A tour of the UK's Vintage Computer Festival
Summary: The original logic board of a 1975 Cray and Twitter on a ZX Spectrum are among our photos from the UK's first vintage computer festival, held at Bletchley Park
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Four years after the Altair 8800 arrived, the keen computer hobbyist would probably be seen hunched over something like this — the Compukit UK101. By then, computers came with keyboards and video outputs and enough memory to run slightly useful software.
Like the Altair, the Compukit was sold in kit form through magazines, with its design published in the UK publication Practical Electronics. Many computers from this period are highly customised, as they are hand-built with the casework and any extra peripherals left up to the owner.
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Talkback
AdrianB
I heard about this event late the other night on Radio 5 Live and thought "how cool", but it was over obviously. Hopefully they can jump on the back of the publicity and actually promote the event to the rest of us in 2011, so that more can come (I will if I know about it in advance for travel arrangements etc.) and ogle at the past.
Kudos to ZD for helping launch the inaugural event. May it grow and grow for everyone involved.
JUST PROMOTE IT BETTER (IN ADVANCE) NEXT YEAR! ;D
I visit the museum twice a year now, so I was well aware this this was coming up and had cleared a totally irrevocable slot in my diary!
I was there on the Saturday - for most of the day actually. The place was very busy, and I think the organisers are understating the numbers. It was pretty packed most of the time I was there.
Fascinating to see and hear about the slow re-awakening of the WITCH computer. Had a look in on Colossus again, as it chugged happily away. There were two new (to me) guys fielding questions, and doing a very good job of it, managing to talk at the right level for each of their questioners.
Listened in on a guy explaining to new generation geeks how magnetic core memory works.
The digital clock was great. Looks like it also still has the vast majority of its original components - including the selenium rectifier. The lamps for the display are very much under-run, just glowing orange so I expect they will have a rather long life too.
Saw lots of {ahem} middle-aged, ummm, 'enthusiasts' playing games on Spectrums, Atari's BBCs etc. Also refreshing to see how youngsters zeroed in on old classics like PacMan and were totally un-fazed by the clunky graphics. Nice to see 'Elite' running on a BBC B
One reason for the high profile of Acorn kit, was that there was a specific Acorn show also going on in the mansion itself - including a beagle board actually running a full working RISC OS 5, which zipped along nicely - those anti-aliased font's STILL put the competition to shame!
A friend of mine went along on the Sunday, and also had a good time. He actually did better than me because he was just able to get in to the talk being done by Sophie Wilson. Most of the talks were well attended, but this one was absolutely packed out.
P.S.
If you don't know who Sophie is, then your geek card is canceled with immediate effect!