VCF Gazette
Volume 2, Issue 3
A Newsletter for the Vintage Computer Festival
July 4, 2004
We're busier than we've ever been here at the VCF, so this newsletter
will be short...
Vintage Computer Festival East 2.0
Vintage Computer Festival Europa 5.0 Wrap-Up
VCF Creates PDP-1 Replica for National Science Museum of Japan
Latest Additions to the VCF Archives
Vintage Computer Festival East 2.0
----------------------------------
The second Vintage Computer Festival East takes place on Friday, July
16th and Saturday, July 17th, at Burlington, Massachusetts, campus of
Sun Microsystems.
We are honored to have Sun Microsystems as the sponsor for VCF East!
We've got an excellent line up of speakers and exhibits this time
around, with nearly twice the number of exhibits of VCF East 1.0.
Please note that attendees of VCF East 2.0 must register in advance.
You may register here:
http://www.vintage.org/2004/east/register.php
For out of town guests, the VCF has arranged a hotel room block at a
nearby Marriott (within walking distance to Sun's campus). Full
details are available here:
http://www.vintage.org/2004/east/lodging.php
The VCF speaker schedule is as follows:
Friday, July 16
Time Topic Speaker
------- ------------------------------------- -------------------
10:00am Atari 7800 25th Anniversary C. Vendel/S. Golson
11:00am VCF Ramblings Sellam Ismail
12:00pm Preserving Computing's Past... Bob Supnik
1:00pm A Retrospective of Storage Technology Sun Microsystems
Saturday, July 17
Time Topic Speaker
------- ------------------------------------- ------------------
10:00am A Personal History of Computing Art Hill
11:00am Resurrecting an IBM 360/30 Lawrence Wilkinson
12:00pm PDAs 1973-1992 Evan Koblentz
1:00pm Personal Computing in the early 1970s Jon Titus
More information on the VCF East 2.0 speakers can be found here:
http://www.vintage.org/2004/east/speaker.php
Buy, Sell and Trade at the VCF Marketplace
As always, one of the most exciting aspects of the VCF is the
Marketplace, where you can find a large and varied assortment of some
of the most fantastical old computer thingies anywhere. Find that odd
part you've been seeking out for your collection, then touch, smell,
even taste it if you like, before haggling out a deal. There is
simply no better place to buy and sell vintage computers than at the
VCF Marketplace. Vendor booths are still available. For more
information on selling at VCF East 2.0, please visit:
http://www.vintage.org/2004/east/vendor.php
Complete information about VCF East 2.0, including the speaker
schedule and exhibit roster, as well as lodging information and
driving directions, can be found on the VCF East 2.0 web pages:
http://www.vintage.org/2004/east/
Vintage Computer Festival Europa 5.0 Wrap-Up
--------------------------------------------
VCF Europa 5.0 was a smashing success! We had over 300 attendees and
close to 40 exhibitors. Hans Franke served up another fine glass of
VCF, German style.
We'd hoped to have a photo gallery of VCF Europa ready by the time of
this publishing but the last two months have been rather hectic for
us here at VCF central. Read on below to find out why.
In the meantime, the dates for VCF Europa 6.0 has already been set:
April 30 through May 1, 2005. And of course, the location will be
Muenchen (Munich), Germany, though the venue may change from its
traditional location to a larger facility.
We've added another European event to the VCF line-up: VCF Italia 1.0
will be inaugurated this September 4-5. More information will be
posted shortly to the VCF website.
We'll post our VCF Europa 5.0 photo gallery by the end of July, so
stay tuned for that.
VCF Creates PDP-1 Replica for National Science Museum of Japan
--------------------------------------------------------------
The reason we've been so busy of late is because Sellam Ismail, the
main guy behind the VCF, has been busy finishing up a replica of a
PDP-1 that was commissioned for the National Science Museum of Japan.
The NSM needed a PDP-1 for an upcoming exhibit they are unveiling on
Saturday, July 16. They contacted the Computer History Museum, but
they had none to loan out, so they were forwarded to the VCF since we
have experience building quality replicas of vintage computers. The
NSM wanted a functional replica, and so the VCF delivered.
We fabricated a near exact replica of a PDP-1 CPU cabinet and CRT
desk console. It features a functional front panel and a working CRT
playing Spacewar!
http://www.vintage.org/gallery.php?grouptag=PDP1REPLICA
On the inside we have a PC running Linux with Bob Supnik's PDP-1 SIMH
simulator providing the machine emulation and Phil Budne's graphics
display extensions to allow for Spacewar! to play.
The front panel is implemented with a custom-designed front panel
controller (FPC) designed by Andre' LaMothe of Nurve Networks[1]. The
FPC has 128 outputs (lights) and 64 inputs (switches) and connects to
the PC's parallel port. Code was added to SIMH which sends the
internal PDP-1 CPU machine registers (address bus, program counter,
accumulator, etc.) to the FPC, which then populates the appropriate
lamps on the front panel. The switch values are read by additional
code which then populates internal data structures within SIMH to
allow for user input from the front panel switches.
The replica PDP-1 was crated and sent off to Tokyo on Friday, July 2.
It'll go on display for three months beginning on July 16 at the
National Science Museum in Tokyo. The website of the National Science
Museum of Japan is here:
http://www.kahaku.go.jp/english/
Want your own PDP-1 replica? The VCF will be making available for
sale the Front Panel Controller and PDP-1 front panels. Heck, we'll
even make you a complete replica. Please send inquiries to Sellam
Ismail <sellam_at_vintage.org>.
Latest Additions to the VCF Archives
------------------------------------
This edition of the Latest Additions has a moral at the end, so pay
attention.
A couple weeks ago I was searching around in thrift stores in my local
area for some classic Atari joysticks for a friend's project[1]. At
one store I happened upon a nondescript electronic desk calculator.
However, there was something subtle about it that caught my attention.
I gave it a closer look: it was a Unicom 141P calculator. The label
on the back indicated it was made in Japan. It was definitely a 1970s
vintage. "Unicom" sounded familiar to me. I was trying to remember
the name of the calculator company for which Intel initially designed
the 4004 microprocessor (Busicom) but was drawing a blank. At any
rate, the calculator had a $5 sticker on it, so I figured it was worth
buying so I could research it later, and worst case I would have a
nice 1970s desktop calculator to add to the collection.
Well, imagine my surprise when I opened it up and found a 4004 inside
along with all the Intel 4000 series support chips! Rick Bensene, one
of the most prolific calculator collectors out there, provided me with
this information:
"Unicom was a company that was started up as a spinoff of IC maker
American Microsystems (AMI). There's little out there about the
history of the company in its early days, but it's possible that
Unicom initially started out simply OEMing machines from Busicom,
until they had developed their own chips. Busicom for a time had an
exclusive on the 4004 as the result of their joint effort with Intel
to develop a reconfigurable general purpose calculator chipset, which
ended up morphing into a microprocessor.
"I do know that Busicom did OEM their machines to a number of
different marketers of early electronic calculators, and perhaps
Unicom was one of them. Busicom's machine with the 4004 was the 141PF
(they weren't shy about recycling model numbers, as the 141 was a
lower-cost version of Busicom's first machine, the 162, which was
indeed a discrete transistor machine). The 141PF was a printing only
machine. Looking at patent information, the architecture of the
design was such that it could be adapted (part of the whole idea that
spurred the development of the 4004 in the first place) to use a
display rather than a printer.
"So, my guess (and it's just that at this point) is that the machine
you have is an adaptation of the original 141PF design, done either by
Busicom either on their own, or under contract to Unicom, which was
sold under the Unicom brand name in North America. Later, AMI sold
off the Unicom division to Rockwell, and for a while, Rockwell sold
handheld calculators under this brand, then abandoned the Unicom brand
and sold their machines (using their own chips) under the Rockwell
brand, as well as through other OEMs."
So the moral of the story is, don't judge a gift horse by its mouth :)
Many 1970s era calculators have early microprocessors, so even if you
don't find one with a 4004, it may end up containing an interesting
microprocessor contemporaneous with the 4004, or even an interesting
discrete design. But please don't go trashing old calculators just to
rip the microprocessors out of them.
For more great information on old calculators, visit what I consider
to be the best calculator information site on the web, Rick Bensene's
Old Calculator Web Museum:
http://www.oldcalculatormuseum.com/
[1] Check out Andre' LaMothe's upcoming XGameStation:
http://www.xgamestation.com
That wraps it up for this issue of the VCF Gazette! Until next time...
Best regards,
Sellam Ismail
Producer
Vintage Computer Festival
http://www.vintage.org/
The Vintage Computer Festival is a celebration of computers and their
history. The VCF Gazette goes out to anyone who subscribed to the VCF
mailing list, and is intended to keep those interested in the VCF
informed of the latest VCF events and happenings. The VCF Gazette is
guaranteed to be published in a somewhat irregular manner, though we
will try to maintain a quarterly schedule.
If you would like to be removed from the VCF mailing list, and
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HAHA ;)
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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Received on Sun Jul 04 2004 - 14:36:36 BST