URI: 

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                               └┘ └─┘ ┘  ┘  └ └┘└┘  2023
                               R E T R O S P E C T I V E
       
       
       ============================================================================
       I am trying to type this up whilst the post-con excitement is still somewhat
       fresh on my mind, before my mind settles back into it's normal routine mode.
       ============================================================================
       
                            I'll break this down day-by-day:
       
       
                           .================================.
        .------------------|  Wednesday, September 6, 2023  |--------------------.
        |                  .================================.                    |
        . Wednesday was basically load in  &  pack up day. The entire week up to .
          this point was (very) last-minute prep. A lot of last-minute bug-fixes
          in the BBS server code, and messing with modems trying to figure out a
          way to make modem dial-in work.
       
                          .================================.
        .-----------------|   Thursday, September 7, 2023  |---------------------.
        |                 .================================.                     |
        | Normally we drive over on thursday & check into the hotel so we can be |
        . there right when the venue opens on friday AM for setup, but this year .
        that was going to be a little tricky because the people who normally watch
        our dog weren't available,  which meant that my wife could not stay at the
        hotel with me. Since I don't drive, she'd have to drop me off & drive back
        however that didn't work out either, as the hotel wouldn't let us arrive a
        day later. We pleaded on the phone to no avail. No late check-in or you're
        considered a no-show.  I reckon they were probably very busy with the show
        going on.  We weren't staying at the venue hotel  like we normally do, but
        instead had to settle for a nearby hotel, as the venue hotel was booked up
        by the time silent700 confirmed everything was still happening at the same
        place.  Not a huge deal,  but with my wife not being able to stay,  and me
        not driving,  it meant I'd have to use taxi services / uber / whatever,...
        Anyhow, long story short, we decided to drive over late thursday night and
        have my wife sleep at the hotel with me overnight,  and then she'd drop me
        off on friday morning to let me unload all the stuff in the car,  and then
        she'd drive back. So that's what we did on thursday. Finished packing, and
        around midnight we left for Chicago.  It was about a 2:30 hr drive,  so we
        arrived at the hotel around 2:30 AM.  Checked in, went to bed, try and get
        as much sleep as possible.
       
                          .================================.
        .-----------------|    Friday, September 8, 2023   |---------------------.
        |                 .================================.                     |
        . We wake up,  head down,  hotel breakfast looks way busy. We decided to .
        skip it. We drove down to the nearest dunkin donuts,  got us some coffee &
        breakfast there,  and then made our way to the VCFMW venue.  On our way to
        the venue, I asked on IRC if we were good to unload, but no reply. When we
        pulled into the back loading/unloading area,  a lot of people were already
        busy unloading, so that answered that question ;)  - We parked and I begun
        to unload the car.  This year, my table was at the far end of hall D, near
        the shadytel central office.  This is convenient, because I needed several
        phone lines set up, and Joe was going to set me up with a T1 internet line
        - My dream of the 90's finally comes true, ha! - This year I did not bring
        a cart, mostly because the car was full, and I couldn't fit one ;)  -  But
        since  many people were already unloading,  this also meant that there was
        no carts available for me to use. I could have just waited,  but I decided
        not to, because I wanted the max. time available for working on getting my
        funky modem setup working. So unloading by hand it was. I was definitively
        feeling it after emptying the car. My arms felt like floppy noodles by the
        end, hahaha - Retro computers and 20" sgi crt monitors are not light!  But
        it all worked out in the end,  and soon enough,  I had my little area full
        of STUFF. My wife left, as she had to go check on our puppydog asap. and I
        started my long process of getting everything set up.  I was in an area of
        tables that were sort of set up in a U shape,  there was initially 2 power
        feeds for the section.  Also in my section was Anthony Bolan, representing
        IrixNet.  Needless to say, all of our Sgi gear combined was drawing enough
        power  to pop the breakers  a bunch of times.  We also started out the day
        with only 90-something volts on the outlets,  instead of 110V,  which most
        machines were OK with, except for my purple indigo2, which froze up. After
        inquiring about it, I learned that they were splitting up a 240V line into
        2 feeds, and one side got an over-voltage,  where-as the other side got an
        under voltage. They had to disconnect  the power a while to fix this,  and
        soon after the power  would go out a bunch more times,  of course, because
        of the aformentioned overdrawing of all the Sgi gear. It took us some time
        to figure out the appropriate balance of splitting up the load between the
        multiple power feeds.
        This year my table consisted of the Indigo2 doing mostly nothing,  the Sgi
        Octane acting as a terminal server for the honeywell terminal, and next to
        it,  the panasonic luggable (8088) running kermit to talk over serial with
        the octane. Unfortunately I ran into an issue with the honeywell terminal.
        While it displayed the login prompt correctly, and you could attempt login
        - after logging in,  the getty process handling the terminal on Irix would
        just freeze. I never did end up figuring out why, so I ended up leaving it
        off for most of the show unfortunately.  Then I had a boring old Pentium I
        pc running win98, with mtelnet in use as BBS client for the VCFMW BBS. And
        that is another thing I got working only last minute.
        The whole BBS setup was kind of cool.  The local phone system was provided
        by shadytel midwest,  the "phone company" for the show.  Their tables were
        set up right across from me.  A meridian was running everything,  and  for
        network access they ran me a T1 line. I had 3 phone lines set up.  One for
        the payphone, one for the BBS dial-in, and one for wardialing out.  I made
        use of all three lines. Being in the Phr34k z0ne, the payph0ne got quite a
        lot of use. There also were quite a few dial-ins into the BBS,  and if you
        look at the userlist you may recognize some names from rogueserver.com and
        the PLA (phonelosers), including RBCP himself. Yes, the PLA was there too,
        accross from me,  next to the shadytel co. and the analog phone switch.  I
        used to listen to the PLA stuff even way back in the 90's, so meeting them
        was really cool. They let me leech a bunch of their stuff,  like stickers,
        pins, a cd, flyers, etc,... Really nice folks. And of course,  I could not
        resist making a few prank calls.  Anyway, in the end,  I only had just got
        everything working (somewhat), and silent700 announced  on the PA that  it
        was time to close up for the night. I didn't really hang around,  as I was
        exhausted.  I got  an uber back to  the hotel and pretty  much immediately
        passed out.
                          .================================.
        .-----------------|  Saturday, September 9, 2023   |---------------------.
        |                 .================================.                     |
        . Wakey wakey, alarm goes off, I hop in the shower, get dressed, proceed .
        downstairs,  get coffee from  the hotel breakfast,  but it was too busy to
        get food, drank my coffee, uber back to the vcfmw venue... and as the uber
        car is pulling  into the lot,  into view comes this huge crowd waiting  to
        get in. So many people. It looked like as if they were waiting to get into
        a concert or something.  Half awake I stroll past the crowd waiting at the
        converence hall  enterance and go through the hotel  enterance and proceed
        to the bistro where I got some real breakfast, and soon enough they let us
        and everyone else in. The fact that vendors and the general public got  in
        at the same time was a  little bit problematic,  because trying to get all
        your machines set up again and connected to the  right things with  crowds
        swarming around you is not exactly trivial.  I get a bit overwhelmed some-
        times in large crowds. And then also trying to think to get things working
        is hard. That was kind of the theme for Saturday morning, really,  because
        after I got everything  working,  it wasn't long before the power gremlins
        came back, and I had to start over.  If it wasn't power,  it'd be ethernet
        going out, or the phones (that only happened 2x).  All of that wouldn't be
        a big deal, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm an idiot and didn't bring a
        plug&play exhibit. It was like 30min of set-up every time. To make matters
        worse,  if the network would drop,  ssh to sdf would disconnect,  and then
        the terminals would  drop to a shell.  I caught one kid typing `rm -fr /`,
        and I'm like... don't do that? .. haha  - He wasn't really going to do it,
        he said, but that doesn't really matter, because it basically meant that I
        couldn't leave my table, and had to watch the whole setup to make sure the
        network didn't drop. However, in spite of that, I had a lot of fun and had
        a really good time. It was fun to be in the phr34k z0ne and near other Sgi
        enthousiasts helped as well.
       
          <dialtone... dtmf tones dialing 2032>
       
          - "Hello"
              - "yes?"
          - "Are you a phone loser?"
              - "erm... yes?"
          - "Do you have phones?"
              - "yes"
          - "I like phones."
              - *passes phone* "Here, it's for you.".....:pause:....."hello?"
          - "Hi. Are you a phone loser?"
              - "Yes, what do you want?"
          - "Phones. Do you have phones? I like phones"
       
          <some bits of back & forth conversation I forgot>
       
              - "LISTEN YOU LITTLE PUNK, DO NOT CALL HERE AGAIN OR I AM CALLING
                 THE POLICE!"
       
          <dialtone>
       
        At one point  in the afternoon Jeri Ellsworth  strolled past my booth  and
        started messing with the payphone.  I struck up a brief conversation about
        the Tilt5 AR stuff,  as I had been thinking about getting their SDK to try
        and make it work with the Eternal game engine  I've been working on.  That
        was unexpected and neat. She said they'd demo it at the bistro area later.
       
        Big thanks to jasmaz who helped me watch my table several times throughout
        the show! --
       
        I also brought a Personal Iris which was given to me by my friend Kahn who
        also was there with me. It had been sitting in my office for a year, and I
        hadn't even tried to turn it on yet. That's how busy of a year it has been
        haha  - Josh who was with Andrew from Irixnet was really excited about it,
        and we ended up selling it to him for $50  ( and an extra $50 next year if
        he doesn't get it working hahaha ) -  it was so much fun to meet him.  The
        enthousiasm of everyone  at the show is  very infectious.  And I know when
        I'm out of bandwidth - as such it's better for the machine to go to  some-
        one who will actually do something with it.
       
        At  the  end of the  show on Saturday,  I stuck around a  bit and ended up
        chatting a bit with someone  (I'm sorry, I forgot your name)  who said his
        dad  started a new  vintage computer show in Indiana,  called IndyClassic.
        ( https://indyclassic.org )  - this show is in April,  and I guess it's on
        it's second year. It's a similar distance from me as VCFMW,  so I actually
        might hit it up this year.
       
        Left the venue around midnight, and like the day before pretty much passed
        out immediately.
       
                          .================================.
        .-----------------|   Sunday, September 10, 2023   |---------------------.
        |                 .================================.                     |
        . Similar routine as Saturday morning, but this time the hotel bfast was .
        less crowded,  so I _did_  manage to get some grub there this time around.
        Overall,  this day was  a lot less busy.  My wife joined us at around 10am
        and we spent most of the remaining time just sitting at my table chatting,
        which was also nice.
       
        <dialtone>
        <dtmf sounds dialing 2033>
       
         - (Imitating an elderly person, poorly) "Hello?"
            - "Hello!"
         - "A young gentleman gave me this number and said you could help me fix
            my computer."
            - "Have you seen my mommy?"
         - "Ehhhh no, I have not seen your mommy, can you fix my computer?"
            - "I lost my mommy."
         - "That's most unfortunate,... listen, can you help me with my computer?"
            - "No, hang on, let me give you the other guy, I love you!"
         - "Okay... "
            - "Hi. I'm the other guy."
         - "Hi, can you fix my computer?"
            - "I love you..."
         - "Okay,.. that's a bit of a weird thing to say,.. I'm calling because
            some young gentleman gave me this number and said you can fix my
            computer, can you help me?"
            - "I mean, when I say I love you, I'm saying it kind of in a similar
               way like when they say Jesus loves you, you know, it's that kind
               of love."
         - "Oh... I see.... right... ok.... but... can you fix my computer?"
            - "What kind of computer is it?"
         - "Oh I don't know, it's like,... a tower..."
            - "What's wrong with it?"
         - "I click the 'E' to get to the internet and then like nothing.."
            - Have you seen a show called "Happy Days?"
         - "Yes, I have."
            - "You know, the Fonz, he's got a little technique called
              "percussive maintenance"..."
         - "Oh yes, I am familiar with it, hang on, let me get a hammer,..."
           < Metal banging sounds>
           "It's still broken. Now it won't turn on."
            - "Holdup, let me get you another guy".
            - "Hi, this is the other guy. Have you seen my mommy? I lost my mom!"
         - "No, I have not seen your mom."
            - "Well, should I go turn myself in? You know, to the mall security?"
         - "What? Turn yourself in? Have you committed a crime?"
            - "No, no, I just lost my mommy, I mean, they might be able to help me
               find my mommy."
         - "Oh.... I see. Yeah, you should probably do that."
            - "Okay, I have to go. I love you, bye"
       
         <dialtone>
       
         Come 3PM I started tearing down, again didn't wait for an available cart
         so I just hand-carried  it all back to the car,  although at least  this
         time around I didn't  have to carry a  Personal Iris back. :)  I hope it
         found a good home.
       
         (Forgot to mention, on sunday we did get in before the crowds, 
          which helped a lot!)
       
       
       
         A big thank you to every one who made this event possible, and a special
         thank you to the ShadyTel Midwest phone company. May the undisclosed fees
         they charge forever remain undisclosed.
       
       
   DIR  Pictures kindly provided by my friend Kahn.
       
       THE END
       
       
       Editorial note: I forgot to mention that unfortunately Jeri's AR demo
       didn't end up happening because the Tilt5 people decided to get into 
       drinks instead, hahaha :)