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VCF 7.0: BBS Bonanza in Bay Area
RaD Man [ACiD] writes "Vintage Computer Festival 7.0 will be taking place November 6-7th at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California! In addition to the tours of antiquities and computer history galore, VCF 7.0 will be hosting a unique Retro Video Game Programming Challenge and presenting a number of interesting seminar speakers, such as the inventor of FidoNet, Tom Jennings. The VCF founder will also be appearing on G4TechTV's "The Screen Savers" this Tuesday, October 19th, to demonstrate some of his favorite artifacts."
For those who don't remember the BBS era (all you youngins =) ), I'll fill you in on LORD. Basically, every modern MMORPG owes its existence, in my opinion, to LoRD. Created by Seth Able, it was the first popular "Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game". Granted, it wasn't very massive (I think it allowed up to 200 people max), and the number of people that could be on at once was limited to the incoming phone lines at the BBS, but it was still the first popularized game (perhaps the first period? I'm not positive, but it's the first I knew of) that featured MMORPG-type gameplay. It was decades ahead of its time.
Some of you may know Seth Able but not that milestone achievement, since he is also a pioneer in the Independant game industry these days. Anyways, Seth Able is not only a great programmer in this time, he was an innovator back when a 1200 baud modem was reserved for only the most wealthy of computer users.
Ah, old school memories... =)
-Vendal Thornheart
A friend of mine had a Kaypro Four which he overclocked. It had originally had (if I'm remembering correctly) a 4MHz 8085, which he replaced with an 8MHz Z80 (and a new crystal). He had to replace a few of the other big chips on the board, as I recall. When he was done, he had a machine that was way faster then the IBM PC with its measly 4.77MHZ 8088.
This was in about 1981. He was doing freelance programming, using SBasic, and claimed speeding up the compiles was worth the few bucks to took to do the work.
Them was the good old days.
See what I've been reading.
off to Vthorn... Uhm, trying to remember the name of a game I used to play that I helped set up, was based on black ice, shadowrun theme stuff, multi, and their was also, well, mudding is a whole new genera.
I've been going to the Vintage Computer Festival for years, and it's always a great time.The nostalgia factor alone is worth the cost of admission, PLUS you're sure to learn something new every time you go. Sam Ismail always does a great job.
And when you're done playing with historical microcomputers at the VCF, walk down the hall to see the "heavy iron" that led to PCs at the Compter History Museum.
This show kicks ass. Don't miss it.
Tom Geller
I went to the VCF last year when they celebrated the Alto, and it was an amazing event. Both myself and my wife had a blast. Lots of great people, lots of awsome gear, and plenty of people to brag "I've got one of those at home!" to that actually give a sh*t.
Every bay area geek should find the time to stop by the event.
Nah... TradeWars 2002 ! I still have a license key for it. The rights to TW have been sold to "a new guy" and you can now even buy a network-enabled server.
Just the mention of vintage computers and BBS's brings out the nostalgic geezer in me. I remember playing Trek-73 on my high school's Teletype ASR33 in the late 70's. Later on we moved to Spacewar on the Apple II.
In the mid-80's I played Tradewars online using my Tandy Coco and a 300 baud modem. I think the name of the BBS was Microfone in Secaucus NJ.
I spent A LOT of money calling BBS's around the country looking for files and having interesting chats and message board discussions.
It's almost all too easy now with the Internet and Google.
Self awareness - try it!
What first drew me online and kept me excited for years was the sense of community that people had in the BBS scene before the rising popularity of the Web. Despite many attempts at creating this same feeling on the web from AIM, to Craigslist, Friendster, gMail to even Slashdot or Kuro5hin, I have not been able to develop the same type of relationships. It seems almost bizarre to suggest that a global online community could have a BBQ or meet for dinner at a local fast food restaurant.
People like Jom Jennings of FidoNet and Scott Converse of OneNet really deserve to be recognized by organizations like the VCF. The communities they fostered, perhaps because local dial-up networks kept everything provincal, are probably what I miss about the modern Internet with its spammers, phishers, con artists, Patriot Act, unsecure email and general lack of polite behavior. More than anything else, this misplaced sense of community is what I miss about the early days online.
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM