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+++
title = "Retro Computing - Vintage Computer Festival Zürich 2022"
categories = [ "Retro Computing", "Vintage Computer Festival", "VCF" ]
date = "2022-11-21T07:56:22+01:00"
thumbnail = "/images/blog/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022-lisa-harddisk.jpg"
+++
## Intro
This is the last vintage computer festival in Zürich in the "Rote Fabrik"
(which has to be restorated after a bad fire back in 2012) - at least
for now. It was held on November 19th/20th.
It was back to what it was before the pandemic in terms of exhibits,
the amount of people attending, the talks (which where held again this year).
It's an ever growing community of exhibitors, most of them try to
attend every year, so I'm just pointing out the new things, which
catched my attention (the others can be seen on older blog entries
of the series).
This year we had challenges, so visitors could try their skills by
solving puzzles or programming tasks at the exhibition desks. This
is a good idea to get visitors more involved and it's not just a
museum then, where exhibitors have to say 20 times the same stuff
or people are just walking by the computers and making photos.
I was sceptical in the beginning (basically because I don't like
puzzling), but in the end I also did one or two of the challenges:
trying to use a Lisa desktop and trying to get a message to Mastodon
from an old Unix System V.
## Local Heroes
Again we had the ETHZ Lilith and Ceres as local Zürich computers, but
this time also the group around Prof. Jean-Daniel Nicoud from the EPFL
Lausanne. He showed some really interesting things.
### Teaching Electronics
{{< figure src="/images/blog/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022-electronics-teaching.jpg" alt="Teaching Electronics" >}}
Those blocks are basically 74xxx series logic chips in a block with
schematics on top. You use cables to connect them and form logical
blocks like for instance a small adder with carry. This is much nicer
to deal with than with breadboards and the real logic chips.
### Smaky
{{< figure src="/images/blog/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022-smaky-100.jpg" alt="Smaky 100" >}}
This is a series of 8-bit computers, the first one based on Intel 8080, later on Z80.
This one is based on a 68k processor. The really nice thing is the graphical interface,
the keyboard and the mouse which feel absolutely modern.
### Self-made computers
On Youtube you can find a lot of people doing their own computer
projects based on 6502 and Z80 CPUs. This one is a really early example
of it (and totally without Youtube - the green one on the left with
the high voltage sign and the cards sticking out as in a toaster):
{{< figure src="/images/blog/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022-self-made.jpg" alt="Self made computers" >}}
## Apple Lisa
This is a computer you usually see not running and only behind some centimeters of glas.
At the VCF you had the chance to experience the GUI (especially its speed, ahem).
{{< figure src="/images/blog/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022-lisa-front.jpg" alt="Apple Lisa" >}}
## CP/M
Hidden in a corner were some really nice CP/M-based machines:
{{< figure src="/images/blog/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022/retro-computing-vintage-computer-festival-zurich-2022-cpm-machines.jpg" alt="CP/M machines" >}}
## Important Lessons Learned
My IMC-2001 is still not running and I'm currently fighting all kind of
broken stuff (keyboard circuit, power supply, broken ROM-chip). Not having
an exact twin of this machine makes it hard to repair.
..and yes, I know how to create a document on the Apple Lisa now. ;-)
## Links
* general links
* [Vintage Computer Festival Zurich](https://vintagecomputerfestival.ch): official webpage
* Smaky (sadly a lot of the links are broken)
* [Smaky Mouse and Keyboard](https://www.informatiquegestion.ch/mouse-and-keyboard): close up images
* [Smaky machines](https://www.smaky.ch/chapitre.php?id=lami_4): the timeline of the Smaky computers
* [Smaky@museebolo](https://www.museebolo.ch/): where the Smakies can usually be seen outside the VCF
* [Video on Smaky](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Vt01NJIy18): on Youtube, shows off various Smakies,
history, games, etc. @debConf
* videos
* [Youtube Gamo Tech25](https://youtu.be/rL4lvOuebJE)
* [Tomaniac](https://youtu.be/hIb0VxhVU2M)
* [The Phintage Collector](https://youtu.be/baWwDEKfXBA)
|
