From bdamer at digitalspace.com Mon Oct 8 09:49:55 2007 From: bdamer at digitalspace.com (Bruce Damer) Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2007 02:49:55 -0700 Subject: [DigiBarn-News] 020: VCF & LINC event Nov 3-4, open house, news coverage Message-ID: <0JPK008R6YZA2OO0@mta4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net> Dear DigiBarn News subscribers (and welcome new subscribers who checked the box on our contact form), Here is your Fall 2007 newsletter (#20). The big news is that on the weekend of November 3rd-4th is the 10th Vintage Computer Festival, to be held at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA. This is the world's premier community event on computing history and we are happy to announce that at 1pm on Sunday November 4th will be a special event featuring the historic LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer). We will be holding the last open house of the year on the weekend of October 27th. More details on all this and more below... Find this newsletter in HTML format at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/newsletters/index.html#020 Text format follows... ****************** DIGIBARN FALL 2007 NEWS 1. LINC Restoration Project and Project and Special Presentation at VCF 10, Nov 3-4th 2. West Coast Computer Faires, call for information 3. Fall Open House 4. Digibarn on CNET (News.com)! 5. We finally posted the Apple at 30 event video on Google Video! 6. New Pictorial Tour of the Digibarn 7. Virtual Worlds Timeline project, by Digibarn Curator Bruce Damer 8. New Digibarn Radio Podcasts 9. Digibarn TV new features! 10. Thanks donors! Still looking for... 11. Archive of this and past Newsletters 12. Contacting us or Unsubscribing ****************** 1. LINC Restoration Project and Special Presentation at VCF 10, Nov 3-4th The LINC was a true paradigm shift in computing, which in the early 1960s was dominated by large batch processing and the beginnings of the time-sharing movement. The LINC, developed by a team at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, was the first step in the direction to dedicating computing resources to interact with a single user, and a machine so versatile with an addressable graphical display, removable tape storage media, and the ability to operate it on a lab bench or desk on a day to day basis and shut it down at night (what a concept!). Join a whole team of original LINC designers and operators who have toiled in the past year to get a LINC up and running (and shipped out to the event) to hear about what industry luminaries like Gordon Bell and Allan Kay describe fondly as "the world's first personal computer". We will have live demos of the working LINC all weekend followed by Sunday's panel where the history, significance and restoration challenges of the LINC will be presented. The LINC event is described at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/07-11-04-VCF10-LINC/index.html The LINC history and restoration are at: http://www.digibarn.com/stories/linc/index.html The Vintage Computer Festival 10.0: http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/ ****************** 2. West Coast Computer Faires, call for information If anyone out there has artifacts from the West Coast Computer Faires (1977 and later) please get in touch with us at: http://www.digibarn.com/forms/comment.html (we are hoping to document this most important event in the history of personal computing) ****************** 3. Fall Open House The Digibarn will have one more Open House on Saturday October 27th with rotating tours at about 1pm and you could show up any time up until about 4pm. For those who wish to we will do dinner in the local brewery pub/restaurant at about 630-7pm. If you want to come please RSVP to me at bdamer at digitalspace.com and I will send you the directions. Let me know the time you would like to come. If you plan to bring artifacts to donate please let me know in advance (in case I can or can't take them). See scenes from last Summer's Open Houses at: http://www.digibarn.com/eventsvisiting/index.html Lots of new stuff to show you! Should be fun! See you here! ****************** 4. Digibarn on CNET (News.com)! There have been tons of great stories about the Digibarn in the world news media over the past few months. Some of the best coverage has been provided by CNET (news.com) including a superb story by Daniel Terdiman and excellent video visit by Tom Merritt. We hope you will take a look at both (and the other stories) at: http://www.digibarn.com/links/media.html ****************** 5. We finally posted the Apple at 30 event video on Google Video! Al Lundell and I finally got the three edits of the wonderful Apple at 30 event we held at last November's VCF all up, this time on Google Video, see Woz, Daniel Kottke and the "garage gang" from Apple in 1976, as well as my detailed yet fun introduction at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/06-11-4-VCF9-Apple30/panel/movies.html The full Apple at 30 event, with some never before seen artifacts, is at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/06-11-4-VCF9-Apple30/index.html ****************** 6. New Pictorial Tour of the Digibarn We shot a whole series of photos just before the Digibarn open house season in Summer 2007 to give you all an idea of the whole new setup (in case you can't make it in person). The new "virtual tour" is at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/07-08-11-DigibarnTour/page_01.htm ****************** 7. Virtual Worlds Timeline project, by Digibarn Curator Bruce Damer Bruce Damer, curator of the Digibarn, has another life as CEO of DigitalSpace ( http://www.digitalspace.com ), a leading company creating open source 3D software that is used by NASA and others to create realistic 3D virtual worlds for mission design and simulation. Bruce also co-founded the Contact Consortium back in 1995 to help pioneer the novel concept of shared graphical Cyberspaces with "avatars" representing users. Now that the avatar/virtual world medium (through gaming and social virtual worlds) is becoming a big business, Bruce is embarking on "The Virtual Worlds Timeline", a project to tell the story of the birth of the virtual world, from its earliest beginnings in the first shared graphical spaces (Spacewar! 1961) to its first incarnation as a 3D multi player game (Maze War, 1974) and on up through the 80s and 90s and 2000s. The Digibarn and many other institutions and people will be supporting this project in the coming year. If you are interested in the Virtual Worlds Timeline, take a look at: http://www.vwtimeline.org ****************** 8. New Digibarn Radio Podcasts Digibarn radio has gone podcast! Thanks to Tommy Cuellar, a Digibarn fan living in Japan and a budding radio voice talent, we have several more of the newest Digibarn radio pieces available in podcast format. Subscribe through the iTunes store at Apple for free, just enter the term Digibarn Radio. You can also sign up directly at the Digibarn Radio page at: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/audio/index.html or listen to these and our other pieces using regular MP3 audio download players. Hear Lee Felsenstein describing the Osborne-1 schematic (with embedded pictures!). ****************** 9. Digibarn TV new features! See several new video features on Digibarn TV, including Steve Wozniak at the Apple at 30 event last November, at: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/index.html ****************** 10. Thanks donors! Still looking for... A lot of great donations came in since the springtime and we would like to thank all the many Friends of the Digibarn who contributed: http://www.digibarn.com/friends/index.html See the ever expanding collection at: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/index.html We are still looking for a bunch of good stuff and have updated our "wish list" at: http://www.digibarn.com/help/index.html so check it out and see if you have anything there we are desperately seeking (weird prototypes or front bezel for a Lisa 1 anyone?). ****************** 11. Archive of this and past Newsletters You can find the archive of this and all past Digibarn Newsletters at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/newsletters/index.html ****************** 12. Contacting Us or Unsubscribing The best way to contact us is by our web form at: http://www.digibarn.com/forms/comment.html the form has a new security feature so you have to enter that automatically generated nonsense word, it prevents spambots from finding us! If you want to be unsubscribed please let us know through the form above and provide the email address you are receiving this newsletter on and it will be taken care of promptly. Digibarn News only comes out 1-3 times per year so it shouldn't clog your inbox! Alternatively, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the subject. ****************** Thats it for this newsletter, see you in the next one! Bruce Damer, Curator end digibarn news DigitalSpace 343 Soquel Avenue, # 70 Santa Cruz CA 95062-2305 USA http://www.digitalspace.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.damer.com/pipermail/digibarn-computermuseum/attachments/20071008/9266aac6/attachment.html From bdamer at digitalspace.com Mon Oct 29 05:17:05 2007 From: bdamer at digitalspace.com (Bruce Damer) Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:17:05 -0700 Subject: [DigiBarn-News] 021: See LINC & Digibarn @ VCF 10, Nov 3-4th! Message-ID: Dear DigiBarn News subscribers here is an abbreviated newsletter (#21) reminding you of the fabulous Vintage Computer Festival coming this weekend (Nov 3-4th) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. Details of the VCF 10 can be found below in this newsletter and from the VCF site: http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/ Join Allan Lundell and me for a special session on the Digibarn at 11:30am on Saturday November 3rd celebrating 20 years of collecting and the tenth year of the Digibarn Computer Museum. Then, see the LINC in demonstrations all day on Saturday and Sunday November 3-4th and the special panel of the original LINC team at 1pm Sunday November 4th. The LINC is a very important machine in history, having created the paradigm shift that lead directly to the personal computer revolution. More on the LINC and everything else below! Find this newsletter in HTML format at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/newsletters/index.html#021 Full text follows... ****************** DIGIBARN FALL 2007 NEWS (VCF Supplement) 1. LINC Restoration Project and Project and Special Presentation at VCF 10, Nov 3-4th 2. Full VCF 10 Announcement 3. Open Houses 4. Digibarn on CNET (News.com)! 5. Thanks donors! Still looking for... 6. Archive of this and past Newsletters 7. Contacting us or Unsubscribing ****************** 1. LINC Restoration Project and Special Presentation at VCF 10, Nov 3-4th (Mountain View, CA) The LINC was a true paradigm shift in computing, which in the early 1960s was dominated by large batch processing and the beginnings of the time-sharing movement. The LINC, developed by a team at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, was the first step in the direction to dedicating computing resources to interact with a single user, and a machine so versatile with an addressable graphical display, removable tape storage media, and the ability to operate it on a lab bench or desk on a day to day basis and shut it down at night (what a concept!). Join a whole team of original LINC designers and operators who have toiled in the past year to get a LINC up and running (and shipped out to the event) to hear about what industry luminaries like Gordon Bell and Allan Kay describe fondly as "the world's first personal computer". We will have live demos of the working LINC all weekend followed by Sunday's panel where the history, significance and restoration challenges of the LINC will be presented. The LINC event and presenters are described at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/07-11-04-VCF10-LINC/index.html The LINC history and restoration are at: http://www.digibarn.com/stories/linc/index.html The Vintage Computer Festival 10.0: http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/ ****************** 2. Full VCF 10 Announcement FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE COMPUTER HISTORY PIONEERS CONGREGATE ON NOVEMBER 3-4 AT VINTAGE EVENT Vintage Computer Festival Celebrates History of Computing with live antique computers and living legends from the computer industry LIVERMORE, CALIFORNIA (PRWEB) October 26, 2007 -- The Vintage Computer Festival, a yearly event that celebrates computers and their history, is being held on November 3-4 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. Anticipation is building for what is expected to be the biggest and most well-attended event since the Festival's founding ten years ago. Celebrated once a year in Silicon Valley, as well as three other locations worldwide, the Vintage Computer Festival is the largest and most prestigious event of its kind, featuring a lecture series, an exhibition of working vintage and antique computers, and a marketplace for traders to buy and sell vintage computers. Collectors from around the world attend this event, which was founded in 1997. The Festival also recognizes its own history this year as it marks its tenth anniversary. This year, attendees will be treated to several historical figures in the computer industry, including Lee Felsenstein (designer of the classic Osborne 1, one of the first portable computers, and the SOL-20, one of the first personal computers), Al Hoagland (designer of the first commercial disk drive), legendary MIT proto-hackers Bill Gosper Steve Russell (author of the first videogame, Spacewar!), Wesley Clark (not the general, but the inventor of the first transistorized computer in the US) and prolific computer book author Lance Leventhal, who wrote dozens of computer self-help books throughout the 1970s and 1980s. One of the keynote sessions at the Festival this year is a panel featuring the engineers who in the early 1960s designed the LINC (Laboratory INstrumentation Computer), which was a revolutionary computer design that some consider to be the first "personal computer". The Festival also features a marketplace for collectors to buy, sell and trade vintage computers. There is also a screening of documentaries and films on both days of the event that have vintage computing or vintage technology themes. Some of the filmmakers will be present to talk about their work and give introductions to their films. There will also be an abstract artist (Christine Finn) on site throughout the event constructing a collaborative artwork based on discarded technology, culminating at a talk she will give on the piece at 3:00pm on Sunday. The Computer History Museum is an ideal location for the Festival as it allows attendees the opportunity to tour the Museum's collection while also attending the lectures and exhibits organized by the VCF. Tours of the Museum's collection will be given throughout the afternoon on each day of the Festival. Special theme tours during the weekend will include "A Brief History of the Internet" and "The History of Video Games", which are both guided by Museum docents. There will also be live demonstrations of ancient mainframe computers that have been painstakingly restored to working condition, including an IBM 1401 mainframe circa 1960 and a Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-1 minicomputer circa 1961 running Spacewar!, the first ever videogame, written in 1962. The game's author, Steve Russell, will also be speaking at the Festival. The Computer History Museum is located at 1401 North Shoreline Blvd. in Mountain View, California, just off highway 101. The Vintage Computer Festival opens at 9:30am each day, with first sessions beginning at 10:00am and the exhibition and marketplace opening at 2:00pm each day. The film festival runs from 11:00am to 6:00pm each day. The Festival officially ends at 6:00pm on Sunday. Complete event information including admission, directions to the venue and the event schedule can be found on the VCF website: http://www.vintage.org/2007/main/ # # # -- Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ****************** 3. Open Houses The Digibarn had some great open houses this year, we concluded with the one this past Saturday October 27th, 2007: http://www.digibarn.com/eventsvisiting/index.html ****************** 4. Digibarn on CNET (News.com) "Tales of Silicon Valley"! There have been tons of great stories about the Digibarn in the world news media over the past few months. Some of the best coverage has been provided by CNET (news.com). Tom Merritt and his crew visited us last Friday (Oct 26th) to record several new short story pieces for "Tales of Silicon Valley". Watch for them on CNET TV. We hope you will take a look at both (and the other stories) at: http://www.digibarn.com/links/media.html ****************** 5. Thanks donors! Still looking for... A lot of great donations came in since the summer and we would like to thank all the many Friends of the Digibarn who contributed: http://www.digibarn.com/friends/index.html See the ever expanding collection at: http://www.digibarn.com/collections/index.html We are still looking for a bunch of good stuff and have updated our "wish list" at: http://www.digibarn.com/help/index.html so check it out and see if you have anything there we are desperately seeking (weird prototypes or front bezel for a Lisa 1 anyone?). ****************** 6. Archive of this and past Newsletters You can find the archive of this and all past Digibarn Newsletters at: http://www.digibarn.com/history/newsletters/index.html ****************** 7. Contacting Us or Unsubscribing The best way to contact us is by our web form at: http://www.digibarn.com/forms/comment.html the form has a new security feature so you have to enter that automatically generated nonsense word, it prevents spambots from finding us! If you want to be unsubscribed please let us know through the form above and provide the email address you are receiving this newsletter on and it will be taken care of promptly. Digibarn News only comes out 2-4 times per year so it shouldn't clog your inbox! Alternatively, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the subject. ****************** Thats it for this newsletter, see you in the next one! Bruce Damer, Curator end digibarn news DigitalSpace 343 Soquel Avenue, # 70 Santa Cruz CA 95062-2305 USA http://www.digitalspace.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.damer.com/pipermail/digibarn-computermuseum/attachments/20071028/7bb1edfb/attachment.htm