[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)
 
web link (vcfmw.org)
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)