[NJARC] Trenton Computer Faire

[evan koblentz]

>>>>> There is going to be an individual setting up an
antique computer display are you involved? 

---------

Hello radio collectors,

I'm the guy organizing the vintage computer display at
TCF.  (I've been reading this NJARC list on and off
for a while now, but almost never post to it, because
I know virtually nothing about antique radios.  I just
think it is interesting!)

Anyway, here's the story... myself and a couple of
other local vintage computer collectors decided there
should be a user group of some kind.  By "vintage" we
do NOT mean the old junky 286 in the closet -- we mean
nothing newer than, say, the 8086 generation.  Most of
us collectors meet online at the Classic Computing
mailing list, based at www.classiccmp.org.  (I have a
hunch that some of you are probably members of that
list already.)

We started with the local plan a couple of months ago,
now there are about 20 people involved, from New York
to Virginia.  TCF will be our first live gathering. 
We're each going to bring a few vintage computers to
the show, and almost all of them will actually be live
and working, not just sitting there as dead iron. 
Since it is the TCF's 30th anniversary, people who
visit our exhibit will actually get to use some
computers from roughly 30 years ago!  It's going to be
great fun.

Several of us are merging our collections for the
show.  There will be a Tandy exhibit, a Commodore
exhibit, a DEC exhibit, a handhelds exhibit, an Apple
exhibit, etc.  For example, at the Apple part, we'll
have one of every model arranged chronologically and
ready for people to use.  That will begin with the
Apple 1 replica that I am building, along with a II+,
IIe, IIc, IIgs, Lisa, and original Mac.  We might also
have a gaming table -- for example, we hope to have
"Spacewar" running side-by-side on a PDP-8, Atari
2600, and a modern PC emulator.

So you can see why we are so excited about this!

All are welcome to join our group!  If you join and
plan to participate in our TCF exhibit, we ask that
you plan an exhibit that is unique from what we're
already bringing (due to limited space).  All of the
details are at our Yahoo group, which is
http://http://groups.yahoo.com/group/midatlanticretro/
-- please take note of the message forum and the two
databases.

After TCF, we at MARCH will start planning other
activities.  We are very interested in co-hosting a
swap meet with clubs such as NJARC.  But, for now, we
are 100% focused on blowing everyone away at TCF.  :)

 - Evan Koblentz

 (my personal homepage: http://www.snarc.net)