Exhibits 2017

1976

One of the first Vintage Computer Icons 6502 CPU, 4 KByte RAM Developed by Steve Wozniak, known as “Woz” USD 666.66 (1976) – without keyboard or display Just 200 were made. The few remaining Apple I's fetched up to 900.000 USD at auctions.

Martin Decurtins

Early computers (1950s to early 1970s) were the birthplace of programming. But they are hard to keep running. Over the last few years, many Open Source Hardware projects have created faithful replicas of these machines. They allow hands-on experience with these old systems, and allow “software archaeology” to show how far we have come. Shown are replicas of the LGP-30 (1950s), PDP-8 (1960s) as well as the pioneering 1970s (Altair 8800, KIM-1, Cosmac Elf, and OSI-300). All of these are actually easy to build yourself – Open Source projects that often hide very low cost modern parts underneath faithfully recreated old front panels.

Oscar Vermeulen

We demonstate a hacked-together PDP8, with RX01 floppy drive, VT100 & Decwriter.

Ulrich Fierz

-Rüegg Nägeli Exophor von 1980 (Swiss Variant of the Commodore 3032).

- C64 with Floppy. Who doesn't know it…

Oliver Walkhoff

The IBM System/360 was the dominant mainframe architecture in the 1960s and 70s. The 360/30 was a small machine, introduced in 1964, and found its way into countless universities and companies. It used simple 8-bit data paths and registers internally, but its microcode provided the full IBM 360 architecture used in larger machines - that sometimes were hundreds of times as fast. Only a few Model 30s survive today, and only one is thought to be in a working state at present. Shown at this exhibit is an original front panel, now driven by a faithful recreation of the original hardware in an FPGA.

Lawrence Wilkinson

When IBM introduced its PC, that was the beginning of the end of diversity in computer design. Now that IBM made a microcomputer, how could it not be the future? Little did people realise that the IBM PC was hastily put together by a small team that had very little support within the giant - and had to use only standard components for their machine. In hindsight, not its performance but the standardised expansion architecture was an essential key to the success of the concept. Soon enough, Commodore, Atari, and many others were marginalised, to be replaced by a new breed of (Asian) clone manufacturers. The exhibit shows the forefathers of today's desktop PC: The original model IBM 5150 PC, the IBM 5160 XT, the IBM 5170 AT workhorse and a rare intermediate model; the strangely in-between IBM 5162 XT-286.

Hans Thijs

From the Olivetti Programma 101 (first desktop programmable machine in world history, 1965), to the mighty P6060 with basic and integrated 8“ floppy disks from 1975 , the first Olivetti modern desktop (M20 with PcOS from 1982), and the first portable and iperportable Olivetti (M15 from 1987 and M10 in 1983) to the world known M24 (first DOS desktop by Olivetti in 1983).

EsoCop / Stefania Calcagno

There were no high-resolution graphic workstations in the 70-ies, right ? Wrong !

The Tektronix DVST (Direct View Storage Tube) Technologie used the CRT itself as a storage element. This enabled a 1024×1024 resolution without needing memory inside the machine. We show the Tektronix 4052 graphical workstation (1978), wit a bitsliced 16 bit CPU, and a Tektronix 4014 graphical terminal (1974), often used in conjunction with the big computers of the time.

Jos Dreesen

Born in the golden area of early eighties, the Welsh Dragon 32/64 (and American cousin Tandy CoCo) are machines that just won't die - a vivid community just keeps growing and new software and hardware products are being developed for pure fun and passion. We show for the first time the advanced operating system NitrOS-9 Level 2 in action on a Dragon boosted with a homemade MMU.

Tormod Volden, LU

Visible bits and bytes - see, touch and understand data storage. The exhibited paper tape reader and puncher have been “upgraded” with Arduino micro controllers. Thanks to this upgrade this vintage storage system can be used on modern computers. I will show a VT510 Terminal as well for a more authentic look and feel. The full translation logic from serial to different punched tape formats is implemented on the Arduino. Therefore we can punch and read in 8-bit binary, 7-bit ASCII with parity and 5-bit Baudot for teletype.

Werner Meier, SG

From 1982 some Japanese manufacturers tried to standardize the homecomputer. The result were the MSX range of computers. Succes in german speaking countries remained limited, as people stuck to their C64's, but in the Far East and Southamerica MSX became a big success.

Also Philips of Holland did manage to create a local success out of their NMS range of MSX computers.

We show the MSX-1 Sony HB75P and the MSX-2 Philips NMS8250

Roman Seewer

The Commodore C64, from the eighties was the best selling computer ever.

This exhibit shows our beloved Commodore 64 “Today”, expanded with newly developed hardware like the SD2IEC Backpack and the (1541) Ultimate II. Both enable modern memory cards to be used with the C64, along with a whole slew of other improvements.

Also, some related new hardware applied to the Commodore Amiga will be shown. Marc Schaffer / Michael Schenk

The Commode Amiga were the summit of the homecomputer world. At the time they were more powerful than their IBM-compatibles contemporaries.

We show some Amigas in action.

Peter Guhl

Today PDP-11 hardware can be supported by micro-Linux computers. So we can build small running systems, even if the vintage hardware is defective, incomplete or too heavy to show. On exhibit are 3 projects:

LSIBox - free standing QBUS cards implement a 11/73 running RT-11, RSX-11 or 2.11BSD. Sexy outfit!

DECbox - a VT100 contains simulations of 13 DEC systems (PDP-8,-11,-15, VAX). Typical end user feeling of the 1970's!

BlinkenBone - “Blinkenlight panel” of a 11/70 with simulated machine behind. Real men program with lamps and switches!

More on this stuff at http://retrocmp.com/projects

Jörg Hoppe DE

12 years ago, Apple changed the architecture of their computers to Intel processors.

From our large stock we present a choice of Apple computers of the times before:

Starting with a classic Compact Macintosh over LC, Quadra, Performa and PowerMac to the first coloured iMacs, from PowerBooks to the first iBooks.

Besides models with original Apple software, we show how some of these devices can still be used productively with Linux as operating system.

revamp-it, non-profit association, Zurich - www.revamp-it.ch

We show :

Atari 2600 console (1977)

Philips “Odyssey 2001” console (1977)

Philips Videopac G7400 console (1983)

Commodore SX-64 (1983)

.. all these are fully functional !

We also demonstrate a Raspberry Pi based Arcade-Emulator. This runs all Videopac- and Vectrex-consoles.

Micha Weis - Peter Zumstein - Christoph Stähli