Re: Retrofest UK 2025. May 31st / June 1st
Posted: Tue Jun 03, 2025 11:53 am
It was a fun event - I went with my youngest daughter who has just finished her Computer Science degree at Southampton Uni. I wanted to see her reaction to the old tech. Amusingly, she was most taken by Adventure on a VAX (I think it was a VAX?). She also played PacMan for the first time in her life - on an Oric Atmos!
Her take on the event afterwards - "I thought you were obsessive about old computers, Dad. I was wrong, you're an amateur!"
It was very nice to meet Stephen and his partner as they were setting up the train track and controller. Sorry I did not get to say goodbye - you were deep in conversation with somebody at the time and I did not want to interrupt.
Some other really interesting exhibits: Stephen's neighbour with the Casio calculators that he programmed to do fun stuff, the Alice 8000 computer, one of only 12 known to exist and with a fascinating backstory, the QL (of course) and the Thor, the Swindon Retro computing museum's 1990s dial up internet (running off a time appropriate PC, dial up modem, telephone exhcange and a server hosting web sites from that era - my daughter was horrified at the "speed" at which plain text pages rendered). Acorn remakes, new SD card interfaces for the CPC, new magazines from Pixel... so much to look at and discuss. The place was crowded and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves
Her take on the event afterwards - "I thought you were obsessive about old computers, Dad. I was wrong, you're an amateur!"
It was very nice to meet Stephen and his partner as they were setting up the train track and controller. Sorry I did not get to say goodbye - you were deep in conversation with somebody at the time and I did not want to interrupt.
Some other really interesting exhibits: Stephen's neighbour with the Casio calculators that he programmed to do fun stuff, the Alice 8000 computer, one of only 12 known to exist and with a fascinating backstory, the QL (of course) and the Thor, the Swindon Retro computing museum's 1990s dial up internet (running off a time appropriate PC, dial up modem, telephone exhcange and a server hosting web sites from that era - my daughter was horrified at the "speed" at which plain text pages rendered). Acorn remakes, new SD card interfaces for the CPC, new magazines from Pixel... so much to look at and discuss. The place was crowded and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves