Retro Computer Festival 2023 - Saturday 4th November
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Description : Click here for tickets for SundayIt might be Bonfire Night, but we hope none of our computers will halt and catch fire! We're very happy to announce our 2023 Retro Computer Festival - our biggest yet, with more exhibitors than ever before. We'll be dedicating another entire weekend to the Retro Computing Community. The Centre for Computing History will be opening its doors on the 4th and 5th November 2023 and welcoming enthusiasts to exhibit their personal collections, retro computing mods and state of the art hacks. The event will be free to exhibitors and entry for visitors is just standard museum entry. Event runs 10am to 5pm
Binary Dinosaurs
Fuelled by discovering a lone Enterprise64 in a field in 1998, Adrian's collection is as eclectic as it is far reaching through UK home computing history. This year he's concentrating on unicorns... by bringing two Positron 9000-based machines. Also appearing is a working Apple Lisa from 1983 so that everyone can witness a machine originally costing $10,000 sitting next to a modern reproduction built this year.
[Saturday & Sunday]Dexter's Lab
Mark from DextersTechLab will be showing more Quantel magic this year with a Quantel Paintbox Express and Quantel Ramcorder. Come and see the magic of real time digital painting and TV graphics production as it was in 1995. We will also have a video camera and green screen so we’ll be able to make broadcast quality animations or even have you presenting the weather! Free prints of your art and images will also be available.
[Saturday & Sunday]
Tom Stepleton
It's 1975 and your new microcomputer with only 32K of RAM has crisp, high-resolution, print-quality graphics. How on earth? The secret is the mesmerising vector storage tube that Tektronix (the oscilloscope company!) built into a unique line of computers and terminals. Come see three machines with a display technology that died out decades ago, but not before showing up in CAD, laboratory applications, and the TV show Battlestar Galactica. And if all goes well, try them out for yourself.
[Saturday & Sunday]
Sam Battle - Look Mum No Computer
Look mum no computer - a YouTuber who builds daft retro related machines in videos will be bringing some machines! What machines will be a mystery. I don't even think he knows. But I'm sure they will be delightfully retro!
[Saturday & Sunday]
Mitch Johns - Hack Modular
Mitch will be bringing a machine not seen since the 1960s. Get hands on and “draw” sound with a recreation of the Oramics Machine wave generator, utilising cathode ray tube and early radar technologies. Brainchild of Radiophonic Workshop co-founder Daphne Oram and engineer Graham Wrench.
[Saturday & Sunday]
Jonathan Pallant
Jonathan 'theJPster' Pallant will be showing off a selection of Arm powered machines, from past and present. There will be a BBC Master with PiTube second processor, an twin-slice Acorn RiscPC 700, and his own Neotron Pico computer, which is powered by an Arm Cortex-M microcontroller (the $1 Raspberry Pi RP2040). Can a $1 microcontroller outperform a 90s RISC workstation? Will the Acorn machines actually stay working all weekend? Drop by and find out!
[Saturday & Sunday]
Stephen Mitchell
Stephen will be bringing along Norway's answer to the BBC Micro, the Tiki Data Tiki-100 and one of his beloved Intertec Superbrains.
[Saturday & Sunday]Alex Brown
When looking for a new project in 2017, Alex decided he wanted to develop hardware and software for his ageing Psion Series 3c to help him write on the go. This "small side project" quickly grew into an obsession with Psion's range of portable computers from the 80s and 90s, diving deep into SDKs and HDKs, and amassing a sizeable collection of handhelds and laptops. He'll be bringing some of his collection to the Retro Computer Festival, along with the first prototype of his PsiDrive, a USB drive for using Psion SSDs on modern computers.
[Saturday & Sunday]Retrobytes - John Brown
Can a BBC Micro connect to machines on the Internet using the 1980s network technology that was Econet? Well we are going to find out. We will also see what other disturbingly modern things we can persuade a BBC todo.
[Saturday & Sunday]
Spencer Owen - RC2014
A selection of RC2014 retro computer kits based on the Z80, which will be demonstrating some of the things you can do with CP/M, BASIC and Z80 assembly code, along with a few kits for sale so you can build your own Z80 computer from scratch!
[Saturday & Sunday]Tony Jewell - Here Be Dragons
Vive la France! To celebrate the opening of Short Circuit and the fact it's just 20 miles from France, this year Tony will be showing off his extensive collection of French micros - a parallel world of 80s computers, of which almost none arrived on these shores. And yes, there's a French Dragon!
[Saturday & Sunday]Pete Golding (Short Circuit)
The war between Sinclair and Amstrad is heating up, we’ll be looking at the various Amstrad machines and peripherals before one of the companies eventually took over the other ...
[Saturday & Sunday]
Quazar - Colin Piggot
Colin has been developing for the SAM Coupé for over thirty years, doing everything possible to keep this quirky 8-bit British computer alive! On show will be the machine itself alongside the wealth of SAM hardware, software and 'SAM Revival' magazine that he produces, plus prototypes of brand new hardware in the pipeline. As well as a wide selection of SAM products, Colin will also have goodies for the ZX Spectrum and RC2014 to check out and buy.
[Saturday & Sunday]John Newcombe (@glass_tty)
John will be bringing a 're-born' Nascom 2, better known as the 'Nascom Legacy' along with the FPGA based Nascom 4. If that wasn't enough, look out for a couple of freshly built Acorn System 3 replicas, including a 6809 based re-creation of the Acorn Prestel Terminal.
[Saturday & Sunday]
Tim Gilberts
Tim loves to build and hack around (in the traditional sense) on old computers, only problem is like the Transam Triton they are pretty rare or even like the SCRUMPI 1 unavailable (only 1 known to survive... and its already been built). So you can’t ethically risk messing with them - the obvious answer is Build a Replica – then you can experiment and answer age old questions like how NIBL ever handled long lines on terminals (The Karen Orton ASR33 repro can help with that). You may also find an MK14, prototype KS2 Spectrum Next PCB, and several friends with rare and unusual machines sharing the table...
[Saturday & Sunday]
Chris Oddy
Chris will be bringing along his original Acorn System 1 and 2 computers built in the early 80’s together with more recent replica System 3,4, & 5. Also his SC/MP related collection of replica Sinclair MK14s and SOFTY PROM Programmers
[Saturday & Sunday]
Neal Crook
Neal will be demonstrating his Nascom 2 (which he built as a teenager), his Nascom 1 and his own-designed "Nascom 4" (an FPGA-based Nascom-that-never-was) running Lollipop Lady Trainer, PolyDos and CP/M. In addition, Neal will show various modern boards that provide memory expansion, keyboard replacement and cassette-tape/floppy-disk storage on SDcard.
[Saturday & Sunday]
DosFox
DosFox will be bringing the "Mona Lisa 2", a functional replica of an Apple Lisa 2/5 - likely the first Apple Lisa to be built since 1986! They will be able to ramble for hours on the technical issues and workarounds that were required to make this project a success.
[Saturday & Sunday]Adrian Page-Mitchell
This year Adrian will be flying the flag of the Commodore 264 machines, showing their (128) true colours :) He will also have his Sord collection and his National JR machines, and of course some Casios will undoubtedly make an appearance too!
[Saturday & Sunday]
Stephen Usher
Stephen started playing with computers since Christmas 1981, and still owning that original ZX81, and now tries to get old machines working again as good as new, if not better. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the launch of the sleek Aluminium Memotech MTX Series he'll be bringing along a display showing the machines and modern upgrades.
[Saturday & Sunday]Mack Wharton (@MackJsy) / Dean Belfield (@BreakIntoProg)
The Gigatron TTL microcomputer is a minimalistic retro computer. It’s special in its own oddball way, because it has absolutely no complex logic chips in it, not even a microprocessor! A highly recognisable rubber key spectrum 48k with the VTX5000 Viewdata modem. And Dean Belfield will be bringing along the Agon, an eZ80 based computer he’s co-developed with Bernardo Kastrup aka The Byte Attic. Deans been developing the firmware for it in the spirit of the BBC Micro, including a port of BBC BASIC for Z80. [Saturday & Sunday]
@6502nerd - Dolo Miah
Dolo (6502Nerd) will be displaying a mix of old and new - but all retro! He will have his owned-from-new Oric-1 showing off games from the day of this little known British microcomputer, and his modern (albeit Heath-Robinson in appearance) homebrew computer built from breadboards as a homage to the halcyon days of microcomputing!
[Saturday & Sunday]@LoudScotsBloke - Roy Templeman
Roy will be celebrating 40 years of one of the most infamous flops of the 1980s. The Mattel Aquarius. Come and see what made the wee blue key such a failure, and hear Roy’s reasons for keeping this computer alive in the 21st century. Showing off all the peripherals, add-ons and games (old and new!) as well as the incredibly rare Aquarius II. Also featuring a UK first public viewing of the brand-new Aquarius+ a 2023 ground up designed compatible modern implementation of the Aquarius with many modern features.
[Saturday & Sunday]
Dave Williams
Dave will be bringing along the first 16bit microcomputer system, a National Semiconductor IMP-16 and explaining the connection it has to Aston Martin. Also, an early Intel development system and arguably the first 8bit microcomputer, the SIM-8. An original Mark-8 may also make an appearance. All machines will have blinking lights with sounds & smells provided by a Model 33 Teletype.
[Saturday & Sunday]
Jeremy Owen – The Plot Thickens
Back with live hands-on demonstrations of classic analogue and digital plotters driven by a range of devices including a rare 1978 single board computer (AIM-65), a 1980 HP85 scientific computer and a 1987 MAC SE. Try your hand at big-boys’ Etch-a-Sketch!
[Saturday & Sunday]
The High Nibble - Dave McNaughton
The High Nibble is a maker of replica retro computer hobby kits for self assembly including the iconic IMSAI8080, the Cromemco Z-1, also a hardware based VT100 emulation with VGA output and PS/2 or USB-HID keyboard support. Based in Sydney, Australia, The High Nibble has been shipping kits around the world since 2019. See thehighnibble.com for more details.
[Saturday & Sunday]
Ben Coffer - Sharpworks
Ben from Sharpworks will be bringing his Sharp MZ-80K and MZ-700 machines along with lots of games to try. Additionally he will be showing some modern day modifications for these machines, the digital replacement for tapes "MZuiTape" and Joypad adapter for the MZ-700, also the Gotek disk alternative working on the MZ-80K.
[Saturday & Sunday]Andy Toone
Andy of Feersum Technology (@lockFarm) is bringing the first production models of the new 8-bit MicroBeast, a self-contained Z80 kit in a box with a unique display. He'll also be bringing a couple of the computers that inspired it.
[Saturday & Sunday]Paul Marsh Paul (@uhf_satcom) will be showing a 90's computerised ham radio station, complete with packet-radio, meteorological HF teletype and amateur slow-scan television, weather satellite image reception etc. Old PC's, Spectrums and maybe others will be on display.
[Saturday & Sunday]Matt Evans
A random pick of 32-bitters from the golden 1988-1991 era 😁, such as SGI Indigo, Acorn R140 RISC iX machine, HP Apollo, and Mac SE/30 running A/UX
[Saturday & Sunday]…maybe even driving the Roland plotter…
Keep checking back for updates! If you'd like to be involved please email tony@computinghistory.org.uk - almost all the tables are now taken, but we might be able to squeeze more people in - and it would be great to have your details for other events we do over the year. Remember - All proceeds go to support our Computing Museum! |
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