August | 2017 | Retrocomputing Roundtable

Panelists: Jack Nutting (hosting), Earl Evans, and Paul Hagstrom

Host’s Topic: eBay and retrocomputing

“Atari 800 – RARE – $1,000 – L@@K!!1!”. Why do such listings exist? They are becoming more and more common. Does anyone ever accidentally buy from these outrageous listings? Memorabilia – especially recent-ish (90s, 2000s). Sometimes the vintage section of eBay is absolutely cram-packed with this stuff. Does anyone buy it? Is there value to having these items listed, or is it just yard sale stuff cluttering up the category? (Super common with Apple stuff.) “Not tested” – why not? Some items may indeed be difficult to test, but in other cases, it would be simply “hook it to the TV”. Do we assume that the alleged “cannot test it…” items are broken? Books – often overpriced on eBay. Should always check to see if the used Internet bookstores (including Amazon) have a lower price. Total junk – 4X internal CD-ROM units. Why? Among all the noise, decrease of actual interesting stuff that isn’t selling for 5x the price it should go for.

Feedback notes

Ricki’s palmtops and retrotech blog
The Arcade Experience (Centre of Computing History, Sept 2)
Converting the 6510 as a replacement for the 8501
Adobe Audition
Audacity

Retro Computing News:

The Virtual Museum of Computing (with many 3D Blender models)
Alan Kay on Steve Jobs’ visit to Xerox PARC (Quora)
Putting CoCo3 BASIC programs on an autoloading cartridge
Earl’s experience at VCF West
- MOnSter 6502
- Xerox Alto restoration video blog (Marc Verdiell)
- Neohabitat
Amiga A-EON X5000
Hypercard on the Internet Archive
RetroGathering, Sep 30, Västerås, Sweden

Vintage Computer Commercial

Sun Microsystems 1997

Retro Computing Gift Idea:

Antikythera Mechanism pendant

Auction Picks:

Earl: Commodore PET 2001
Paul: SuperPET

Closing notes:

Feedback/Discussion:

Throwback Network on Facebook

Intro / Closing Song: Back to Oz by John X – link
Show audio files hosted by CyberEars

Listen/Download:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

This is the annual group “megapodcast” recorded at KansasFest, from July 2017. The event draws quite a few podcasters, so we all sit in a room and talk for an hour.

This year’s podcast involves the obligatory discussion of the KansasFest event itself (which is an annual gathering of Apple II enthusiasts, along with some others, for almost a week of “retrocomputing camp”). It is held at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, Missouri, where everyone lives in a dorm room, socializes in common areas, goes to presentations held in the basement, participates in various events, works on projects of their own or observes projects others are doing.

We discuss the event itself, play a version of “Celebrity” with figures from geek culture or computing history, and generally have a grand time.

This was one microphone in the middle of a room, so the audio quality is what you would expect from one microphone in the middle of a room. Also, this same audio appeared on the Open Apple podcast feed, so if you heard it there already, you are excused from listening to it again (unless you want to).

The participants were (clockwise from Quinn):