only had to toggle in kill the bit once and it ran almost to the end, usually people find a way to mess it up pretty fast,

That was the fastest how ever many hours that was ever. And I agree there were so many people - it was amazing how warm the space got with everyone there and then cooled once they were out. I wanted to attend the NABU panel but felt like I should be out explaining the display. Talked more in a day than I usually do in a week! Was great to meet you also.. man I envy your Altair. BTW that machine I was talking about that was on ebay finally sold.. It went for less than the asking price of $4400, which I thought was odd given that it was early and had a ton of stuff. I guess condition maybe.

 

[NeXT]

We voted for your Four Phase setup to win! I've only ever gotten to see big machines like that in photos. Was amazing! Did they announce the contest winner? People seemed to be skedaddling to get out of there pretty fast once 7 hit lol

I didn't hear an announcement. We had the speakers setup but beyond the mic check in the morning I never heard anything again. Congrats to whoever won it!

 

[falter]

I think we were all afraid of an elevator jam up once 7pm rolled around. Plus Rob advised that we needed to get moving 7pm sharp. But I didn't really see many of the gaming expo people as we went down.. I wonder if they had some other way out? Maybe we can find out and then next time have a few min to do something like that again.