Vintage Computer Festival

Zurich, 19-20 November 2016

Festival Programme

11-10-2016: English Draft, German version follows

Vintage Computer Festivals are held across the world.

On November 19-20, it’s Zurich’s turn to host a Vintage computer Festival.

Computing evolved rapidly, and VCF festivals aim to let people experience

the machines that brought us here. To relive the home computer years, but

also to experience the machines from from the 1950s to 70s, which blinked

rows of lights on massive front panels, hidden in research labs, universities

and big companies.

The explicit goal of the Vintage Computer Festival is to make the public aware

of computer history. Therefore the intended audience is very much the

general public.

Exhibitors (both private collectors and museums) have made great efforts to

engage families with children, and not just computer enthusiasts, with a

varied, fun but also educational experience.

Hosted in the Rote Fabrik (Seestrasse 395), dozens of exhibitors and

speakers will cover everything from the Commodore 64 down to the “Big

Iron” from the 1950s to 1970s. As it turns out, a big computer from 1970 is

not so hard to understand for people today.

WWW.VCFE.CH

VCF Zurich in three different segments:

• Home computers – from the earliest Altair 8080 (1975), Apple I and

Commodore PET (1977) down to almost

modern Amiga’s (1986-1994). Including

revolutionary prototypes that were

never released. Highlights are an Amiga

Walker (1995), a prototype of how home

computers evolved into multimedia

appliances; a Commodore V364

prototype from the personal collection of

Commodore designer Bil Herd. And of

course a two dozen or so famous home computers all ready to play.

• Business computers – starting with a replica

of the 1950s LGP-30, ending with a “Big

Iron” IBM 360. Highlights include a DEC PDP-

8 playing the world’s very first video game

(spacewar); a PDP-11 on which the Unix

operating system was born; and a PDP-10

which played a crucial role for predecessors

of the internet. Also shown are simple to

build “open source hardware” replica’s of

such historical computers that hobbyist have made in recent years.

• Retrogaming – video games are not exactly new. The first one was

written at MIT in 1961. Available for play is spaceware, and everything

that came after. From Pong, Pacman on a Commodore 64 to a whole

series of vintage games down to the 1990s. A particular highlight is Yuki,

a.k.a. “Lady Commodore”, who will demonstrate live coding and explain

how hackers and gamers pulled out everything that was (im)possible on

the machines they had.

Commodore 64, still the best selling

computer of all time

DEC PDP-11: Birthplace of Unix

Presently confirmed exhibits:

1950s-60s

LGP-30 Replica project

The LGP-30 was probably the first “personal computer” in 1956. Its simple, low-cost

architecture requires only 15 bits to be held electronically, in tube-based flip-flops. This is

made possible by a bit-serial architecture, which

manipulates the 32-bit registers one bit at a time, driven by

clock and control signals from its magnetic memory drum. –

Shown is an FPGA-based simulation which reproduces the

original circuit and timing on the bit level. A small control

panel and display provide access to a pocket-sized LGP-30,

measuring 6*10 cm². Optimize your programs for best

synchronization with the virtual spinning drum, for the full

experience of early-day programming! Jürgen Müller, HH

The DEC PDP-8

Birthplace of personal computing before the era of the microprocessor. This exhibit will

demonstrate how utterly unique the PDP-8 was

in the evolution of computing. Born in the era of

paper tape chewing, front panel programmed

dinosaurs, it evolved all the way to running a

proper operating system (even multi-user virtual

machines!) from 10MB disk cartridges. Shown is a

PDP-8/L with paper tape/teletype from before

the days of computer screens, and a PDP-8/f with TU-56 magnetic tape drives. Jos Dreesen, ZH

Reviving an IBM System 360/30

The IBM System/360 was the dominant mainframe architecture in the 1960s and 70s. The

360/30 was a small version, 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, ZH

1970s

Swiss computing at its finest : Smaky, Lilith & Ceres

A product of LAMI, the EPFL’s micro-computing laboratory, the

Smaky computer was developed in the mid-1970s and was the

brainchild of Professor Jean-Daniel Nicoud. Well in advance of its

time, equipped with a lot of teaching software, it was a serious

competitor to the Macintosh in Swiss French-speaking schools. It was

marketed by the Epsitec company from 1978 onwards. The Bolo

Museum is proud to exhibit the most noteworthy Smaky models for

this edition of the VCFe.CH.

Around the same time, Niklaus Wirth, Switzerland’s most famous

contributor to computing, and his ETH team developed the revolutionary Lilith computer. This

is a single user workstation, specifically made to efficiently execute the Modula-2 language,

also developed by Wirth.Later on, Wirth’s Oberon system continued where the Lilith left off.

Also shown is a Pascal MicroEngine, providing a different take on microcomputing inspired by

Wirth's work. Furthermore we hope to be able to demonstrate a Ceres-3, a Lilith follow-up

machine running Oberon. Emulith, the Lilith emulator, is available for hands-on experience.

aBCM Association, VD; Jos Dreesen, ZH

Start of the microcomputer revolution: the Altair 8800 (1975) and IMSAI 8080

The Altair is famous for being the very first microcomputer that the

general public could buy. Together with the IMSAI, the first

microcomputer clone (of the Altair…) still famous from the 1983

WarGames movie, these were also among the last computers

equipped with a full “Blinkenlights” front panel. Try toggling in a

program and see how much it hurts! Martin Decurtins, ZH

First home computers: the Trinity

The Radio Shack TRS-80, the Commodore PET 2001 and

an Apple II Euro-plus are demonstrated with some of

their famous software. The KIM-1/Apple I/Altair of last

year were pretty hard to use. But in 1977, a trinity of

comfortable and affordable home computers emerged.

Some unknown guys in a garage made their Apple II; a

small calculator company made the Commodore PET;

but just before those, Tandy (Radio Shack) launched

their TRS-80 Model-I. Without confidence in this

computer nonsense, the boss of Tandy produced 3000

units at first, saying they could always be a show item in the shops if nobody would buy them.

He sold 250,000 – and was left in the dust by Commodore and Apple… Joint exhibit from

various private collectors

DEC stuff: PDP-10, 11 und 15 wiederbelebt

Bis in die 1970er-Jahre hatten Computer "Front

panels", um direkt per Lampen und Schalter in die

Elektronik einzugreifen. Stolze Besitzer eines

"Blinkenlight panels" können diese mit moderner

Elektronik wieder zum Leben erwecken. Vorgestellt

wird das Projekt "BlinkenBone" anhand von voll

funktionsfähigen PDP-11/40, PDP-11/70, PDP-15 sowie ein Virtueller PDP-10. Jörg Hoppe, DE

1980s

Commodore Galore!

All the well known (and not so well known) models from the company that brought computing

to the masses. From the KIM-1 to the Amiga, via the PET and CBM-II business computers, the

VIC-20 and of course the best-selling home computer of all time, the Commodore 64. No other

company made either such a diverse range or the volume

of personal computers as Commodore. No man did more to

bring computing to school kids than its legendary founder

Jack Tramiel. If you are in your forties, you either get weak

in the knees seeing a C64, or you still hate it. Doesn’t

matter. Play the games of the Golden Age at this exhibit.

Rob Clarke, ZH

The creative British computer industry in the 80s: Sinclairs, Dragons, Orics, Aces & BBC Micro

American companies had started the microcomputer revolution. But British innovators picked

up the challenge with extremely inventive machines –

creativity born out of the need to lower the cost of computers,

innovation that led to new approaches. Amongst which, the

ARM CPU, the only microprocessor to scare Intel today. Joint

exhibit, various collectors

16 bit for the masses: TI-99/4

The Texas Instruments TI-99/4A was released June 1981. The TI-

99/4 series holds the distinction of being the first 16-bit personal

computer. The TI-99/4A added an additional graphics mode,

“lowercase” characters consisting of small capitals, and a full-

travel keyboard. Michael Gisiger, BE

MS-DOS: IBM’s revolution that came to dominate them all

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? 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, AG

1990s

The Amiga History, from the Joyboard to the Walker

Exhibiting the HiToro Amiga joyboard, an A3000 Unix,

A3000 Tower, A1000 with Sidecar, A2500, A1500 or

A4000D/060, A1200 for real time demo coding and the

Amiga Walker. We will turn on the appliances, and let

people use AmiX and/or AmigaOS, I will personally

interact coding real time demos in assembler and

showing what an Amiga can do. Also the Walker shall

be turned on, only once a day: we'd make a little

“event” for turning it on, it is always a special

experience. Stefania @ ESOCOP TI

Unix workstations of the 80's and 90's

UNIX based workstations were the backbone of the

industry in the 80's and 90's. An great number of suppliers

made available an enormous selection of machines, running

different flavours of UNIX. Shown here is a wide selection of

early and later workstations, such as the PDP11/73 running

Ultrix-11 or the Motorola Powerstack E100 running Solaris,

among others. Rico Pajarola, ZH

New Life for Old Silicon

Running current Linux distributions on vintage hardware.

Axel Beckert, ZH

Vintage Hardware of the 21st Century

Dragon - new tricks for the old beast

Born in the golden ere of early 80s, 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. The Dragon

stand will display a variety of these developments, plus of course one

or other of the classic games from the time where you got maximum

fun per pixel and byte. Special attention will be given to the advanced

operating system that can run on these 6809-based machines, crowned by last year's

newcomer FUZIX - a minimal UNIX clone for 8-bit computers. Tormod Volden, LU

Homebrewing: modern replicas of classic computers N8VEM, KIM-Uno, PiDP8 and PiDP11

There is no sensible use for 8-bit, 64K computers with less processing power than a mobile

phone. Yet, a new strain of retrocomputing emerged: building your own system from a “bag of

chips” or a modern microcontroller. In the ‘bag of chips category,

shown is the N8VEM single-board computer, a solder-it-yourself

CP/M computer that runs pretty much all the business (and

games) from the period 1976-1980. Also running is the OSI-300,

a small $25 6502 computer kit with front panel.

Also shown are computer replicas using modern

parts inside. The CHF 15 KIM Uno is a pocket-sized

replica of the first 6502 computer, using an Arduino;

replicas of the PDP-8 and PDP-11 hide a modern

Raspberry Pi inside. About the real PDP-11: it is

where Unix evolved, and was where most influential early Unix developers cut their teeth.

Introduced in 1970, PDP-11s are still on active duty in many places. Oscar Vermeulen, ZG

Paper Tape on USB

Visible bits and bytes - see, touch and understand data storage. The exhibited paper tape

reader and puncher have been “upgraded” with Arduino micro

controllers. This vintage storage system can be used on modern

computers but is shown on a VT510 terminal as well for more

authentic look & feel. The full translation logic from serial to

different punched tape formats is implemented on the Arduino.

Therefore 8-bit binary, 7-bit ASCII with parity and 5-bit Baudot and

other encoding formats are developed. Werner, ZH

Speaker programme Note: draft - times still likely to change

All presentations are held in the Dock 18 presentation room

SA 15:00 DEC’s PDP-8

Simple enough to understand, powerful enough to create personal computing. A

hands-on look at the 1965 computer that predates the microprocessor, but on which

so many of the typical 'microcomputer' applications were first conceived.

SA 16:30 Surf the Web on Vintage PCs Using Slim Alternative Browsers on Linux

Das Dreigestirn von Firefox, Chromium und WebKit wird immer ressourcenhungriger.

Nutzt man Sie auf 20 Jahre alten Rechnern (486, Pentium 1, m68k, PowerPC, Sparc)

so wird es schnarchlangsam - wenn es überhaupt zum laufen kommt. Natürlich kann

man dann einen Browser aus der Hochzeit dieser Rechner verwenden, nur fehlen

inzwischen die dafür passenden Seiten. Aber es gibt Alternativen: Neben

verschiedenen, ressourcensparsamen und dennoch nutzbaren, grafischen

Webbrowsern sind da auch noch die Textbrowser. Sparsam und doch aktuell.

SA 18:00 1977, The Year of the Trinity

The first three home computers are introduced in a brief few months of 1977.

Machines you can actually use! There's this Apple II from a few kids in a garage, and

small calculator company Commodore has the PET. But everyone waits for the TRS-

80 from Tandy, a serious company. Except owner Charles Tandy, who only allows

3000 computers to be made. 2,999 unsold units can at least decorate his stores. So

the revolution begins.

SU 11:00 FUZIX - because small is beautiful

Coming out of a fusion of UZI variations - small UNIX-alike systems originally for Z-80

computers, FUZIX aims higher and broader and might show to be one of the most

significant projects in the retrocomputing world of this decade. It is a true open-

source project and has already been ported to multiple microprocessors and

platforms, taking lessons from many UNIX projects and striving for a good balance

between features and bloat. The presentation will give an overview and current

status of the project, as well as look under the cover to see how it is implemented on

our beloved 8-bitters. Got root yet?

SU 12:30 Real Programming on 1950s hardware: the Story of Mel

The 1956 LGP-30 is a computer that demands a rethink - which is why it is

interesting. Just 1 bit of data flows through its veins. Instead of RAM or ROM, a

rotating drum stores data. Built from 113 tubes, the CPU only has 16 instructions,

making machine code programming simple. Except it isn't, because if you want to get

performance out of the LGP-30, you have to time the drum. Store a variable at the

right distance from the instruction using it, and the serial stream flows

uninterrupted. Store it somewhere else, and you have to wait for the drum to rotate

up to where your data sits. Hence the nicely unintelligible code from the Story of

Mel. We'll go through the programming of the ultimate Real Programmer.

SU 14:00 6502 Systeme mit virtuellem Speicher

Anders als bei praktisch allen anderen erfolgreichen 8 Bit Prozessoren der 70er

wurde die 6502 nicht wirklich weiterentwickelt. Der Vortrag zeigt auf, wie man

bereits damals mit relativ wenig Aufwand die Beschraenkungen auf nur einen

Prozess und 64 KiB haette aufheben koennen und mit dem 8-Biter durchaus auch

gegen die 16 Bit Homecomputern der spaeten 80er haette bestehen koennen. Der

Vortrag richtet sich hauptsaechlich an den Technicsh interessierten und setzt

Grundkentnisse in Recherarchtektur und Betriebssystemstrukturen voraus.

SU 15:30 Homecomputer und Spielkonsolen Video im Vergleich

Oft hat man sie gesehen, die “welcher Homecomputer ist der Beste” Diskussion.

Dabei wurde oft die Graphik zum entscheidenen Merkmal, ob einer gut oder schlecht

sein soll. Im Gegensatz zu sonst eher vom technischen “wie funktioniert die

Hardware” Standpunkt anschauen, gibt es hier Video aus der Perspektive von “wie

benutzt es ein Graphiker bzw Programmierer in Software”. Dabei ist der Fokus auf

was er damit bei 22 verschiedenen Rechnersorten anstellen konnte, oder eben nicht,

je nach was diese fuer Features offerierten.

SU 17:00 Implementing a TCP/IP stack on a PDP11 running RSX

A talk about some challenges of implementing a general TCP/IP stack on a machine

with a small address space and an operating system with a very different I/O model

than Unix. Also presenting some ideas and approaches to how an API for TCP/IP can

be done in a different way. I'll also talk a little bit about RSX itself in the context of all

of this. Johnny Billquist, ZH

Travel

Rote Fabrik, Seestrasse 395, 8038 Zürich

By car

The Rote Fabrik is easily reached off highway 3.

There is a car park 100 m north on the

Seestrasse.

By train

Train station Zurich Wollishofen is only a few

hundred meters away.

By bus

There is a “Rote Fabrik” bus stop right in front

of the building. Bus lines 161, 165 and N15 stop

there.

Lodging

If you’re not too big on luxury, the Zurich Youth

Hostel (Jugendherberge Zurich) is strongly

recommended. Very near to the event, fair

prices, good reputation.