KFest 2005 report

[kirkmi...@gmail.com]

I'm just going to give a brief overview of today's events...

Breakfast at the Rockhurst University was good. Scrambled eggs done
just right, lots of crispy bacon, biscuits and gravy, pancakes, and
cold cereal were available. Coffee was very welcome after we stayed
up fairly late.

I was in charge of the KFest Kookout, and screwed up by buying charcoal
that wasn't presoaked, so I had to run to the store quickly to get
lighter fluid. It didn't even delay the meal though, as folks were
snarfing hamburgers and hotdogs (and unspeakable vegan stuff) in the
nice air conditioned lounge while I suffered outside cooking. I have a
nice lobster coloring now from sun and heat. B-{)

No cases of food poisoning reported.

Dave "The Man" Miller gave a great session on hacking the Linksys
router (wireless or regular). Interesting that most such routers run
linux and how expandable they are.

Ryan Suenaga's session demonstrates the he and Syndicomm don't suck.
Ryan wrote CheckIP, a SideClick addition. The first such third party
utility, I believe.

Syndicomm announced Volume 1 of the GS+ magazine, with searchable text,
disk images and more for the price of $25. KFest participants get it
for $20. Since I didn't subscribe to GS+ until much later, it'll be
nice to get this and see what I missed.

Dinner was chickenfried steak, or grilled chicken. I wish I'd chosen
the grilled chicken, but the steak was OK for what it was. One item
missing was the ice cream that was served so generously at Avila.

Our keynote speaker was Ray Merlin, who regailed us with his adventures
in the army during the pre-NSA era. He continued through the early
computing era, until the Apple II caught his fancy. Ray's quite the
story teller, and always worth hanging around. He's Syndicomm's
Tuesday Night RTC host currently, but has been involved with Compuserv,
AOL, GEnie, and Delphi as host and moderator.

After Keynote, some of us scrambled to get things working for our
sessions for tomorrow. I helped Greg Nelson get his gatorbox
configured for his session. B-{)

Syndicomm sprung for pizza at 10:00 pm,, feeding our brain cells for
yet another long evening of wandering halls chatting with each other,
or inspiring our Hackfest programmers to higher heights.

The night is young, and the sight of geeks wandering the halls and
lounges with notebook computers in arm, is a common sight. The
wireless connections are great throughout the campus!

More tomorrow!

Kirk

[kirkmi...@gmail.com]

Thurday:

Breakfast again. Same menu. Perhaps I'll tire of bacon... B-{)

First session, Ryan Suenaga showed a Computer Chronicals video about
the Apple II C+ and the GS. There was another video after that, but I
bailed out.

Second session, Austin Phelps demonstrated PearPC, running Mac OS X on
Windows XP. In a word... Slow. Like two days to install Mac OS X.
Still, it was an interesting session.

Lunch was good. I had the stir fry.

Next session was mine, where we attempted to get the ground work
established to start an Apple II Hall of Fame. Lots of good ideas, an
about 8 names of folks who are willing to be on the committee. I'll
try to get a summary for csa2 if anyone here would also like to join
up. I think we'll try to keep in touch with a google groups mailing
list.

Greg Nelson and I did the next session, where we demonstrated how to
reset and configure a GatorBox CS to allow a GS to used older Macs as
file servers, and also to share a cable modem/DSL connection using
MacIP and Marinetti 3.

Ryan Suenaga did a great session on Marinetti Programming in
ORCA/Pascal for Dummies. Very well organized and presented. I want
his source code. B-{)

Supper was roast pork, or stuffed shell, or egg plant something. Well
prepared.

After supper, we went to the soccer field to try a new event. The
Discathalon. Rather than continue the older and more dangerous Disk
Ninja event that has left several participants bloodied and exhausted
on the carpet (I'm one such victim), we tossed floppy disks and CD's
from the top of the bleachers onto the field below, trying for distance
and accuracy. Of course, we didn't behave very well, and accuracy was
determined by how close we could get to hitting someone. B-{) One
victim, although there was no loss of blood. Sorry, Austin.

We went for a Krispy Kreme donut run about 10:00 pm, which turned into
a scenic tour of KC, but did finally bag our quarry, and return to the
hungry mob.

The video projector was used to show a movie on a large whiteboard, and
most of use shuffled off to bed at around 2:30 am.

Quite an eventful day!

Kirk

[kirkmi...@gmail.com]

Friday:

Breakfast was the same menu, but I chose the muffins and fresh fruit.

First session was Ken Gagne, demonstrating some obscure and not so
obscure GS games. Most of them, I'd seen and played, but there were a
few that must have slipped under my radar that looked interesting.

Sharon Knoblock did her session on Reunion, a Mac geneology program.
Interesting, but the amount of detail that is required seems like too
much work to me. B-{)

Good lunch, I had a nice big taco salad in those crunchy shells with
lots of toppings. B-{)

Howard Katz did a session on Identity theft, which I hope I never
experience. Scary stuff.

Bruce Baker hosted a session where participants discussed their uses of
Apple IIs. I missed this, as several of us made a quick trip to the
Apple Store. We all left some money behind and returned with new toys.
B-{)

On our return, we found Hans Franke discussing his BastelCard. I was
sort of annoyed as this wasn't on the schedule, and I was interested in
hearing what he had going. Just caught the last part of his talk.
Looks like an interesting product, whether for prototyping, or as an
expansion card with a variety of daughterboards.

Sean Fahey, and Ed Eastman demonstrated Contiki and the Uthernet card.
This looks like a great way of getting and old //e on the Internet!
Telnet seems to have some problems, but the web browser worked great.
It'll be interesting to see how these products improve!

Then it was off to the banquet, which was a lot fancier than we'd come
to expect from Avila's staff. The lasagna was very tasty.

After the meal, it was time to judge the ugly ties. Geoff Weiss won it
handily with a large model Star Wars Tie Fighter tied to his neck.
B-{)

We had an unexpected guest as well. Eric "Sheppy" Shepherd was able to
join us in a video iChat, with his puss plastered on large screen on
the wall. Fortunately, that didn't ruin anyone's appetite. B-{)

Shortly afterwards, future Juiced.GS editor, Ken Gagne suffered under
the combined assault of Roasters Ryan Suenaga, Geoff Weiss, absent Eric
Shepherd, and MC Tony Diaz. He returned as good as he got though, and
while the scent of charcoal and sulfur lingered in the air afterwards,
a fun time was had by all. B-{)

BTW, KFest 2006 is tentative at July 18th-23rd, 2006.

Later that evening, about half of the attendees went off to the movies,
split fairly evenly between the Chocolate movie, and the Fantastic
Four.

It's nearly 1:00 am now, and I'm getting my second wind. Or I'm
finally acclimating to the sleep deprivation experiment called KFest.
Who knows what's going to happen now. B-{)

Kirk

[kirkmi...@gmail.com]

Saturday:

Breakfast lost it's charms for me and my roomie, so we slept in until
9:30 am and missed it.

Very little was going on as everyone's strenght begins to wane, but our
Hackfest winners were announced. Margret Anderson won with a BASIC
program adventure that explored our new campus.

Lunch was chicken fajitas and/or cheese ravioli, and the fajitas were
good.

The Swap Meet/Vendor fair was a bit light on vendors, although Bruce
Baker, Hans Franke, and Ryan Suenaga for Syndicomm were doing business.
I think most of the deals went on behind the scenes. B-{)

Tony did a session on the Mockingboard, and another on the Novation Cat
modem, that had a bit of incriminating information involved, but very
interesting stories nonetheless.

We got another group together and visited the Apple Store one more
time. More than one iPod left the premises with happy new owners.
Leaving the KFest.org webpage filling those nifty 30 inch LCD monitors
was childish, but I had fun. B-{)

After our return, we go prepared to take off one last time to head for
a local restaurant. Ken Gagne had chosen McCoy's, and it was a nice
place. The ale was certainly good. B-{)

The return to the dorm finds us winding down. Some packing for the
early flights they must take for tomorrow. Others of us just visiting
with our old friends getting in a few more words before yet another
year separates us.

I doubt we'll be doing any really late stuff now. Early flights, and
long drives make us want to be somewhat fresh and recovered for our
trips home.

In any case, this is my last report. Tomorrow, we scatter to the wind,
apart, but convinced in the power and connections of the Apple II
community.

Take care!

Kirk

[Martin Doherty]

kirkmi...@gmail.com wrote:
> Saturday:
[snip]

> In any case, this is my last report. Tomorrow, we scatter to the wind,
> apart, but convinced in the power and connections of the Apple II
> community.
>
> Take care!
>
> Kirk
>

Kirk, thanks for taking the trouble to keep us informed during Kfest. I
was hoping to organize my first attendance this year (having only become
aware of this venerable event last year), alas 'twas not to be but
reading your scribblings and those of others (mostly via the kfest
mailing list) was at least something!

I hope I'll have better luck next year -- roll on Kfest 2006 (perilously
close to, if not on, Apple's 30th birthday).

Cheers
Martin

[kirkmi...@gmail.com]

Martin Doherty wrote:

> Kirk, thanks for taking the trouble to keep us informed during Kfest. I
> was hoping to organize my first attendance this year (having only become
> aware of this venerable event last year), alas 'twas not to be but
> reading your scribblings and those of others (mostly via the kfest
> mailing list) was at least something!

You're welcome Martin. I spent many years online reading such reports
and wishing I was there, until 1997, when I got the bucks and my
courage up, and drove the 7 hours to KC. I haven't missed one since.
It's the one and only time I can hang out with those that share my
interest in Apple II's. Or Macs. or Linux. KFest is a great
rejuvinator.

> I hope I'll have better luck next year -- roll on Kfest 2006 (perilously
> close to, if not on, Apple's 30th birthday).

I'll look forward to seeing you! Attendance was down this year, and
while we're still above the go/abort cutoff line, having new folks join
us ("Hi Mike!") is always a thrill. And seeing those who've missed a
few years is just as exciting.

I shudder at the thought of one day, having to stay home the third week
of July... B-{P

Take care!

Kirk

[Stephane Racle]

Out of curiosity, what was the attendance this year and in past years?

Regards,
Stephane

[kirkmi...@gmail.com]

Stephane Racle wrote:
> Out of curiosity, what was the attendance this year and in past years?

The most I recall was the 65 participants in 2003, the year Woz was the
keynote speaker. Participation was much higher in the early 90's with
over 100 folks attending, but that was before my time.

This year, we had the move to a new campus and I think some decided to
"wait and see" how it would work out. We were in the low 30's this
year, fortunately they were nearly all our solid "regulars" and a great
group!

KFest is a nonprofit, and volunteer run event. I hope everyone gets a
chance to experience it. B-{)

Kirk

[Rubywand]

Thanks for the reports, Kirk! Fun to read and a good promo for KFest
2006.

Rubywand

[kirkmi...@gmail.com]

Rubywand wrote:
> Thanks for the reports, Kirk! Fun to read and a good promo for KFest
> 2006.
>

Thanks! If it helps get you there next year, it's been well worth the
effort. B-{)

Kirk

[Sean Fahey]

<kirkmi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1122491368....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...

> Thanks! If it helps get you there next year, it's been well worth the
> effort. B-{)

The Rockhurst cafeteria is adding a Godfather's Pizza to their food court.

[Ed Eastman]

Sean Fahey wrote:
> The Rockhurst cafeteria is adding a Godfather's Pizza to their food court.

Hopefully it too will be open, but if not, then I like the current food
for the most part. :) (And of course Burger King and Wendys are just a
mile or so up the road!)

Thankx,
Ed

[Jim O'Reilly]

And we're not too far from some great BBQ restaurants, such as Arthur
Bryant's and Gates, and also KC Masterpiece. KC also offers some great
jazz bars such as Jardine's and the Blue Room, and some rhythm & blues
places (above my decibel level) such as the Levee, Blayney's, and the
Grand Emporium. The Jazz Museum (to which the Blue Room is connected)
offers great jazz recordings. And then there is the Nelson Atkins Art
Museum just a few blocks away.

Jim O'Reilly