Retro Computing - Vintage Computer Festival Zürich 2021

Retro Computing, Vintage Computer Festival, VCF
Retro Computing - Vintage Computer Festival Zürich 2021

Intro

First of all, quite amazing it could even happen given the pandemic situation, thanks to all organizers and exhibitors. It was held on November 27th/28th in Zürich in the “Rote Fabrik”.

No talks were held this year, also for obvious reasons. There were not many people there presumably also due to the pandemic situation.

Tektronix 4010

2019 I saw a PDP-11 emulator along with an emulated Tektronix 4010 graphical terminal. This time there was the real thing. Really impressive, and a phenomenal keyboard. (The image below is unintentionally blured due to the subpar photographic skills of the author):

Tektronix 4010

Soviet computers

There were all kinds of Soviet computers, something we don’t get to see very often here.

For instance the Agat computer based on a 6502:

Agat

The BK-0010-01 Soviet computer was really nice, being roughly a PDB-11 clone with an impressive dual-head monitor setup:

BK-0010-01

Lilith and Ceres

For the first time I saw the “portable” version of the Lilith and sadly non-working versions of the Ceres 1 and 3 workstations. I did my studies on the Ceres 3 when back at ETH Zurich from 1992 to 1997. Mr Gutknecht was around to explain things.

Ceres 3 Workstation

I brought along my old school books, so that people had at least the chance to read a little bit about the system.

Programming in Oberon and The Oberon System

OLPC XO-1

I was exhibiting my OLPC XO-1 computer in a series of communication devices from enter.ch.

OLPC XO-1

Important Lessons Learned

My machines are not old or rare enough. I should really try to get the IMC-2001 running again doing some 6502-Apple2, Z80-CP/M stuff. Or the Olivetti with a 286 board inside or the 386..