2006 World of Commodore / Toronto Meetup
DISCLAIMER: I don't believe in thumbnails or webpages that take more than 2 seconds to make. LONG LOADING TIMES AHOY. Also, I just drove like 10 hours and I'm out of it. I'm not responsible for anything I write.
So, my friend Liz told me about this Commodore convention I had absolutely no idea existed - its been happening every year since '78 or so (the actual organization meets a bunch of times a year, but once a year they have a big shindig). Of course I had to go, mainly because I have a very unhealthy obsession with Commodore that has cost many lives.
Check this out, I could see the Commodore logo from my hotel window showing where the expo was
All the vendors setting up their tables with AWESOME STUFF.
This is Syd and his wife/girlfriend/friend/sister/random person. He runs a classic computer museum in the area and has quite a collection. I gotta say that, I'm not too far off from matching his, maybe SOON. It was interesting to chat with him about some older machines.
After the expo started getting into gear, the demonstrations started. This is Leif Bloomquist demonstrating his use of a BQ4830Y real time clock chip he installed into his PET to keep time for a database system (keep track of frozen foods in his big freezer). The chip was pretty cool, battery backed, has 32K of ram that can be accessed normally, and fits into the ROM socket of a PET with just a few pin conversions. I think its like 15 bucks too, not bad.
And here's a picture of the PET with the RTC installed (if you look you can see a clock on the screen). I absolutely love the look of this model of PET, the case was actually designed by Porsche. Not only does it look awesome on the outside...
But you can prop the computer open with a built in kick-stand, its AWESOME. Plus, the keyboard detaches from the base unit as well, this is just a really neat machine.
The next demo was of a network library a guy is designing for the 3 C64 network cards available. No pictures, but later in the conference we saw a game that mae use of the libs.
The next guy is Rob Adlers, I had lunch with him and we chatted about the history of TPUG, Amiga/C64 stuff, and the work he does with Prophet64. Very interesting stuff, the guy is very knowledgeable about sequencers and electronic audio. Here he is demoing Prophet64 - he had the C64 hooked into a very large amp, it was awesome, very cool 80s sounding mixes. (Prophet64 is very impressive)
Ha, I love this next one, they had a TV out in the vendors area showing Commodore demos. One of them was a program showing bar graphs of "Popularity Projections" of the different computer companies at the time. As you can see, it's very accurate.
The next demonstration was AWESOME, it was Leif again, showing his work on the first Internet multiplayer game for the C64. It uses the Netlibs Oliver VieBrooks developed. It's basically one of those plug in the angle/power of a projectile and try to hit the other person - turn based kind of thing. Here's a shot of the C64 getting an IP address via DHCP. It was just so cool to see a Commodore doing networking.
And here's a shot of the actual game. He had a PC laptop emulating the network responses from player 2. The game even has a working chat function!
One of the last demos was just nuts - this guy (Greg Nacu) has a SX-64 with a SuperCPU card, a flash card and CD-ROM hooked up. Here's a shot of the WINGS OS, its a multitasking OS for the C64 (though it actually runs on the SuperCPU card, but its still 6502 compat machine code). It was nuts, it was playing the Batman Begins trailer in a window while multitasking other programs in the back. Black and white for the movie, but it was still impressive as hell.
The expo was just awesome, I'm definitely going again next year, it was just so great to talk to other people as into old computers as I am, plus they're all engineers/programmers and smart as hell, lots of good conversations.
Everyone broke for dinner, and I met up with LIZZZZZ, we had some coffee and then hung out later, it was a great time, I haven't hung out with Liz in way too long.
ITS A CAMERA TAKING A PICTURE OF A CAMERA WHOOOOEEEOOOO
This is what happens when you combine mouse bombs, horse bombs, and Canadian Balls (don't ask)
And for some reason this was completely hilarious, but I forget why now. It's okay IT DOESN'T MATTER
HURRAY THATS THE END. Oh and I got interviewed by a Toronto newspaper!! BUT I DONT KNOW WHICH ONE so if you happen to be reading any of the various papers in the Toronto area, look for the article. Oh, and the expo took place in a church and there was a funeral going on upstairs. Nothing spices up a conference like a funeral I GOTTA tell you.
OH MAN I almost forgot, I bought awesome stuff!! I got a Amiga T-Shirt, a copy of Oh No More Lemmings, a new programmable joystick for my C64/Amiga, a C64C (the last revision of C64 with a fixed SID chip), and I even found an Atari 520ST, I finally got an Atari computer in my collection!! That made the whole thing worth it right there, this machine was made in '85 and has a harddrive port and 2 MIDI ports on the back, it was (almost) comparable to the Amiga! I also picked up a couple extra power supplies because most of mine are dead.
