VCFe 2011
The Vintage Computer Festival Europe (www.vcfe.org) is an event to show old computers (no PCs!), peripherals and selfmade hardware. In 2011 I had for the first time a booth showing a PC532 from a colleague and my PC532E. In Figure 1 you can see the small plastic box to the left which contains the PC532E. Unfortunately the PC532 was not functional. The PC532E runs all the time and draw some attention from the visitors regarding the ESD robustness of the plastic box. Of course I used an old CRT based terminal with a serial interface as Input/Output device.
Fig. 1. My booth at VCFe 2011.
VCFe 2014
I used a large photo of the NS32532 CPU die as an eye catcher at VCFe 2014. Other parts at the exhibition were the Opus board, the PC532E and the PLAYER, an FPGA development system based on Stratix II serving as an MP3 player. The system becomes ready shortly before the exhibition and I had only one song to play from the SD card. Of course the old CRT terminal was in use again.
Fig. 2. My booth at VCFe 2014.
VCFe 2015
In 2015 I could present my M32632 running NetBSD. Once again I used a plastic box as a case for the PC632M. Unfortunately I could not present the original PC532 as an eye catcher. Nevertheless I faced a lot of attention. This time the event took three days and because of bad weather it was well visited. The old CRT terminal is only used for the VCFe exhibitions. The photo is taken shortly after the opening.
Fig. 3. My booth at VCFe 2015.
VCFe 2018
In 2018 I presented my DB32016. Entering a demo program was a bit time consuming. The program counted seconds and let a LED blink. My old CRT terminal worked once again perfect. The photo is taken early after the opening.
Fig. 4. My booth at VCFe 2018.
VCFe 2024
The VCFe 23.0 took place on September 7th and 8th. I presented my Ceres-3 system in the TRIPUTER. Luckily another exhibitor brought his original Ceres-3 to the event, see it right of the monitor in the photo below. Unfortunately the machine was not functional. But this will change on the next VCFe.
Fig. 5. My booth at VCFe 2024. Surprisingly my exhibit took first place in the visitor and exhibitor favour 😊.
I like the VCFe very much. There is a great atmosphere. The exhibitors are helping each other. For example I forgot my PS2 keyboard on Saturday morning. Another team had one left over. On Sunday morning I changed my monitor for the rest of the day with someone who had a serious problem with his Sony monitor on an SGI Octane - problem solved.
This chapter was last modified on 15 September 2024. Next chapter: ISE Cable