Category Archives: VCF

Hackaday Links: December 2, 2018

Posted on by

CircuitPython is becoming a thing! CircuitPython was originally developed from MicroPython and ported to various ARM boards by Adafruit. Now, SparkFun is shipping their own CircuitPython board based on the nRF52840, giving this board an ARM Cortex-M4 and a Bluetooth radio.

You like contests, right? You like circuit boards too, right? Hackster.io now has a BadgeLove contest going on to create the Blinkiest Badge on Earth. Yes, this is a #badgelife contest, with the goal of demonstrating how much you can do in a single circuit badge. Prizes include a trip to San Francisco, a badass drone, a skateboard, a …read more

Continue reading Hackaday Links: December 2, 2018→

This Weekend: The Vintage Computer Festival West

Posted on by

This weekend it’s all going down at the Vintage Computer Museum in Mountain View, California. The Vintage Computer Festival West is happening this weekend

What’s going on this year at VCF West? Far too much. The exhibits include everything from floptical disks, a fully restored and operation PDP-11/45, home computers from the UK and Japan, typewriters converted into teletypes, a disintegrated CPU, and LISP machines. The talks are equally spectacular, with a keynote from [Tim Paterson], the creator of 86-DOS, the basis of MS-DOS. You’ll also hear about PLATO, the Internet before the Internet, PDP-1 demonstrations, and if we’re lucky …read more

Continue reading This Weekend: The Vintage Computer Festival West→

VCF East XIII: Another Day in Retro Paradise

Posted on by

While the weather alternated between mist and monsoon for most of it, the thirteenth annual Vintage Computer Festival East was still a huge success. People came from all over the country, and indeed the world, to show off computers and equipment that was easily older than many of those in attendance. From 1980’s robots to recreations of the very first machines to ever carry the name “computer” as we understand it today, there were a dizzying array of fascinating exhibits to see for those who made the pilgrimage to the InfoAge Science Center in Wall, New Jersey. The people who …read more

Continue reading VCF East XIII: Another Day in Retro Paradise→

VCF East: Cactus, Retro Because it Wants to Be

Posted on by

Among the rows of digital dinosaurs, one blinking front panel stood out. It certainly looked the part of a retro computer; with banks of blinking LEDs and multicolored paddle switches. But upon closer inspection, the laser cut wooden front panel betrays the fact that this machine is an impostor. It may have the appearance of a machine from the heady days where home computers looked like they could have doubled as a prop on the bridge of Kirk’s Enterprise, but it’s actually a product of much more modern provenance.

It’s called the Cactus, a love letter to the homebrew …read more

Continue reading VCF East: Cactus, Retro Because it Wants to Be→

VCF East: SDR on the Altair 8800

Posted on by

You’d be forgiven if you thought software defined radio (SDR) was a relatively recent discovery. After all, few outside of the hardcore amateur radio circles were even familiar with the concept until it was discovered that cheap USB TV tuners could be used as fairly decent receivers from a few hundred MHz all the way up into the GHz range. The advent of the RTL-SDR project in 2012 brought the cost of entry level SDR hardware from hundreds of dollars to tens of dollars effectively overnight. Today there’s more hackers cruising the airwaves via software trickery than there’s ever been …read more

Continue reading VCF East: SDR on the Altair 8800→

VCF East: The Mail Order App Store

Posted on by

Today we take the concept of a centralized software repository for granted. Whether it’s apt or the App Store, pretty much every device we use today has a way to pull applications in without the user manually having to search for them on the wilds of the Internet. Not only is this more convenient for the end user, but at least in theory, more secure since you won’t be pulling binaries off of some random website.

But centralized software distribution doesn’t just benefit the user, it can help developers as well. As platforms like Steam have shown, once you lower …read more

Continue reading VCF East: The Mail Order App Store→

VCF East: The Desktop ENIAC

Posted on by

The ENIAC, or Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, is essentially the Great Great Grandfather of whatever device you’re currently reading these words on. Developed during World War II for what would be about $7 million USD today, it was designed to calculate artillery firing tables. Once word got out about its capabilities, it was also put to work on such heady tasks as assisting with John von Neumann’s research into the hydrogen bomb. The success of ENIAC lead directly into the development of EDVAC, which adopted some of the now standard computing concepts such as binary arithmetic and the idea …read more

Continue reading VCF East: The Desktop ENIAC→

Great Beginnings for Vintage Computing in Seattle; VCF PNW

Posted on by

The pitch to my wife was simple: “Feel like spending the weekend in Seattle?” That’s how I ended up at the inaugural Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest last weekend, and I’m glad we made the five-hour drive into The Big City to check it out. Hackaday is a VCF sponsor, after all, so it seemed like a great excuse to make the trip. That it ended up being two consecutive days of great Seattle weather was only icing on the cake of being able to spend time with fellow retro computer aficionados and their dearest bits of old hardware, in …read more

Continue reading Great Beginnings for Vintage Computing in Seattle; VCF PNW→

Next Week: Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest

Posted on by

Next week something magical is happening. Seattle is getting a Vintage Computer Festival. It’s the Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest, and it’s happening Saturday, February 10th and Sunday, February 11th at the Living Computers Museum and Labs.

As with all Vintage Computer Festivals, this is one with plenty of exhibits, speakers, and the ever-popular consignment shop. A few of the more interesting exhibits include a demonstration of the Syntauri alphaSyntauri, a synthesizer card and controller designed for the Apple II. When it was released in 1980, this was the first affordable digital synthesizer that competed against the Synclavier and Fairlight …read more

Continue reading Next Week: Vintage Computer Festival Pacific Northwest→

This Weekend: Vintage Computer Festival Zurich

Posted on by

This weekend, November 18th and 19th, the greatest vintage computer conference in Europe is going down. It’s the Vintage Computer Festival Europe, and if you’re around Zurich this weekend, we highly recommend that you check it out.

On deck for this year’s VCF Europe is an incredible amount of amazing retrotechnology. A demonstration of high-resolution graphics without using computer memory will be found in a few Tektronix storage tube terminals (their Wikipedia entry is phenomenal, by the way). There will be a few Olivetti microcomputers on display demonstrating Italy’s contribution to the computer revolution. A PDP 6 will be recreated, …read more

Continue reading This Weekend: Vintage Computer Festival Zurich→