[DigiBarn-News] 021: See LINC & Digibarn @ VCF 10, Nov 3-4th!

Mon Oct 29 05:17:05 UTC 2007

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...

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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

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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/

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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
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