Michael stayed to talk to each and every fan who stopped by his table to ask questions about the Commodore days and to learn what he has been up to lately. A lot of Commodore fans took selfies with Michael, and others brought their VIC-20 computers to be autographed. We were honored to have him visit our event and it was the highlight of the day for sure. Michael donated a framed picture and an Apple external hard drive to the museum for a future fundraiser.
HAL DS 2000
Marcos Meconi’s Machines
John Massari’s TRS 80 Model 1
Compared to last year (not that that’s a high bar!) Kennett Classic v 1.9 was larger and had many more attendees. This time we were located across the street at “The Garage Community Center”, which is literally a re-purposed garage, with nice open spaces and a high ceiling.
Attendees working the Macintosh
Blerx micro BLORG light control system
Stephen “BLERX” Whittam
There was no shortage of wonderful homebrew devices on hand. Stephen Whittam (right) uses the brand name “BLERX” for his controllers and devices. It was his light show that made our chiptunes concert all the more special, later that evening.
Show attendee watches the Heathkit H19
TRS 80 and Intel System 80 Multibus System
Paul Rickards
So we decided to run a BASIC benchmark test between John Massari’s TRS 80 Model 1 and Howie Zwick’s Intel System 80 Multibus computer with Z80 motherboard. The multibus system had ROMs with XY BASIC installed, and the TRS 80 was running LDOS BASIC. It was no contest, the TRS 80 was 2X as fast. Paul said, “Yes, but the terminal is slower, probably that’s why the Intel system lost.” The TRS 80 was John’s original system, he got it when he was in 6th grade.
Bill Dromgoole
SWTPc 6800 Expansion Chassis
More Show Attendees
I brought my 1702 ePROM programmer for Bill Dromgoole but we both forgot a USB2Serial adapter, maybe next time. But, we did get a chance to look over this interesting SWTPc 6800 expansion chassis. inside is two MP backplanes with RAM and various other cards and some custom cards that allowed the RAM to be used with a custom S-100 bus bridge that connected to a CP/M system running in another box.
IBM XT with VGA monitor
Show attendee Original MAC
Apple IIe with Sony display
The IBM 5160 above is running the original diskette program “Exploring the IBM Personal Computer XT” program.
Eric Randell’s Apple II-C
Show Attendees
Osborne 1 With Display
Eric Rangell had an interesting exhibit with his Apple II-c computers. Within was a lot of info about Ted Nelson and Jef Raskin. His exhibit was right up front to greet show attendees entering “The Garage”
Marcos Meconi
Show attendee watches the Heathkit H19
Motorola Star Max MAC Clone
The Motorola Star Max was exhibited by Michael Evangelista.
