The VCF East 2024 Review
It’s spring. Do you know where your vintage computer enthusiasts are? Here, in Userlandia, they’re returning to VCF East.
Welcome back, my friends, to the computer show that never ends. That’s because Vintage Computer Festival East—the great gathering of obsolete computer fans on the eastern seaboard—is upon us once again. As I bombed down the bag-o-change expressway—better known as the Garden State Parkway—I pondered the questions that must be facing every returning attendee. Last year’s event surpassed all expectations in terms of turnout and things to do. Would there be better management of crowds and people traffic? Would the new consignment arrangements maximize the movement of merch? And what about food service and parking? All very valid concerns. Jeff Brace, the lead organizer, held some livestreams leading up to the show promising many improvements for the 2024 event. But would those promises match up with reality? The only way to know is to return once again to the Jersey shore. And although I’m not a YouTube celebrity, I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express during my trip, which I’m sure qualifies my credentials as a commentator.
The first change—for me at least—came at check-in time. Folks who shelled out eighty-ish bucks for a three-day pass now got a real badge and no longer suffered the indignity of wristbands for three days. A secondary gate on the west side of the campus was open during the day which made the secondary parking lot less of a penalty box for those who couldn’t arrive at the crack of dawn to snipe a spot. The merch booth was moved out of consignment and into a dedicated room, making it easier to buy a T-shirt without waiting in long lines. And the cafeteria was fully dedicated to lunch—more on that later.
One thing that hasn’t changed much is the schedule, which is still packed full of panels, exhibits, classes, and consignments. So packed, in fact, that tables and panel slots filled up faster than ever before. Arranging exhibit halls and organizing panel times isn’t as simple as just placing tables and putting people here and there. Some tables need to be near each other, others might need to be placed in certain areas to account for electrical needs. People traffic is another concern because crowds need to flow through rooms and bad table placement can cause choke points. All these factors play in to the exhibitor layout, especially when the show is still using the same exhibit spaces.
Hall A seems to have become an unofficial vendor room, with tables focusing on folks who had cool things to sell. Eli’s Software Encyclopedia is back with another bounty of big boxes for browsing. I saw many titles that weren’t there the year before, so whatever warehouse he’s scouring for these relics is still paying out. Next door was author Jamie Lendino selling his books about computer and gaming history. Atari fans will be delighted with the available tomes for purchase.
Tech Dungeon is back, this time with a selection of joysticks! These new controllers for old computers are all made with arcade-quality parts, which means they won’t collapse from exhaustion after some strenuous exercise in Summer Games. Jeff’s Vintage Electronics returns with tables layered with cards and connectors. If you were hunting for an ISA sound card, ethernet card, or some oddly specific part he might have just what you need. Meanwhile, Emmy Bear Retro had all manners of storage tech: Greaseweazels, Zulu SCSIs, and Goteks were on hand for reasonable prices to help you replace failing drives or image your disks before they succumb to the ravages of time.
Hall B is where the exhibits begin, and we’re welcomed by RCA computer systems. Josh Bensadon’s traveling exhibit has been making the rounds from show to show—you might remember it from my VCF Midwest video last year—but this time I had enough time to try RCA’s early attempt at a home game console: the Studio Home TV Programmer.
Want to give your beau a retro gift? Happy Hardwear had an arrangement of retro-themed pixel jewelry. Floppy disk earrings or a necklace is the perfect way to say I love you to your favorite geek. Or if you’re more interested in gifts for your beloved CoCo or Commodore, Retro Innovations returns with their array of add-ons.
Amiga of Rochester’s table was busy performing life-saving operations all weekend long. One particular A4000 board saw extensive rework and troubleshooting on Saturday night.
Across the hall FujiNet had their new Macintosh version on display. It joined the Commodore, Apple II, and Atari versions to show how this little device keeps getting more powerful. And once you bought one, you could attend one of the FujiNet sessions to learn how to get the most out of it!
You can’t have a theme about graphical interfaces without mentioning GEOS. Most people associate GEOS with Commodores, but the 8-bit GUI was ported to multiple platforms. You could swap between four different architectures using Jonathan Sturges and Alex Jacocks’ neat picture-in-picture setup.
Nicholas Mailloux’s Eighties Luggables table had some suitcase-sized semi portables running games and productivity apps. Hey, if you squint hard enough a compact Mac counts as a luggable computer.
Most people think of serial terminals as a text-only affair, but Ethan Dicks’ graphical terminals will wow you with their ability to move images over RS232. Maki Kato’s Motorola 88000 systems let you play with working examples of a rarer RISC workstation. The Core Memory crew was back with a display that seems to be getting cooler and flashier at every show. And one of the corners was dedicated to HeathKit computers, with Glenn Roberts and Alex Bodnar’s tables featuring many of Heath systems and restorations.
If you’re interested in pen plotters, Paul Rickard and Erin Sicuranza’s was drawing cool artwork all weekend at the aptly named The Plot Thickens. Plotters are making a bit of a comeback and as a former plotter user I approve. You could even buy some of their finished work at consignment.
South America was famous for its unauthorized copies of various microcomputers, and Ricardo Setti displayed many examples at the appropriately named Clones of South America. Apple II, Commodore, and Sinclair clones were produced by several Brazilian and Argentinian companies. Most of these used pirated ROMs and therefore were quite illegal, but despite their illicit nature they encouraged many an aspiring programmer or user to start a career in computing.
Coming all the way from the Netherlands is the Home Computer Museum, with a display featuring two Dutch PCs. Philips sold PC clones in America under the Magnavox brand but as far as I know we never got their P2000 microcomputer or their MSX machines. These machines have a Dutch flavor that pairs perfectly with their licorice and stroopwafels.
Over in Hall C Ryan Burke took the “rise of the GUI” theme to heart. This gaggle of graphical Apple computers was the largest single exhibit of the show. Start your six-table-long odyssey with the Lisa, then partake in the timeline of compact Macintoshes. Your reward for making it through this expansive exhibit is this cool custom G4 cube with a retro Apple paint job.
Apple wasn’t the only company that influenced the GUI, and the aptly named History of the GUI exhibit displayed its origins from electronic typesetting to early toolkits running on UNIX workstations.
And though you might not think of DEC minicomputers as visual powerhouses, there were several on hand to demonstrate what Digital Equipment can do for digital graphics. Doug Taylor’s Tektronix terminal displayed renders from a PDP-11, while David Gesswein’s PDP-8 spooled ASCII art to a plotter.
Amiga fans had lots to love at this year’s show, with multiple exhibits catering to Commodore’s colorful computer. Dave Test and AmigaBill’s accessory showcase spanned three tables covered in modern add-ons for Amigas. RGB lights and custom cases aren’t just for modern PCs! PiStorms, Vampires, and even the AmigaOne PowerPC tower are available to let you test drive an Amiga with a turbo boost. When you’re done checking out modern accelerators, head over to the GVP table to chat with GVP veterans Robert Miranda and Pete Keretz. They had a full deck of Amiga expansion cards from their tenure at GVP on display. Disk controllers, SCSI cards, retargetable graphics, and accelerators supercharged many Amigas back in the day. And if you wanted to see the cards in action, the fellas had upgraded Amiga demos running all weekend.
If you need a reference for TRS-80 expansion cards, Pete Cetinski’s table had two towering displays showing the many ways you could add functions to your Tandy. With some of these cards you can go where no Trash-80 has gone before!
System Source was back again with a spotlight on IBM. This massive IBM 1130 is what counted as a “midrange” computer back in the days of mammoth mainframes.
Behind the Screens set up shop again with its usual Weather Channel and Prevue Guide systems, but this year saw a new addition to their cable company contraptions: a working cable modem system. The gear inside this rack delivered broadband internet to many American homes at the turn of the millennium. All it’s missing is a Road Runner sticker. Meep meep!
More classic video fun could be found at Dave’s Retro Video Lab. His monster Sony camera attracted a lot of attention. I owe Dave an apology for not being able to chat as much this year—we’ll meet up next time!
Hey, it’s the lovable tramp, and he’s here to tell you all about the greatness of the IBM PCjr. Just don’t ask him about that chiclet keyboard. All kidding aside, the PCjr’s more capable than you think. Dan Fitzgerald set up this booth for you to try it yourself instead of repeating internet hearsay.
Friend of the show BigBadBiologist’s booth had several neat projects from their workbench on display. The key attraction was the cordyceps Mac, which had its Motorola 68030 attached to the logic board by a series of wires. IIIDIY’s station presented an eclectic collection of Apple rarities, like a Twentieth Anniversary Mac, a PowerCD, and a Mac TV connected to a Super Nintendo.
More Mac mayhem was provided by Collin Mistr—who you might know better as DosDude—and his table of hacked and modified systems. There’s no live upgrades this year, but you can see the results of his handiwork with an iMac that’s had a G4 CPU transplant.
This year’s prize for most obscure system might go to Edgardo Saez’ Seequa Chameleon. It’s a dual CPU luggable with a split personality. Those dual CPUs let the Chameleon run Z80 CP/M or 8088 MS-DOS in one box. Alas, this two-in-one combo didn’t get Seequa much traction in the market.
Brave beta testers in the crowd could test drive two cancelled operating systems at Katherine Ahlksog’s OS What-Ifs. The two systems on display were a land of contrasts: Mac OS Copland was a notorious disaster while Windows Neptune was more of a quiet detour. Publicly available Copland builds are a hot mess, and the crowd played a fun game of guessing how long it could run before crashing.
Taking over a whole corner of the hall was Totally Normal Computing, and everyone’s favorite gang of Mac Mavens returned with all sorts of new ideas. Sean of Action Retro brought his modern BeBox to spread the good news about Haiku. Mike’s Mac Shack had an Apple IIc+, the rarest and fastest of all Apple IIcs. Steve from Mac 84’s Mac-controlled LaserDisc player gathered a lot of attention, though I found this wacky split keyboard to be particularly fascinating. And Ron from Ron’s Computer Vids rounded out the crew with his very helpful collection of boards and adapters.
The last set of exhibits is over in Hall D, and the first one up is J&M Consulting. LED keyboard kits can brighten up your Commodore 64 or make your Speccy display a literal spectrum. There’s also the Retro Chip Tester Pro which can test RAM, dump or program ROMs, or even sniff out PALs and GALs.
Next door is the MIT AI Lab recreation team, simulating a PDP-10 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s artificial intelligence lab in the ‘60s.
Never Obsolete: the Race to the Bottom paid tribute to eMachines, everybody’s favorite discount PC punching bag. A complete example of an eMachines Celeron with matching accessories will tug at the heartstrings of those who got their first PC experience thanks to these affordable computers.
And last, but not least, Henry Rietveld had a Nabu PC connected to RetroNet. If you managed to pick up one of those new old stock Nabu PCs, you can bring it back online with RetroNet and the Nabu Internet Adapter. Thanks to Cloud CP/M you can do fun stuff like play MSX games! Radical.
Events and Panels
If it ain’t broke, you don’t fix it, and that’s the sense I get from VCF’s event scheduling. There’s tweaks and tune-ups, but the folks in charge aren’t reinventing the wheel every year. Workshops, classes, and panels fill out a three day schedule catering to all aspects of vintage computing. It starts at the Computer Destruction Lab, where Atari 8-bit computers were the stars of this year’s computer classroom. Sessions included programming classes, free play, and deep dives into hardware architecture. Glitchworks once again offered soldering tutorials and DIY build sessions featuring their usual array of kits. This year’s spotlight was an updated version of the 8085 single board computer, and what computer is more personal than the one you assembled yourself?
Something I haven’t mentioned in recaps of past events is that a ticket to VCF East allows entry into the Federation’s computer museum, which hosts dozens of computers for you to see and use. Almost all of the microcomputers are functional, even some real rarities like a GRIDcase laptop. A working Xerox Star anchors a showcase of graphical user interfaces, and it joins a Lisa, Macintosh, and NeXT cube in demonstrating how pointing and clicking evolved over the years.
Some computers are lucky enough to get dedicated displays with artifacts of their time, like this Atari Mega STE set up as a MIDI digital audio workstation. Most systems are set up on space-saving shelving in a grouping that generally correlates with their time and contemporaries. IBM PCs, Amigas, Ataris, CPM machines, and even a few Brits are available to play games, process some words, or partake in some programming. And before you think there’s only Johnny-come-lately microcomputers, there’s plenty here for big iron enthusiasts. The museum’s headliner is a UNIVAC-based guided missile computer that dwarfs everything else in the room. Flanked by Wang, DEC, and Data General minis, the museum has restored these old beasts to paint a picture of the pre-microprocessor period.
Next to the museum was a room hosting a live restoration by Dave of Usagi Electric. He was tasked with reviving a Control Data Hawk hard drive, which is no easy job given the complexity of these old beasts. A crowd of onlookers watched as he carefully cleaned the platters and serviced the mechanical bits. Although it took something like eight hours, he was successful in bringing it back to life. Bravo!
Running between all these activities burns a lot of energy, and before I knew it I was hankering for some lunch. In an effort bring in new dining options the VCF staff reached out to several commercial food trucks but were turned down because of profitability concerns and local complications with the township. I’m not in the food truck business, but color me surprised that hundreds of computer geeks plus many families couldn’t meet the threshold for profitability.
I was hoping the fire team from the last swap meet would return with their scrumptious chili dogs, but apparently they were already booked for the weekend. The show reached out to OCEAN Community Action Partnership, a local organization that helped with hurricane Sandy relief. Their kitchen truck served hamburgers, hot dogs, breakfast sandwiches, and snacks all weekend long for very reasonable prices. The bacon egg and cheese bulkie really hit the spot after a long morning waiting in line for consignments. This isn’t flashy food, but it was good service with good food for a good price and I definitely appreciated it. I believe the proceeds go right back into OCEAN’s community relief efforts, so I hope they made out well over the weekend.
Joining the classes and workshops are the show’s many panels and roundtables. Some focused on the show’s theme of graphical interfaces, but the overall schedule had something for everybody. Whether it’s programming techniques, history, collecting, or oddly specific deep dives, you’re bound to find at least one to put on your must-see list. Dave McMurtrie of the Commodore International Historical Society hosted interviews with two Commodore alumni: Andy Finkel and Al Charpentier. Both were key characters in the development of the C64, and McMurtrie teased out may interesting stories and anecdotes. Ron Nicholson regaled the crowd with tales of his tenure at Apple. As a member of the original Mac team he has an insider’s perspective of the wild and crazy days of Apple’s pirate flag era.
Friday's streamer and creator’s panel, hosted by Sean of Action Retro, pulled a fantastic combination of AmigaBill, AshSaidHi, Ron McAdams, and LadyAiluros. These are peers who understand the struggles of growing a channel, blog, or podcast, and the guests bounced between funny stories and advice to those who might want to break in. Saturday’s roundtable hosted by Dr. Rebecca Mercuri with Joyce Weisbecker and Rebecca Heineman explored their careers in the early days of computer game development. There’re no dull moments in these group discussions, which goes to show how just letting interesting people talk to each other is a great recipe for learning and entertainment.
Managing the crowd at these panels is always a concern, and I wondered if the seating setup carried over from last year would be OK. Thankfully there was enough space to accommodate everyone who wanted to watch, even during the popular roundtables. What wasn’t carried over from last year was live-streaming. Dropouts and crashes plagued last year’s event livestreams and the AV team decided that the juice wasn’t worth the squeeze. This let the folks behind the recording setup concentrate on recording the panels versus troubleshooting internet issues. Don't fret if you missed out on a panel—they’ll be posted on the VCF YouTube page for people who couldn’t make it.
Consignment Considerations
Last year’s consignment was, shall we say, overwhelming. The tsunami of people and product flooded the cramped spaces of InfoAge’s kitchen and rec rooms, forcing staff and attendees to cope with unexpected complications. In the aftermath of the event VCF’s consignment crew were open about the fact that they underestimated the demand. While total disaster was averted, the arrangements were no longer fit for purpose. Changes would have to be made for 2024.
The first order of business was ditching the hacky Google Sheets intermediary and creating a new self-service inventory management system. After registering an account on the online portal you could enter your items for sale with quantities, descriptions, and price tags. You could even print out your own price tag barcodes at home if you wanted to skip the label line at the show. If you needed to update prices or correct mistakes you could do it from your phone or one of the terminals in the hall. And when I reported a particularly gnarly bug in the site the team hot fixed it within an hour. That’s one advantage of a self-hosted product like NexoPOS over a service like Square. Overall it was a massive improvement from last year’s registration.
The second item on the to-do list was securing more space, and 2024’s consignment moved from the confines of building 9010-C to the Monmouth County Fire Museum’s engine house. On paper this was a brilliant idea—it’s a bigger building with more square footage and lots of outdoor space for people to line up and cars to unload. But you know what they say about the best laid plans, and the crew ran into a major issue. Apparently a large part of the engine house’s concrete floor collapsed before the show. This rendered nearly half of the floor plan unusable for consignment. VCF’s volunteer team dealt with it as best as they could, and they still managed to carve out more space than last year despite this curveball.
Floor space wasn’t the only improvement gained by moving to the firehouse. Its position near the side gate made load-in easier than ever. People could drive their cars up to the loading doors or park beside the building for a stairway-free and hallway-free unloading experience. After getting barcode labels from the volunteers sellers could place their stuff at any open spot. According to the schedule consignment drop-off was open at 5 PM, but shelves were starting to get a bit crowded when I unloaded at 5:15. I’m guessing the doors were opened slightly earlier.
After a busy set-up day on Friday I prepared for an early start for Saturday’s buying bonanza. I learned my lesson from last year and arrived early on Saturday morning to secure my spot in line. The gates opened at 7:30 AM and I was among the first people to line up for the 9 AM opening. Lining up outside meant the crowd wasn’t as cramped as last year, but Saturday wound up being the coldest day of the weekend and few people were dressed for the occasion. I bet somebody could’ve made some decent coin selling hot drinks or hand warmers to the ever expanding line. But time passed quickly and at 9 AM the gates opened to the hungry horde. The buying experience was painless—grab your find, bring it to the register, and pay with cash or card.
Lines weren’t completely eliminated this year, thanks to the aforementioned floor collapse throwing a wrench into the gears. But the volunteers did a good job at crowd control and aside from the morning rush the lines and waits were pretty reasonable. A checkout line wound up snaking through the narrow aisles in-between the back shelves, but folks in line were good about letting people through to browse. This cleared up as the day went on and by the afternoon traffic was flowing freely in and out of the hall. Another smart idea was the free stuff shelves, which were positioned in one of the loading doors. They were still covered by a roof, yet people could walk right up from outside and take free things without having to wait in line or wade through a crowd. Smart!
I checked in on the hall at various points over the weekend to monitor the vibe and watch for new arrivals. While browsing I noticed fewer bargains on rarer or unique items compared to last year. Not to say they didn’t exist, but I didn’t see anything quite on the level of the $100 A600 from last year. I believe there’s a few reasons for this, most of which are outside of VCF’s control.
First, sellers might be doing a little bit of fishing by putting rare or unique items out there with a higher price in the hopes that someone’s fear of missing out will get them to open up their wallet. If nobody takes the bait, the seller will lower it to garner a few more bites. The new POS system’s database made it easier to add contact information for negotiations, so haggling or trading was more accessible than before. I actually got a phone call from someone who wanted to do a trade, though I declined because I already had what they were offering. It’s not as smooth as negotiating at a swap meet, but it gets the job done.
Second, I think sellers are less willing to offer low prices due to flippers. Wouldn’t you be annoyed if you saw someone buying a machine you listed at $100 and saying they were gonna flip it for double the price? I know people want to keep the spirit of community in mind by not maximizing their profits, but allowing flippers to exploit people is probably worse for the community. Pricing wares somewhat below instead of significantly below market value deters the flippers while still feeling like a deal to most buyers.
Third, sellers are factoring the show’s commission into their prices. This year the cut was 18%—that’s up 3% from last year. I think people generally recognize the value of the commission, because it helps fund the show and run the hall. I certainly value it, because it saves me from vendor complications like being chained to a table and dealing with sales tax. But people are cognizant of the commission as a cost of doing business and are pricing accordingly. If you’re looking to get $300 in your pocket for an A500, then you’d probably price at $350 to pass the commission on to the buyer.
Pricing observations aside, merchandise moved at a healthy pace throughout the weekend. At closing time on Sunday there were rows of empty shelving and only a smattering of parts and systems left over. Exhausted but happy volunteers were satisfied that things went mostly to plan. I didn’t go nuts and buy anything super expensive, because there was no oddly specific PC that I needed to buy at any cost. A complete Atari 1040ST setup was very tempting, but I wound up passing on it. Instead I bought a few smaller but still neat things: a PicoGUS, a boxed copy of GEOS, and a copy of Springboard Certificate Maker for the C64.
Assuming the floor problem is fixed for next year, what other issues remain? One concern I have is that consignment is vulnerable to bad actors. The show’s been incredibly lucky that, as far as I can tell, everyone’s been acting in good faith. Volunteers were minding the doors and I believe there was a security camera set up to monitor the area. When things were misplaced, staff helped sort things out. But there’s vulnerabilities ripe for exploiting if people aren’t careful. Nobody was checking merchandise on the way out the door, so what protections were there against sticky-fingered individuals from just… walking out with stuff? I realized this at the end of the show when I walked in and took my two unsold towers back to my car with nary a peep. What was stopping me from taking somebody else’s tower? I’m not saying that consignment suffered from loss and theft, just that my QA security research brain is poisoned to always be on the lookout for flaws.
I also think there’s room for improvement in the general layout and handling of items in consignment. Right now consignment is a kind of free-for-all, where people put stuff wherever they can. This results in smaller, but still valuable, items being overlooked. Denser shelves or racks could help with this. Space concerns often meant people’s stuff got spread out throughout the hall—I had computers on three different tables. Sellers also moved other people’s items around to give their own items a better chance of being seen. Many computers wound up getting stashed on the floor which cut down on their visibility. You have to wonder how many people overlooked matching accessories or useful add-ons. RetroTech Chris bought a PS/2 model 70 and missed out on my PS/2 compatible SIMMs because they weren’t nearby and weren’t obvious. It worked out in the end because I mailed them to him after the show, but how many others missed out?
If I’m permitted a spin on the what-if machine, I wonder how things would go with a radical redesign. Basically make the hall into a giant computer store. Have the staff tell consignors where to put their things. Sort and organize systems into one area, software in another, have a section just for parts, and so on. This is wholly impractical, for a variety of reasons—most of them staffing, others because you can’t predict how much of something you’ll get—but I can dream. Honestly, we just need more space so everyone can keep their own stuff together.
My pie-in-the-sky dreams aside, 2024’s consignment was a massive improvement over last year’s. It’s not perfect, but nothing ever is. I won’t let that be the enemy of the good, and the changes made for this year made it very good indeed.
A Change Can Do You Good
One of the most challenging aspects of putting on a yearly show is mitigating mistakes or grappling with growth without killing the appeal that draws people to your event. My concerns from last year—consignment issues, food, and crowd control—were largely addressed. The Vintage Computer Federation did a good job executing these year-over-year improvements, and its reward is a crowd that consistently returns.
As I wandered across the InfoAge campus on Saturday—usually the busiest day of the weekend—I sensed that things were a little less busy than last year. There were still plenty of people roaming the exhibit halls, but it never quite reached the frenzied status of last year. I haven’t heard any post-mortem reports from the staff yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if absolute numbers were better than 2022 but either on par or slightly below 2023.
Last year’s attendance numbers were goosed by appearances from two big-name personalities making their first visits to the show: Adrian Black and David Murray. I wager some attendees came specifically to meet these two guests, and it wouldn’t surprise me that some of those first-timers didn’t return this year. That’s not unusual at all for conventions, because not every first-timer gets converted to an annual visitor. Not every guest is able to return to a show because of schedule conflicts or personal reasons, and honestly I don’t think the show wants to become too dependent on VIP guest for turnout.
My take is that VCF East isn’t prioritizing growth at all costs, and that’s a good thing. They’re joined at the hip with InfoAge, for better or worse, and its headroom is limited. Although I don’t think it’ll happen any time soon, the boom in retro / vintage computing will cool to a certain degree, and VCF has been around long enough to know that growing too fast can backfire. If they continue their current approach they’ll be able to weather the ups and downs.
A show is nothing without its community, of course, and the people that continue to show up to VCF East give it a flavor that you can’t find at other events. Although you’ll find many familiar faces, there’s always new exhibitors and panelists who want to tell you all about their technological passions and pasts. After all, connections are what conventions are all about. It doesn’t have to be one with a VIP guest—it might be the one you make with someone sitting next to you at a panel. And even if you’re not able to make it to VCF East, I’ll always encourage you to look up your local vintage computing events. It’s a great way to make a new kind of local area network connection.