Fwd: [DigiBarn-News] 019: Summer Open Houses, LINC & Other News
Matthias Mueller-Prove
cheers
Matthias
>>>
Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 11:28:47 -0700
From: Bruce Damer <bda...@digitalspace.com>
Subject: [DigiBarn-News] 019: Summer Open Houses, LINC & Other News
Reply-To: bda...@digitalspace.com
Dear DigiBarn News subscribers (and welcome new subscribers who checked the box on our contact form),
Here is your Summer 2007 newsletter (#19). The big news is that this Saturday August 11th and next Saturday August 18th are open house days at the Digibarn, see details below. Our other big effort is working with a team of folks who are doing a restoration of a historic LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) which will be part of this Novembers Vintage Computer Festival.
All this great stuff and more below...
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DIGIBARN SUMMER 2007 NEWS
1. Summer Open Houses
2. LINC Restoration Project and Project and Special Presentation at VCF 10, Nov 3-4th
3. Virtual Worlds Timeline project, by Digibarn Curator Bruce Damer
4. Dwight Elvey tours the ASR 33 Teletype and Jef Raskin's Canon Cat (FORTH)
5. Digibarn acquires large calculator/PDA collection
6. Washington Apple Pi Offers New Apple /// Legacy DVD
7. In Search of the Valley DVD Movie on computing history available now!
8. Digibarn Radio goes Podcast!
9. Digibarn TV new features!
10. Thanks donors! Still looking for...
11. Archive of this and past Newsletters
12. Contacting us or Unsubscribing
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1. Summer Open Houses
The Digibarn will have two Summer Open House days on Saturday August 11th and Saturday August 18th. I will start rotating tours at about 1pm each day and you could show up any time up until about 4pm. For those who wish to we will do dinner in the local brewery pub/restaurant at about 630-7pm.
If you want to come please RSVP to me at bda...@digitalspace.com and I will send you the directions. Let me know the day and time you would like to come. If you plan to bring artifacts to donate please let me know in advance (in case I can or can't take them). See scenes from last year's Open Houses at:
http://www.digibarn.com/eventsvisiting/index.html
Lots of new stuff to show you! Should be fun! See you here!
PS: we will be having some Open Houses in the fall and during the Vintage Computer Festival (Nov 4th).
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2. LINC Restoration Project and Special Presentation at VCF 10, Nov 3-4th
Bay Area resident and Xerox PARC veteran Severo Ornstein and a St. Louis based crew of folks are restoring one (or two?) original LINCs (Laboratory INstrument Computer). The LINC Is arguably the first personal (portable, for a single user, could sit on a bench) computer, developed at Lincoln Labs in the early 1960s by a team that included Severo and LINC designer Wes Clark. A group of locals has assembled around the effort, including myself, Severo Ornstein and Gordon Bell. The great news is that the St. Louis team has gotten one LINC to "see the light of day" and you can see it working and other great background on this historic machine at our special LINC project site at:
http://www.digibarn.com/stories/linc/index.html
The plan is to truck one or more LINCs this fall to the Bay Area and host a special presentation (with some of the team members) at the November 3-4th Vintage Computer Festival. After that the LINC will come to a great retirement home... the Digibarn! If you want to be involved in this project in any way, please contact us at:
http://www.digibarn.com/forms/comment.html
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3. Virtual Worlds Timeline project, by Digibarn Curator Bruce Damer
Bruce Damer, curator of the Digibarn, has another life as CEO of DigitalSpace ( http://www.digitalspace.com ), a leading company creating open source 3D software that is used by NASA and others to create realistic 3D virtual worlds for mission design and simulation. Bruce also co-founded the Contact Consortium back in 1995 to help pioneer the novel concept of shared graphical Cyberspaces with "avatars" representing users. Now that the avatar/virtual world medium (through gaming and social virtual worlds) is becoming a big business, Bruce is embarking on "The Virtual Worlds Timeline", a project to tell the story of the birth of the virtual world, from its earliest beginnings in the first shared graphical spaces (Spacewar! 1961) to its first incarnation as a 3D multi player game (Maze War, 1974) and on up through the 80s and 90s and 2000s. The Digibarn and many other institutions and people will be supporting this project in the coming year. If you are interested in the Virtual Worlds Timeline, take a look at:
http://www.vwtimeline.org
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4. Dwight Elvey tours the ASR 33 Teletype and Jef Raskin's Canon Cat (FORTH)
Local computer history maven and hardware restorer Dwight Elvey helped bring some computing history alive at the Digibarn earlier this year by giving us a video tour of the ASR-33 teletype, a beloved and widely used I/O device for all sorts of computer systems 30+ years ago, including many homebrew projects. See the tour at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/printers/asr-33-teletype/index.html
where we take the covers off the ASR-33. Thanks Inman Gallogly for the donation of the ASR-33!
Dwight also has a specialty in FORTH and FORTH machines. One of those machines is the Digibarn's Canon Cat, donated by its designer, Jef Raskin. This is a machine with an innovative user interface rarely seen today. You can see a video of Dwight's tour at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/canon-cat/index.html
and take a look at his "guide to enabling Forth on the Canon Cat" here:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/canon-cat/forthinside.html
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5. Digibarn acquires large calculator/PDA collection
In late 2006 the Digibarn acquired a single large calculator and PDA collection from one donor in the Los Angeles area. We have since built a special display and included some of our other units there. So finally the Digibarn has launched a significant effort in "smaller artifacts" of the computing age! See the display at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/calculators/all/index.html
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6. Washington Apple Pi Offers New Apple /// Legacy DVD
David Ottalini
apple...@verizon.net
03/18/07
For Immediate Release
ROCKVILLE, Md. It literally took decades to produce, but a new DVD containing 4+ gigabytes of information and previously unavailable material about the Apple /// computer is now available through the Washington Apple Pi User Group (WAP).
“Much of this disk contains invaluable articles from WAP, Apple Three Users of Northern California, Third Apple Users and other historic Apple and online users groups,” said Dave Ottalini, WAP’s /// SIG Chair who compiled the DVD with contributions from his own library and other /// users. The disk includes every article Ottalini has ever written for WAP and other publications. It also includes WAP’s entire Apple /// public domain library of 250 disks in ADT (Apple Disk Transfer) format, along with videos, audio files, graphics and much, much more.
The DVD is available through Washington Apple Pi’s online store at http://www.prestostore.com/cgi-bin/storefront.pl?ref=WAPiStore. The cost is $35.00 (plus postage) which goes to help Washington Apple Pi.
"This DVD is a must for anyone interested in Apple’s early history and especially about the Apple ///,” says Ottalini. The machine was the first business computer produced by Apple as a company and was manufactured for only a few years in the early 1980s. It suffered from a number of highly publicized problems, major and trivial, and could not compete with the original Apple II or with the original IBM PC and Macintosh computers, yet those who owned and used the machines found them far more flexible and innovative than anything else available."
WHAT’S IN THE APPLE /// DVD?
Categories include: WAP, A3 Info, A3 Tech Library, A3 Archives, Emulation, ///s Company BBS, Mac Software, Vendors, Fliptrack, A3 Media, MAUG, Source Code, A3 Manuals, DataBases, and Videos. See the disk for a full listing or goto http://www.wap.org/a3/.
APPLE /// IN 10 EZ LESSONS AND MORE
The Pi Store also plans to offer a two set DVD that is a TV-quality video tutorial about the Apple ///. MP4 versions for the video iPod are included with the Apple /// legacy DVD. As for future projects, the /// community is talking about transferring as many software titles as possible onto DVD(s) using the ADT format to preserve the legacy of the Apple ///.
ABOUT WASHINGTON APPLE PI
Washington Apple Pi is one of the oldest and largest Apple/Macintosh User Groups in the U.S. Since 1979, WAP has worked to help its members take advantage of their computers. From special interest groups to monthly meetings, Tuesday repair clinics to Internet service, the Pi offers a host of services to members of all ages for just $49.00 per year. For more information about the club and how to join, point your browser to http://www.wap.org.
Washington Apple Pi, Ltd.
12022 Parklawn Drive
Rockville, MD USA 20852
301-984-0300
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7. In Search of the Valley DVD Movie on computing history available now!
A wonderful documentary about the birth of the age and place we live in (ie: Silicon Valley) is available on DVD and through online streaming outlets. See more about the project at:
http://www.insearchofthevalley.com/
Also see their YouTube channel at:
http://www.youtube.com/isotv
This film was shot in 2004 and screened at last year's VCF to great appeal.
For more information contact Steve O'Hear, its director, at: st...@ohear.net
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8. Digibarn Radio goes Podcast!
Digibarn radio has gone podcast! Thanks to Tommy Cuellar, a Digibarn fan living in Japan and a budding radio voice talent, we have several more of the newest Digibarn radio pieces available in podcast format. Subscribe through the iTunes store at Apple for free, just enter the term Digibarn Radio. You can also sign up directly at the Digibarn Radio page at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/audio/index.html
or listen to these and our other pieces using regular MP3 audio download players.
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9. Digibarn TV new features!
See several new video features on Digibarn TV, including Steve Wozniak at the Apple@30 event last November, at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/movies/index.html
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10. Thanks donors! Still looking for...
A lot of great donations came in since the springtime and we would like to thank all the many Friends of the Digibarn who contributed:
http://www.digibarn.com/friends/index.html
See the ever expanding collection at:
http://www.digibarn.com/collections/index.html
We are still looking for a bunch of good stuff and have updated our "wish list" at:
http://www.digibarn.com/help/index.html
so check it out and see if you have anything there we are desperately seeking (weird prototypes or front bezel for a Lisa 1 anyone?).
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11. Archive of this and past Newsletters
You can find the archive of this and all past Digibarn Newsletters at:
http://www.digibarn.com/history/newsletters/index.html
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12. Contacting Us or Unsubscribing
The best way to contact us is by our web form at:
http://www.digibarn.com/forms/comment.html
the form has a new security feature so you have to enter that automatically generated nonsense word, it prevents spambots from finding us!
If you want to be unsubscribed please let us know through the form above and provide the email address you are receiving this newsletter on and it will be taken care of promptly. Digibarn News only comes out 1-3 times per year so it shouldn't clog your inbox! Alternatively, simply reply to this email with "unsubscribe" in the subject.
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Thats it for this newsletter, see you in the next one!
Bruce Damer, Curator
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end digibarn news
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