 |
[38;5;15m ┐ ┌─┐ ┌─ ┌┐┌┐ ┐ ┌ … |
|
[38;5;7m │┌─┤ ├─ │└┘│ │┌┐│ |
|
[38;5;8m └┘ └─┘ ┘ ┘ └ └┘└┘ … |
|
[38;5;1m R E T R O S P E C T I V E |
|
|
|
[38;5;8m |
|
[38;5;8m======================================================================… |
|
[38;5;5mI am trying to type this up whilst the post-con excitement is still so… |
|
[38;5;5mfresh on my mind, before my mind settles back into it's normal routine… |
|
[38;5;8m======================================================================… |
|
|
|
[38;5;5m I'll break this down day-by-day: |
|
|
|
|
|
[38;5;8m.================================.[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;8m.------------------|[38;5;14m Wednesday, September 6, 2023 [38;5;… |
|
[38;5;8m| .================================.[38;5;7m … |
|
[38;5;8m.[38;5;5m Wednesday was basically load in & pack up day. The entir… |
|
[38;5;5m this point was (very) last-minute prep. A lot of last-minute bug-fi… |
|
[38;5;5m in the BBS server code, and messing with modems trying to figure ou… |
|
[38;5;5m way to make modem dial-in work. |
|
|
|
[38;5;8m.================================. |
|
[38;5;8m.-----------------|[38;5;7m [38;5;14mThursday, September 7, 2023… |
|
[38;5;8m|[38;5;7m [38;5;8m.================================… |
|
[38;5;8m| [38;5;5mNormally we drive over on thursday & check into the hotel … |
|
[38;5;8m.[38;5;5m there right when the venue opens on friday AM for setup, b… |
|
[38;5;5mthat was going to be a little tricky because the people who normally … |
|
[38;5;5mour dog weren't available, which meant that my wife could not stay a… |
|
[38;5;5mhotel with me. Since I don't drive, she'd have to drop me off & drive… |
|
[38;5;5mhowever that didn't work out either, as the hotel wouldn't let us arr… |
|
[38;5;5mday later. We pleaded on the phone to no avail. No late check-in or y… |
|
[38;5;5mconsidered a no-show. I reckon they were probably very busy with the… |
|
[38;5;5mgoing on. We weren't staying at the venue hotel like we normally do… |
|
[38;5;5minstead had to settle for a nearby hotel, as the venue hotel was book… |
|
[38;5;5mby the time silent700 confirmed everything was still happening at the… |
|
[38;5;5mplace. Not a huge deal, but with my wife not being able to stay, a… |
|
[38;5;5mnot driving, it meant I'd have to use taxi services / uber / whateve… |
|
[38;5;5mAnyhow, long story short, we decided to drive over late thursday nigh… |
|
[38;5;5mhave my wife sleep at the hotel with me overnight, and then she'd dr… |
|
[38;5;5moff on friday morning to let me unload all the stuff in the car, and… |
|
[38;5;5mshe'd drive back. So that's what we did on thursday. Finished packing… |
|
[38;5;5maround midnight we left for Chicago. It was about a 2:30 hr drive, … |
|
[38;5;5marrived at the hotel around 2:30 AM. Checked in, went to bed, try an… |
|
[38;5;5mas much sleep as possible. |
|
|
|
[38;5;8m.================================.[38;5;7m[38;5;8m |
|
[38;5;8m.-----------------|[38;5;7m [38;5;14mFriday, September 8, 2023 … |
|
[38;5;8m|[38;5;7m [38;5;8m.================================… |
|
[38;5;8m. [38;5;5mWe wake up, head down, hotel breakfast looks way busy. W… |
|
[38;5;5mskip it. We drove down to the nearest dunkin donuts, got us some cof… |
|
[38;5;5mbreakfast there, and then made our way to the VCFMW venue. On our w… |
|
[38;5;5mthe venue, I asked on IRC if we were good to unload, but no reply. Wh… |
|
[38;5;5mpulled into the back loading/unloading area, a lot of people were al… |
|
[38;5;5mbusy unloading, so that answered that question ;) - We parked and I … |
|
[38;5;5mto unload the car. This year, my table was at the far end of hall D,… |
|
[38;5;5mthe shadytel central office. This is convenient, because I needed se… |
|
[38;5;5mphone lines set up, and Joe was going to set me up with a T1 internet… |
|
[38;5;5m- My dream of the 90's finally comes true, ha! - This year I did not … |
|
[38;5;5ma cart, mostly because the car was full, and I couldn't fit one ;) -… |
|
[38;5;5msince many people were already unloading, this also meant that ther… |
|
[38;5;5mno carts available for me to use. I could have just waited, but I de… |
|
[38;5;5mnot to, because I wanted the max. time available for working on getti… |
|
[38;5;5mfunky modem setup working. So unloading by hand it was. I was definit… |
|
[38;5;5mfeeling it after emptying the car. My arms felt like floppy noodles b… |
|
[38;5;5mend, hahaha - Retro computers and 20" sgi crt monitors are not light!… |
|
[38;5;5mit all worked out in the end, and soon enough, I had my little area… |
|
[38;5;5mof STUFF. My wife left, as she had to go check on our puppydog asap. … |
|
[38;5;5mstarted my long process of getting everything set up. I was in an ar… |
|
[38;5;5mtables that were sort of set up in a U shape, there was initially 2 … |
|
[38;5;5mfeeds for the section. Also in my section was Anthony Bolan, represe… |
|
[38;5;5mIrixNet. Needless to say, all of our Sgi gear combined was drawing e… |
|
[38;5;5mpower to pop the breakers a bunch of times. We also started out th… |
|
[38;5;5mwith only 90-something volts on the outlets, instead of 110V, which… |
|
[38;5;5mmachines were OK with, except for my purple indigo2, which froze up. … |
|
[38;5;5minquiring about it, I learned that they were splitting up a 240V line… |
|
[38;5;5m2 feeds, and one side got an over-voltage, where-as the other side g… |
|
[38;5;5munder voltage. They had to disconnect the power a while to fix this,… |
|
[38;5;5msoon after the power would go out a bunch more times, of course, be… |
|
[38;5;5mof the aformentioned overdrawing of all the Sgi gear. It took us some… |
|
[38;5;5mto figure out the appropriate balance of splitting up the load betwee… |
|
[38;5;5mmultiple power feeds. |
|
[38;5;5mThis year my table consisted of the Indigo2 doing mostly nothing, th… |
|
[38;5;5mOctane acting as a terminal server for the honeywell terminal, and ne… |
|
[38;5;5mit, the panasonic luggable (8088) running kermit to talk over serial… |
|
[38;5;5mthe octane. Unfortunately I ran into an issue with the honeywell term… |
|
[38;5;5mWhile it displayed the login prompt correctly, and you could attempt … |
|
[38;5;5m- after logging in, the getty process handling the terminal on Irix … |
|
[38;5;5mjust freeze. I never did end up figuring out why, so I ended up leavi… |
|
[38;5;5moff for most of the show unfortunately. Then I had a boring old Pent… |
|
[38;5;5mpc running win98, with mtelnet in use as BBS client for the VCFMW BBS… |
|
[38;5;5mthat is another thing I got working only last minute. |
|
[38;5;5mThe whole BBS setup was kind of cool. The local phone system was pro… |
|
[38;5;5mby shadytel midwest, the "phone company" for the show. Their tables… |
|
[38;5;5mset up right across from me. A meridian was running everything, and… |
|
[38;5;5mnetwork access they ran me a T1 line. I had 3 phone lines set up. On… |
|
[38;5;5mthe payphone, one for the BBS dial-in, and one for wardialing out. I… |
|
[38;5;5muse of all three lines. Being in the Phr34k z0ne, the payph0ne got qu… |
|
[38;5;5mlot of use. There also were quite a few dial-ins into the BBS, and i… |
|
[38;5;5mlook at the userlist you may recognize some names from rogueserver.co… |
|
[38;5;5mthe PLA (phonelosers), including RBCP himself. Yes, the PLA was there… |
|
[38;5;5maccross from me, next to the shadytel co. and the analog phone switc… |
|
[38;5;5mused to listen to the PLA stuff even way back in the 90's, so meeting… |
|
[38;5;5mwas really cool. They let me leech a bunch of their stuff, like stic… |
|
[38;5;5mpins, a cd, flyers, etc,... Really nice folks. And of course, I coul… |
|
[38;5;5mresist making a few prank calls. Anyway, in the end, I only had jus… |
|
[38;5;5meverything working (somewhat), and silent700 announced on the PA tha… |
|
[38;5;5mwas time to close up for the night. I didn't really hang around, as … |
|
[38;5;5mexhausted. I got an uber back to the hotel and pretty much immedi… |
|
[38;5;5mpassed out. |
|
[38;5;8m.================================.[38;5;7m[38;5;8m |
|
[38;5;8m.-----------------|[38;5;7m [38;5;14mSaturday, September 9, 2023 … |
|
[38;5;8m|[38;5;7m [38;5;8m.================================… |
|
[38;5;8m. [38;5;5mWakey wakey, alarm goes off, I hop in the shower, get dres… |
|
[38;5;5mdownstairs, get coffee from the hotel breakfast, but it was too bu… |
|
[38;5;5mget food, drank my coffee, uber back to the vcfmw venue... and as the… |
|
[38;5;5mcar is pulling into the lot, into view comes this huge crowd waitin… |
|
[38;5;5mget in. So many people. It looked like as if they were waiting to get… |
|
[38;5;5ma concert or something. Half awake I stroll past the crowd waiting a… |
|
[38;5;5mconverence hall enterance and go through the hotel enterance and pr… |
|
[38;5;5mto the bistro where I got some real breakfast, and soon enough they l… |
|
[38;5;5mand everyone else in. The fact that vendors and the general public go… |
|
[38;5;5mat the same time was a little bit problematic, because trying to ge… |
|
[38;5;5myour machines set up again and connected to the right things with c… |
|
[38;5;5mswarming around you is not exactly trivial. I get a bit overwhelmed … |
|
[38;5;5mtimes in large crowds. And then also trying to think to get things wo… |
|
[38;5;5mis hard. That was kind of the theme for Saturday morning, really, be… |
|
[38;5;5mafter I got everything working, it wasn't long before the power gre… |
|
[38;5;5mcame back, and I had to start over. If it wasn't power, it'd be eth… |
|
[38;5;5mgoing out, or the phones (that only happened 2x). All of that wouldn… |
|
[38;5;5ma big deal, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm an idiot and didn't br… |
|
[38;5;5mplug&play exhibit. It was like 30min of set-up every time. To make ma… |
|
[38;5;5mworse, if the network would drop, ssh to sdf would disconnect, and… |
|
[38;5;5mthe terminals would drop to a shell. I caught one kid typing `rm -f… |
|
[38;5;5mand I'm like... don't do that? .. haha - He wasn't really going to d… |
|
[38;5;5mhe said, but that doesn't really matter, because it basically meant t… |
|
[38;5;5mcouldn't leave my table, and had to watch the whole setup to make sur… |
|
[38;5;5mnetwork didn't drop. However, in spite of that, I had a lot of fun an… |
|
[38;5;5ma really good time. It was fun to be in the phr34k z0ne and near othe… |
|
[38;5;5menthousiasts helped as well. |
|
|
|
[38;5;8m<dialtone... dtmf tones dialing 2032>[38;5;7m |
|
|
|
[38;5;2m- "Hello"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;6m- "yes?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "Are you a phone loser?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;6m- "erm... yes?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "Do you have phones?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;6m- "yes"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "I like phones."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;6m- *passes phone* "Here, it's for you.".....:pause:....."hello?"… |
|
[38;5;2m- "Hi. Are you a phone loser?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;6m- "Yes, what do you want?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "Phones. Do you have phones? I like phones"[38;5;7m |
|
|
|
[38;5;8m<some bits of back & forth conversation I forgot>[38;5;7m |
|
|
|
[38;5;6m- "LISTEN YOU LITTLE PUNK, DO NOT CALL HERE AGAIN OR I AM CALLI… |
|
[38;5;6mTHE POLICE!"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;8m |
|
[38;5;8m <dialtone>[38;5;7m |
|
|
|
[38;5;5mAt one point in the afternoon Jeri Ellsworth strolled past my booth… |
|
[38;5;5mstarted messing with the payphone. I struck up a brief conversation … |
|
[38;5;5mthe Tilt5 AR stuff, as I had been thinking about getting their SDK t… |
|
[38;5;5mand make it work with the Eternal game engine I've been working on. … |
|
[38;5;5mwas unexpected and neat. She said they'd demo it at the bistro area l… |
|
|
|
[38;5;5mBig thanks to jasmaz who helped me watch my table several times throu… |
|
[38;5;5mthe show! -- |
|
|
|
[38;5;5mI also brought a Personal Iris which was given to me by my friend Kah… |
|
[38;5;5malso was there with me. It had been sitting in my office for a year, … |
|
[38;5;5mhadn't even tried to turn it on yet. That's how busy of a year it has… |
|
[38;5;5mhaha - Josh who was with Andrew from Irixnet was really excited abou… |
|
[38;5;5mand we ended up selling it to him for $50 ( and an extra $50 next ye… |
|
[38;5;5mhe doesn't get it working hahaha ) - it was so much fun to meet him.… |
|
[38;5;5menthousiasm of everyone at the show is very infectious. And I know… |
|
[38;5;5mI'm out of bandwidth - as such it's better for the machine to go to … |
|
[38;5;5mone who will actually do something with it. |
|
|
|
[38;5;5mAt the end of the show on Saturday, I stuck around a bit and end… |
|
[38;5;5mchatting a bit with someone (I'm sorry, I forgot your name) who sai… |
|
[38;5;5mdad started a new vintage computer show in Indiana, called IndyCla… |
|
[38;5;5m( https://indyclassic.org ) - this show is in April, and I guess it… |
|
[38;5;5mit's second year. It's a similar distance from me as VCFMW, so I act… |
|
[38;5;5mmight hit it up this year. |
|
|
|
[38;5;5mLeft the venue around midnight, and like the day before pretty much p… |
|
[38;5;5mout immediately. |
|
|
|
[38;5;8m.================================.[38;5;7m[38;5;8m |
|
[38;5;8m.-----------------|[38;5;7m [38;5;14mSunday, September 10, 2023 … |
|
[38;5;8m|[38;5;7m [38;5;8m.================================… |
|
[38;5;8m. [38;5;5mSimilar routine as Saturday morning, but this time the hot… |
|
[38;5;5mless crowded, so I _did_ manage to get some grub there this time ar… |
|
[38;5;5mOverall, this day was a lot less busy. My wife joined us at around… |
|
[38;5;5mand we spent most of the remaining time just sitting at my table chat… |
|
[38;5;5mwhich was also nice. |
|
[38;5;8m |
|
[38;5;8m <dialtone> |
|
[38;5;8m <dtmf sounds dialing 2033>[38;5;7m |
|
|
|
[38;5;2m- (Imitating an elderly person, poorly) "Hello?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "Hello!"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "A young gentleman gave me this number and said you could help me … |
|
[38;5;2mmy computer.[38;5;7m" |
|
[38;5;14m- "Have you seen my mommy?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "Ehhhh no, I have not seen your mommy, can you fix my computer?"[… |
|
[38;5;14m- "I lost my mommy."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "That's most unfortunate,... listen, can you help me with my compu… |
|
[38;5;14m- "No, hang on, let me give you the other guy, I love you!"[38;… |
|
[38;5;2m- "Okay... "[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "Hi. I'm the other guy."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "Hi, can you fix my computer?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "I love you..."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "Okay,.. that's a bit of a weird thing to say,.. I'm calling becau… |
|
[38;5;2msome young gentleman gave me this number and said you can fix my… |
|
[38;5;2mcomputer, can you help me?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "I mean, when I say I love you, I'm saying it kind of in a sim… |
|
[38;5;14mway like when they say Jesus loves you, you know, it's that k… |
|
[38;5;14mof love."[38;5;2m |
|
- [38;5;2m"Oh... I see.... right... ok.... but... can you fix my computer?"… |
|
[38;5;14m- "What kind of computer is it?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "Oh I don't know, it's like,... a tower..."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "What's wrong with it?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "I click the 'E' to get to the internet and then like nothing.." |
|
[0m[38;5;14m- Have you seen a show called "Happy Days?"[38;5;2m |
|
- "Yes, I have."[38;5;7m[38;5;2m |
|
[0m[38;5;14m- "You know, the Fonz, he's got a little technique called[3… |
|
[0m[38;5;14m"percussive maintenance"..."[38;5;2m |
|
- "Oh yes, I am familiar with it, hang on, let me get a hammer,..."[38;5;7m… |
|
[0m[38;5;8m< Metal banging sounds>[38;5;2m |
|
"It's still broken. Now it won't turn on."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "Holdup, let me get you another guy".[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "Hi, this is the other guy. Have you seen my mommy? I lost my … |
|
- "No, I have not seen your mom."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "Well, should I go turn myself in? You know, to the mall secur… |
|
[38;5;2m- "What? Turn yourself in? Have you committed a crime?"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "No, no, I just lost my mommy, I mean, they might be able to h… |
|
[38;5;14mfind my mommy."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;2m- "Oh.... I see. Yeah, you should probably do that."[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;14m- "Okay, I have to go. I love you, bye"[38;5;7m |
|
[38;5;8m |
|
[38;5;8m <dialtone>[38;5;7m |
|
|
|
[38;5;5m Come 3PM I started tearing down, again didn't wait for an available … |
|
[38;5;5m so I just hand-carried it all back to the car, although at least … |
|
[38;5;5m time around I didn't have to carry a Personal Iris back. :) I hop… |
|
[38;5;5m found a good home. |
|
|
|
[38;5;5m (Forgot to mention, on sunday we did get in before the crowds, |
|
[38;5;5m which helped a lot!)[0m |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[38;5;5m A big thank you to every one who made this event possible, and a spe… |
|
[38;5;5m thank you to the ShadyTel Midwest phone company. May the undisclosed… |
|
[38;5;5m they charge forever remain undisclosed. |
|
|
|
|
 |
[38;5;1mPictures kindly provided by my friend Kahn. |
|
|
|
THE END |
|
|
|
|
|
Editorial note: I forgot to mention that unfortunately Jeri's AR demo |
|
didn't end up happening because the Tilt5 people decided to get into |
|
drinks instead, hahaha :) |
|
|
|
