Canberra Vintage Computer Expo 2023

[@Agmash29a]

[Correction at 3:20] I thought it was the prototype for the ETI 660 for some reason but (as Monte Chen pointed out months ago - sorry senior moment) it is in fact the prototype for the Australian ETI 685! I had this confirmed by Ron Koenig, the guy who built it. Could the story get better? Yep - I'm seeing Ron this weekend. Ron's going to get the thing running again. It also has some rare S100 boards including an (Australian) Applied Technology Megamemory board.

[@ActionRetro]

Looks like it was a really wonderful event!

[@geekwithsocialskills]

What a great presentation of Amazing computers! Nicely done!

[@SerialExperimentsTim]

It really feels like this could be the start of something. As someone with experience running community-organised events, I can definitely say that its hard work, but worth it in the end.

[@mce_AU]

Nice. Good seeing the old machines getting a workout.

[@jowi_24seven43]

That TAC-2 joystick brought me more nostalgia than the machines themselves. It was a favourite of mine

[@Maximum_Firepower]

Looks fantastic I would love to check this out next year

[@JustChiminin]

The retro scene really is a world wide event.

[@005AGIMA]

Very nice indeed mate! Top stuff. I do love a good meet.

[@VK2FVAX]

I really enjoyed being there. Definitely worth the drive up from Sydney. Maybe next year if there's a call for exhibitors it'd be good to get something working early.

[@airfixer9461]

Great show, that's why were doing it isn't it...for people to wonder & enjoy the 'old' technology

[@RetroTechChris]

Holy smokes, Lurch! What an amazing representation of machines from different eras. Nice work organizing it. To be honest, the variety here rivals what I have seen at VCFs here in the USA... impressive!

[@MrLurchsThings]

We had a few people suggest that we ask if we can call it VCF-Aus 😁

[@RetroTechChris]

@@MrLurchsThings I like it!

[@ohioterran7374]

Very cool idea to put on a vintage computer show like this one! Love it!

[@GarthBeagle]

Fantastic you all put this together!

[@TechTimeTraveller]

Well done and well filmed!

[@RedPillRachel]

Lovely! Keep the history alive, nice to see my childhood CPC464 was present, the poor man's computer is still alive and kicking!

[@Dwarfboysim]

Looks like an awesome day. Great that people couid get "hands on".

[@srh76able]

I would have loved to have seen the Amstrad CPC 464 in the flesh. That was my first machine and I loved it.

[@cyningstan]

Thanks for the video! It was fun to spot machines I've either owned in the past or otherwise had some affection for. Especially nice to see the Plus/4 holding its own, one of my favourite Commodore machines.

[@Gozling1]

That looked like a great show Lurch, well done. Looking forward to the next one :)

[@carloscatano1750]

Fantastic! Thank you!

[@retropuffer2986]

Looked like a successful show to me. I often forget the speccys were cloned. When I think of early clones I always picture CP/M, Apple II or PCs.

[@neil2402]

A great show! I arrived towards the end, so crowds had thinned out a lot by then. Good to see so many machines that I lusted after in my youth, but could not afford to buy (probably can't afford them today either!). Hopefully next time I'll get a bit more warning and I can bring along some of my machines. Cheers,

[@Frank_2023]

Awesome, I wish we had something like this in Gippsland Vic :) But that's why we have YT channels like yours :)

[@MrLurchsThings]

I assume the ones Ian runs are a bit far?

[@garyhart6421]

Very Nice ! I wish there were more shows/user groups around --- so my small collection could have an outing.

[@digitalarchaeologist5102]

I was fascinated by the number of British machines there. It represents a huge part of my childhood for me and I'm curious as to whether a lot of them were on Aussie shores in contemporary times or if they're just popular with collectors? I've been in Aus a long time now and shamefully don't have any Aussie machines in my collection but I've have enjoyed using the Microbee emulators and the emulators for various "Dick Smith" machines

[@OzRetrocomp]

Acorn was a major player in the education sector down here, with many schools and universities having BBC Micros on Econet networks. The ZX81 did quite well down here (Dick Smith sold them BITD, but didn't promote them anywhere nearly as heavily as their own brand machines). The ZX Spectrum struggled a little bit, even though they were sold by quite a few computer shops and a major department store chain down here. Commodore overpowered everyone else, and the Speccy along with similar machines such as the Atari 800XL and Sega SC-3000 got clobbered by the C64. Amstrad did quite well, especially with their PC clones.

[@fordprefect80]

@@OzRetrocomp Just out of curiosity which department store sold the ZX Spectrum in your area? They were pretty much a no show up here in Newcastle (NSW) although I did hear that Dick Smith may have stocked them for a brief period.

[@timothyp8947]

The combined telephone/computer based loosely on the QL was branded by a small number of different telephone companies, but I know it as the ICL OPD (One Per Desk). I think it was some kind of joint venture between Sinclair and British mainframe manufacturer ICL. Certainly when I worked for ICL in the late '80s, I had a manager who had one instead of an ordinary desk phone.

[@michaelwessel4953]

Wonderful event - congrats, well done!

[@Renville80]

Super! Looks like you had a good time with the meet!

[@VincentGroenewold]

What a fun thing to do, thanks for sharing!

[@dagspicer7748]

Good on ya, guys: this is brilliant!!

[@VermontStrolls]

Bravo, Bravo!!

[@cerberes]

What a great collection. Would have loved to have been there.

[@ExplosiveAction]

Fantastic. If such a thing happens in Sydney I'd love to attend, but making my way down south as a non-driver is difficult! Amazing to see a Falcon 030 in this country. Great to see a few kids interested.

[@Lachlant1984]

Oh man, that's so cool, I should attend more of the retro computer shows in Melbourne, I've been to 2 already and I liked them.

[@jubsy]

That Amust Executive 816 is the coolest looking computer I've ever seen.

[@BarthWarth]

Damn wish I knew this was on, would have been awesome to go to

[@Green_House]

Tears running down the cheeks!

[@ctrlaltrees]

What a great show! Fantastic job Lurch. Although can you organise one a bit closer to me next time? 😉

[@mcd3379]

Looks like a really great show - wonderful to see all those old computers up and running. Also fantastic that people could actually interact with them, rather than them being locked away in a glass cabinet with "do not touch" signs! Keep it up.

[@Kman_aus]

So glad I got to this expo. Good fun seeing and playing with the wide variety of computers. Thanks out to all who put this together. Looking forward to the next one

[@seanwilliams4087]

Some great scenes of people having a fun, entertaining, and educational time! I especially like seeing the younger people getting interested and seeing what it was like back in the "bare metal" age of computing when everything was less abstract and easier to wrap your head around.

[@Fezzler61]

Nice show and good crowd.

[@PixelMaker04]

Been looking at trying to get one of these going here in Nashville, TN for some of my vintage comps.

[@electricadventures]

Looks like a very nice spread of systems, and a nice relaxed atmosphere. Bit more travel for me to get there, but maybe I could potentially come in the future, and show off some Spectravideo and MSX systems.

[@brianandrews5084]

This was awesome! I hope you're able to do things like this more often.

[@demonspoo]

Awesome

[@paulstubbs7678]

Darn, would have loved to visit, didn't know it was on.

[@anthonyadverse4449]

champion job!

[@Aquellex]

I was the one jamming on the Amiga A1200 with ProTracker v2.3F :D

[@KolliRail]

Wow! What a great selection of machines! I've been to a lot of retro computing events over here in Germany but never had the chance to see the really old stuff like teletype and paper punch here. Unfortunately you are on the opposite side of the world, but I'm think it would have been worth the effort to travel around the globe for such a fantastic show!

[@UpLateGeek]

I had no idea this was on! I don't use the Face Book, but I probably couldn't have made it to Canberra last weekend anyway, since I had family stuff on. If you decide to have another one, perhaps it might be a good idea to put up a video announcing it in advance?

[@MrLurchsThings]

It’s not just my show. But there was word out on both Twitter and discord as well.

[@1944GPW]

@@MrLurchsThings I also don't use those channels. If I could suggest to the organisers, a post on VCFed's forums, and cctalk? It looks like it was a great event! Was the PDP-11/05 running?

[@nightowl1on1]

wow zx81 my starter machine very cool

[@sausage5849]

Hey, I didn't see myself on any screens (Thought I did for a second at 8:02) but it was my buddy from Doom) 🙂

[@monolalia]

Thanks for this! Never seen a Microbee or AMust or Dick Smith or any of those not-so-international machines in person. I’m curious what the Plus/4 is running; does anyone know?

[@MrLurchsThings]

A demo called Threeve. You can find it one the plus4world site

[@monolalia]

@@MrLurchsThings Impressive!

[@VargaKen]

Looks like a great show and a great turnout! How did you promote and advertise it?

[@Phoenix135tube]

Damn, I went last year but missed it this year. Great to see it's gotten so much bigger. Is there an Osborne aficionado in Canberra I can get in touch with?

[@MrLurchsThings]

Not specifically that I know. I managed to fluff my way thru repairing mine.

[@PicaDelphon]

Nice Units....I really liked the PDP 11/05, but were the Two CPU Core Cards..??..

[@OzRetrocomp]

I can see myself taking a road trip to Canberra in 2024...

[@Betamaxx1]

Will this run next year?? I would love to go!

[@winstonsmith478]

What is the machine with the red paddle toggle switches shown at 3:10?

[@MrLurchsThings]

It’s called the EDUC-8 Reboot. A modern recreation of an early Australian computer.

[@OldAussieAds]

Oh man, I wish I had known about this. I definitely would have tried to attend. I'm trying to think if there were any systems I have in my collection that weren't represented here. Did you have a Texas Instruments TI99/4A on display? What about an Atari XEGS or Commodore 128DCR? I'd love to fill in the gaps next time you guys run these and would love to give the right person my details.

[@tamphex]

7:10 Jesus .. looks like a yowie decided to check out the scene.

[@patbreen3859]

Would you say there is a plethora of Commodores here?

[@VDRP]

My first computer was a ZX81, killer system but I always hated the chicklet keyboard.

[@georgemaragos2378]

Hi All Nice outing, if i had known i push have pressed some contacts i have The computer phone was sold here by telstra for a while @ 1984 to 1986-1987 - it was a flop The majority were used by senior telecom / telstra managers who wanted to look important, and they pushed them of there desk and down the line They also used those horrible mini spool tapes as disk drives Price was close to 3k then, and that was the price i paid for my 1978 ford falcon 302 GS in 1986 - also in 1986 or 1987 i purchased a commodore pc 10 brand new with monitor and all the software for $899 ( but my amiga 500 was better and cheaper ) What was good about it, well it ran 2 phone lines, one for voice and one for the 1200 modem, it had a calendar and to do list and contact list, plus highlight a contact and press the correct function key it dialed the phone number with on hook dialing Also back in @ 1995 - 2010 did you attend the roaming computer faire markets, it was well published and had a listing of saturday and sunday venues where computer shops and wholesales would sell of specials and just made obsolete computers / and parts

[@KimReneJensen]

How to buy a MicroBee ?

[@MrLurchsThings]

With lots of money and a lot of luck.

[@christophejournoud2773]

Cool, but a bit far from France ;)

[@syrus3k]

Tip: ZX80 - don't let the public near that. Too precious.

[@syrus3k]

Incredible selection btw! Great job. I would have turned up if I still lived in aus.