[00:00.000 --> 00:05.100]  So, I was able to catch up.
[00:05.180 --> 00:06.020]  Good afternoon, everyone.
[00:07.580 --> 00:12.760]  This is Retro Computing 1300 Area A on Saturday.
[00:13.820 --> 00:21.160]  Not going to talk very much, just remember the lockpicking is available on the second floor starting at 2 o'clock.
[00:21.560 --> 00:23.220]  We'll be going until 5 o'clock.
[00:23.500 --> 00:25.800]  Barry and all those folks will be down there to check it out.
[00:25.940 --> 00:29.220]  Also, DVDs are available of every talk a couple of minutes after every talk ends.
[00:29.220 --> 00:30.320]  Ten bucks a pop.
[00:31.460 --> 00:34.880]  Retro Computing, number 121, Sam Nitzberg.
[00:41.100 --> 00:42.300]  Hi, welcome to HOPE.
[00:42.760 --> 00:44.620]  This is our Retro Computing panel.
[00:44.880 --> 00:45.980]  Something we enjoy doing.
[00:46.600 --> 00:48.660]  And I'm Sam Nitzberg.
[00:48.820 --> 00:50.120]  I've got a little background in retro.
[00:51.500 --> 00:53.640]  Apple 1s, did a lot of work with that way back.
[00:53.760 --> 00:54.940]  A little system 370s.
[00:55.240 --> 00:57.460]  A few other experimental little projects.
[00:57.760 --> 01:01.540]  We have here Richard Cheshire, also known as the Cheshire Catalyst.
[01:01.840 --> 01:04.000]  He's got some very interesting tales to tell.
[01:04.640 --> 01:06.340]  And he's well-earned his reputation.
[01:06.840 --> 01:08.440]  I'll let him speak for himself.
[01:08.780 --> 01:15.280]  We're also privileged to have Mr. Jason Scott here today, who did a well-known and well-acclaimed BBS documentary.
[01:15.280 --> 01:19.880]  And Salaam Ismail from the Vintage Computer Festival and also works with Vintage Tech.
[01:20.040 --> 01:21.540]  He's the principal, I believe.
[01:21.840 --> 01:23.000]  Will be in shortly.
[01:23.400 --> 01:25.240]  I'd also like to say something.
[01:26.280 --> 01:29.500]  We do have an exhibit up March.
[01:29.740 --> 01:36.740]  The Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyist Group has put up an exhibit of retro computing and Mr. Evan Koblitz.
[01:36.840 --> 01:37.460]  Is Evan here?
[01:38.360 --> 01:38.800]  Wave.
[01:39.620 --> 01:46.540]  He'll be on the exhibit floor and you're welcome to come down and see his gear set up and a lot of worthwhile things to discuss.
[01:47.920 --> 01:50.480]  I'll do a brief presentation and I'll get on with our speakers.
[01:53.680 --> 01:55.460]  Not necessarily one of the best named systems.
[01:55.460 --> 01:57.680]  Moby Dick, actually, I'd like to discuss very briefly.
[01:57.800 --> 01:59.040]  It was actually an Army system.
[01:59.240 --> 02:00.420]  Better name for a Navy system.
[02:00.900 --> 02:02.220]  Mobile digital computer.
[02:02.880 --> 02:07.740]  Back in 1957, this was deployed in Germany by a few units.
[02:08.780 --> 02:10.500]  Had built-in air conditioning systems.
[02:10.840 --> 02:11.460]  Core memory.
[02:11.780 --> 02:13.280]  Room for expansion of core memory.
[02:13.900 --> 02:14.840]  A console.
[02:16.500 --> 02:17.840]  This is your digital computer.
[02:17.960 --> 02:19.480]  Bigger even than the old Kaypros.
[02:20.240 --> 02:22.400]  Not necessarily a pretty beast and it actually worked.
[02:22.580 --> 02:24.900]  It led towards some unified data standards.
[02:26.040 --> 02:27.400]  Kind of an interesting little machine.
[02:30.500 --> 02:35.740]  Way back, I believe the original Apple one was around $666 if you were fortunate enough to get one.
[02:36.140 --> 02:37.840]  Eight-bit computing at its finest.
[02:38.260 --> 02:39.860]  Other people have other flavors they prefer.
[02:41.440 --> 02:42.660]  Very interesting machine.
[02:43.020 --> 02:44.000]  Eight-bit processor.
[02:44.400 --> 02:46.640]  Nothing like the multi-hundred pin units you get now.
[02:46.920 --> 02:47.440]  Low heat.
[02:47.820 --> 02:48.640]  Low dissipation.
[02:49.240 --> 02:50.520]  Simple instruction sets.
[02:54.440 --> 02:58.320]  Other machines weren't necessarily as pretty, even though we like to think of everything in the pure perfect.
[02:58.920 --> 03:04.400]  For eight and a half thousand dollars, you get a 20-meter machine not too long ago with a Tandy badge on it.
[03:05.020 --> 03:06.100]  Even had a hard drive.
[03:09.280 --> 03:12.280]  A few topics we'll be discussing, similar to these.
[03:13.060 --> 03:17.340]  We have some of our old generation machines, some people really like, such as the Altairs.
[03:18.380 --> 03:28.540]  Mr. Vincent Briel, I believe, out of California, has actually built... this is a real Altair that's photographed, but he made a case where the front was a one-inch thick, custom-designed Logic Altair equivalent.
[03:29.060 --> 03:32.900]  It looks perfectly like an Altair, but your real computer went in the case.
[03:33.060 --> 03:35.980]  The actual Altair componentry is only the first inch thick.
[03:36.580 --> 03:42.260]  You swing open your Altair guts, and you've got your real machine behind it, but you've got a fully functioning Altair.
[03:43.000 --> 03:46.000]  Last time I spoke to him, about 80% of this opcode was done.
[03:46.220 --> 03:47.140]  Beautiful job.
[03:47.980 --> 03:49.860]  And it looks like an Altair.
[03:51.840 --> 03:57.120]  We'll be discussing the Vintage Computer Festival, and a few of you may know about the FidoNet, that might be briefly mentioned.
[03:59.860 --> 04:04.520]  Okay, I'll move on to our speakers, and shortly before the end, we're going to leave room for questions.
[04:05.480 --> 04:08.560]  First speaker I'll introduce is Richard Cheshire, Cheshire Catalyst.
[04:13.700 --> 04:14.340]  Thank you.
[04:14.840 --> 04:16.680]  I'm just an old-time phone phreak.
[04:16.860 --> 04:19.900]  I've been playing with computers since the Altair days.
[04:20.080 --> 04:25.300]  I actually sold them on 39th Street near 6th Avenue, a place called the Computer Store that we had going.
[04:25.600 --> 04:31.720]  It's interesting, the blackout of 1977, I was living on 28th Street at the time I walked into the store.
[04:32.380 --> 04:34.780]  I just held down the fort for the day the phone rang.
[04:34.940 --> 04:37.080]  Instead of the Computer Store, I answered the Abacus Store.
[04:39.460 --> 04:40.440]  Power was just out.
[04:40.580 --> 04:41.360]  The boss couldn't get any.
[04:41.480 --> 04:42.420]  We didn't sell anything that day.
[04:42.420 --> 04:43.800]  It was fun.
[04:44.900 --> 04:51.780]  We sold the Altair 8800 both as kit form and fully built up for business people.
[04:52.880 --> 04:59.260]  Mostly, though, people were going over to 30th Street in Madison, where Stan Viet had the Computer March of New York.
[05:00.080 --> 05:01.300]  Stan had apples.
[05:02.120 --> 05:04.220]  And apples had VisiCalc.
[05:05.500 --> 05:08.880]  VisiCalc was the tail that wagged the apple dog.
[05:09.580 --> 05:14.400]  Because VisiCalc was the first real spreadsheet program for personal computers of its day.
[05:15.120 --> 05:20.420]  Later when the IBM PC came along, Lotus emulated it with a program called 123.
[05:21.700 --> 05:25.140]  And the business market just shifted to IBM.
[05:27.760 --> 05:32.500]  We who played with computers, though, still found ways to play with this stuff.
[05:33.200 --> 05:35.200]  And that's what I and my buddies did.
[05:35.200 --> 05:39.060]  That's why I still make no real bucks out of this stuff, because I'm so busy just playing with this stuff.
[05:40.720 --> 05:44.780]  I'm not sure which tales from the past to dig into.
[05:45.060 --> 05:49.740]  But the topic of today that I'd suggest was bulletin board systems.
[05:50.960 --> 05:57.040]  The bulletin board systems were the first real outreach from personal computers to other people with personal computers.
[05:57.640 --> 06:00.440]  It's what first got hackers talking to each other.
[06:01.940 --> 06:05.720]  The university, of course, had the ARPANET in those days.
[06:06.160 --> 06:08.040]  And the university kids could talk to each other.
[06:08.440 --> 06:18.220]  But when people could get personal computers in their homes and hook them up to the phone lines with modems, the bulletin board phenomena started and took off for a while.
[06:18.520 --> 06:23.340]  About a ten or fifteen year period until the Internet just kind of wiped out the local bulletin boards.
[06:25.480 --> 06:29.220]  People would set these things up.
[06:29.360 --> 06:30.960]  People would dial in, log in.
[06:32.800 --> 06:37.500]  You got to be leaked if you could get onto a whole bunch of different bulletin boards and get accounts on them.
[06:38.680 --> 06:40.600]  It was just a whole phenomenon.
[06:41.500 --> 06:44.480]  People chatting with each other via teletype, basically.
[06:45.580 --> 06:50.840]  Your video terminal usually was just an old ADM3 that could only put text on the screen.
[06:51.340 --> 06:53.200]  And you can chat back and forth with people.
[06:54.740 --> 06:59.620]  It's hard to relate how much fun that was because you're doing it with technology and hardware.
[07:01.000 --> 07:03.040]  Today you've got your IRC chats.
[07:03.240 --> 07:04.160]  Everybody's on the Internet.
[07:04.480 --> 07:06.140]  I can even email my mother today.
[07:07.340 --> 07:16.240]  This, you know, my mother was the most anti-technology person in the world that I can actually email her today is true phenomenon.
[07:16.380 --> 07:17.200]  That she's on AOL.
[07:17.580 --> 07:21.640]  I stopped laughing at AOL people a long time ago because at least they were online.
[07:22.500 --> 07:24.160]  They were starting to learn.
[07:24.840 --> 07:30.160]  And half the battle is getting people to open up their minds to start the learning process with this stuff.
[07:30.780 --> 07:37.080]  So I'm grateful that the world has come around where it's not just geeks like me.
[07:38.560 --> 07:43.860]  That brings in its own problems, of course, because the geeks can talk to each other.
[07:44.020 --> 07:45.280]  We've got things to chat about.
[07:45.860 --> 07:49.040]  And we're not out to hurt anybody else with our technology.
[07:49.820 --> 07:55.240]  It's when it gets out into the real world with real world problems, that problems step in.
[07:55.640 --> 07:58.400]  But we were all too busy just having fun with this stuff.
[07:59.440 --> 08:10.060]  And so retrocomputing to me means going back to a day when I could set up my ADM3 and just dial around with my modem and find out who had what information on which bulletin boards.
[08:10.880 --> 08:13.440]  And it was just a lot of fun for me.
[08:16.220 --> 08:16.680]  Jason?
[08:16.920 --> 08:17.800]  Oh, Jason's going to go.
[08:17.880 --> 08:18.560]  Hello there, everyone.
[08:18.660 --> 08:19.520]  My name is Jason Scott.
[08:19.620 --> 08:20.800]  I run textfiles.com.
[08:21.020 --> 08:22.880]  I do occasional other things.
[08:22.900 --> 08:31.460]  And the reason I started a site called textfiles.com was because in 1998 I looked around to find out information about bulletin boards online.
[08:31.780 --> 08:40.000]  Specifically, I was looking for one specific bulletin board called Sherwood Forest 2, which was a huge phreak bulletin board located just up here around Saugerties.
[08:40.220 --> 08:45.020]  The bulletin board had all these wonderful text files where you could go on and learn about things.
[08:45.140 --> 08:57.420]  And this is where I first learned about something called the black box, which was basically this box that jammed up the voltage on a phone such that the equipment thought that the phone was still ringing, even though you could talk to somebody in between the really loud,
[08:57.520 --> 08:58.400]  unpleasant buzzing.
[08:58.960 --> 09:00.100]  But hey, you know, it was free.
[09:00.100 --> 09:03.100]  So there were a number of these text files.
[09:03.360 --> 09:06.400]  And by their very nature, these were text files that felt like spells.
[09:06.620 --> 09:16.380]  They felt like these little incantations where just with a couple special pieces of electronic equipment, you could have an effect on the world.
[09:16.520 --> 09:24.440]  You could either be able to freak people out, you could get things for free, you could learn things really quickly that other people didn't know.
[09:24.640 --> 09:30.080]  So these little text files were really important to me, and with it, of course, the community of people who were trading in them.
[09:30.800 --> 09:41.500]  So in 1998, being a decrepit 28-year-old, I decided to look back on my youth and my childhood and try to look up about Sherwood Forest 2 and found that I couldn't find anything about it, which was weird.
[09:41.620 --> 09:43.960]  Couldn't search it, couldn't find anything with it.
[09:44.080 --> 09:48.320]  And I started looking for other bulletin boards in the New York area and couldn't find anything on them.
[09:48.440 --> 09:51.400]  And I'm just like, OK, fine, BBSs, anything with that, and almost nothing.
[09:52.080 --> 09:54.420]  So at that point, I said, OK, something's wrong.
[09:54.420 --> 09:59.060]  So when I was a youth, I used to log on to these bulletin board systems and be a leech.
[09:59.860 --> 10:09.140]  And in being a leech, which is a concept that still sticks around today, the idea of I take everything and give you nothing, which works out really well for me.
[10:09.420 --> 10:18.120]  And so what happened was that I was an unbelievable leech, would log on to these bulletin board systems and download every single text file that I could find.
[10:18.220 --> 10:19.280]  And I kept them.
[10:19.480 --> 10:21.860]  I printed them out or I put them on floppy disks.
[10:22.060 --> 10:34.220]  So it was a small problem to go home, go to the basement, get the disks, the floppy disks, find out which ones weren't dead from being around for about 20 years, and then put them all up on a site.
[10:34.460 --> 10:37.460]  And textfiles.com was open for business.
[10:37.680 --> 10:42.740]  Started out with about 4,000, 5,000 text files.
[10:42.880 --> 10:44.040]  That grew to 20,000.
[10:44.360 --> 10:49.520]  And one of the things that it did was it became kind of a hot spot for people talking about bulletin boards.
[10:50.200 --> 10:55.240]  Now, when you had a bulletin board system, you have to understand that you just had a computer hooked up to a single phone line.
[10:55.360 --> 10:57.680]  How many people here used a bulletin board system before we start this?
[10:58.340 --> 10:59.240]  Weren't they great?
[11:00.480 --> 11:00.840]  Yeah!
[11:02.840 --> 11:03.520]  Just saying.
[11:04.260 --> 11:07.220]  Just so people don't go, oh, well, you know, they're talking about the bad times.
[11:07.360 --> 11:08.600]  These are actually pretty good times.
[11:08.780 --> 11:09.520]  They were slower.
[11:10.060 --> 11:16.320]  And that's the thing that people forget, is that every time you look back into computer history, what's often forgotten is the time.
[11:16.640 --> 11:35.420]  In a world where you can pull up in Windows XP a thumbnail view as an option to a directory of images, which represents a 12-hour process in the old days of pulling up each image to look at it and letting it render so that you could see the JPEG, which wasn't the girl you thought it was going to be.
[11:37.420 --> 11:39.280]  Now, you know, you don't even think of that.
[11:39.400 --> 11:44.200]  And then you kind of look back at time and you say, well, they only have, this bulletin board only has 800 images.
[11:44.440 --> 11:44.920]  Big deal.
[11:45.040 --> 11:45.460]  What was that?
[11:45.580 --> 11:49.960]  And the answer is, well, that represented several years of careful collecting by these people.
[11:50.220 --> 11:57.840]  Because with many bulletin boards, they were a single home computer hooked up to a phone line with a couple floppy disks where someone could call up on a person's number.
[11:57.940 --> 12:15.800]  And there was an entire sub-set of bulletin board systems that were started on people's phone lines without the permission of the main funders of the phone line and the creators of the new bulletin board system who would find out that they were getting calls all hours of the day and night.
[12:16.080 --> 12:18.120]  So they would have to get their own phone lines.
[12:18.380 --> 12:24.840]  So for some people, this represented a financial hardship to get a computer that you dedicated to just letting others come on and do stuff.
[12:25.080 --> 12:38.500]  So basically, with these computer bulletin board systems, over time, people could post messages, but it might take a month for a really good conversation thread to really kind of work itself out on a bulletin board.
[12:39.320 --> 12:44.820]  And there was a much stronger sense in one way of community because it was often location-based.
[12:45.000 --> 12:57.400]  Because, as you might recall, in the old days when you couldn't just pick up Skype and call everybody right now for free, calling people was a major deal if you were going to leave your county.
[12:57.880 --> 13:02.920]  So these bulletin boards often became really big hangouts of locals.
[13:03.120 --> 13:05.920]  So everyone could say, hey, let's all go to Shakey's Pizza.
[13:06.200 --> 13:07.700]  And everyone would immediately know.
[13:07.800 --> 13:08.960]  There wouldn't have to be any explanation.
[13:09.180 --> 13:13.540]  Whereas back now, you say that and someone's like, wow, that's nowhere near Japan.
[13:14.060 --> 13:23.100]  So the bulletin board communities that existed back then were extremely strong and extremely person-based.
[13:23.580 --> 13:28.700]  One of the things that's sometimes forgotten when you look at these old technologies is that many times they're community-based.
[13:28.700 --> 13:40.760]  It's sometimes not the fact that the mainframe works slowly than the fact that this gave you an opportunity to go outside and smoke with all your buddies and you really became good friends waiting for that stupid big box to finish what it was doing.
[13:41.760 --> 13:54.780]  So with the bulletin board text file collection that I had, textfiles.com, I decided wouldn't it be kind of neat to go through these bulletin board system numbers because at the time that was the lifeblood of a bulletin board system.
[13:54.900 --> 13:56.440]  Call my number, call my number, call my number.
[13:56.440 --> 13:59.140]  Now it's call my website, call my website, call my website, quote unquote.
[13:59.440 --> 14:03.020]  So people would leave their phone numbers in the text files.
[14:03.240 --> 14:07.040]  So did you enjoy reading about how to screw up McDonald's?
[14:07.120 --> 14:11.700]  Well, just call the Greek Inn or the Enchanted Toilet, which is one of my favorite names.
[14:12.940 --> 14:16.500]  Or, you know, the Utopia was another wonderful.
[14:17.200 --> 14:19.460]  And people would call them.
[14:19.620 --> 14:24.100]  But as a result, I had a list of hundreds and hundreds of phone numbers and I had this stupid idea.
[14:24.280 --> 14:27.980]  And as we all know, wonderful things sometimes come from stupid ideas.
[14:28.620 --> 14:32.940]  And my stupid idea was, wouldn't it be kind of neat to kind of collate all of them into one big list?
[14:33.800 --> 14:41.740]  So I went through and wrote some scripts and started pulling out all of these scripts of basically text file phone numbers.
[14:42.320 --> 14:46.880]  And ended up with a list of about 40,000 BBSs in the first week.
[14:47.020 --> 14:50.920]  And then I suddenly found that I had 100,000 and about 105,000 now.
[14:51.440 --> 14:53.400]  And I thought, well, that's kind of a cute project.
[14:53.640 --> 14:54.180]  Isn't that cute?
[14:54.320 --> 14:59.300]  Now you can go here and say, well, back then, here's the kind of boards that you would have been able to choose from in your town.
[14:59.300 --> 15:02.200]  What I didn't realize was that it was a honeypot for memories.
[15:02.640 --> 15:04.280]  People would search for their own name.
[15:04.660 --> 15:07.760]  I'm told of one of the people who I interviewed who told me he was dating a girl.
[15:08.260 --> 15:09.780]  Things were, you know, second, third date.
[15:09.980 --> 15:10.760]  Things were looking good.
[15:10.900 --> 15:15.140]  And one day she was on the phone and said, so, what was Castle in the Air?
[15:16.160 --> 15:19.820]  And that was a bulletin board system he'd run 22 years before when he was 11.
[15:21.660 --> 15:24.740]  For three months on his parents' phone line.
[15:25.700 --> 15:26.800]  And he was like, bleh.
[15:26.800 --> 15:30.340]  And so I get people who search for their names.
[15:30.400 --> 15:35.520]  And it's like, oh, by the way, hi, I remember from 1986 to 1988 when you ran this bulletin board system.
[15:35.860 --> 15:39.340]  And so people would write me and say, wow, that's really nice you're doing that.
[15:39.440 --> 15:41.600]  Some people would write, hey, stop doing that.
[15:41.740 --> 15:43.860]  But most people would write, hey, that's pretty cool.
[15:44.040 --> 15:46.960]  In fact, let me tell you a little story about the bulletin board system.
[15:47.280 --> 15:48.540]  And so people would write to me.
[15:48.600 --> 15:49.720]  And it wouldn't just be little stories.
[15:49.740 --> 15:54.300]  It would be massive, massive novels about everybody they met and everything they did.
[15:54.300 --> 16:00.340]  And the story started to blend, and I said, you know, it just occurs to me, I don't think anybody's really done a history on this.
[16:00.700 --> 16:08.740]  You know, they'll say basically there were huge mainframes, and at some point there was Alan Turing, and then later there was a phone near a modem, and then boom, Internet!
[16:10.240 --> 16:13.100]  So we thought, hey, okay, well, I bet you I could do something with this.
[16:13.180 --> 16:17.120]  Now, I had a film degree, which I didn't use, and I thought, you know, I think it's time to make that film.
[16:17.460 --> 16:35.640]  So off I sit on 2001, 200 interviews, thousands of miles later, I ended up finishing it, 2004, and traveled through Canada and the United States, and interviewed people who created bulletin board software, used bulletin boards, who had had their lives changed by bulletin boards,
[16:35.640 --> 16:42.280]  both positively and negatively, talked to hackers, talked to crackers, talked to people who just ran businesses for a while, had a lot of fun.
[16:42.520 --> 16:44.720]  And what I found was some amazing stories.
[16:44.980 --> 16:51.480]  So I ended up making a documentary called BBS The Documentary, because I didn't think there's going to be any others.
[16:52.860 --> 16:56.540]  So that's bbsdocumentary.com, if you want to browse all that stuff.
[16:57.220 --> 17:01.720]  And I ended up creating, you know, and because, you know, if you're going to do it, don't do it half-ass.
[17:02.280 --> 17:07.520]  It's five and a half hours long, in eight episodes, so you can piece it out.
[17:08.580 --> 17:19.340]  It covers FidoNet, ANSI art, it covers hacking, cracking, it covers the end of BBSs, and it covers something rather obscure, or not obscure to some of you.
[17:19.500 --> 17:23.280]  How many people here remember the Ark-Zip battle of 1988?
[17:24.660 --> 17:25.140]  Excellent.
[17:25.380 --> 17:31.420]  One of the men died drunk in a hotel room a couple years ago.
[17:31.640 --> 17:34.480]  One of them is simply a broken man from it.
[17:34.580 --> 17:37.500]  And I got to interview him, and I covered the whole story.
[17:37.680 --> 17:44.400]  And it's a very interesting story that when you type .zip at the end of compression, there are two broken families behind that story.
[17:44.640 --> 17:48.540]  And there's a lot of things where you have these human side to the technology.
[17:48.840 --> 17:55.860]  So when I do these, when I'm doing my work with textfiles.com and all these other things, I'm trying to find the human side of the story because that's where all the fun is.
[17:56.140 --> 18:02.840]  You know, it's not so much the fact that, you know, when you talk to somebody about the history, they don't go, oh, and then I was able to move this register over here.
[18:03.320 --> 18:04.860]  That was a prideful moment.
[18:05.200 --> 18:10.200]  A lot of times they'll say, I was able to move this register over to here, and that showed the hell out of Phil.
[18:11.500 --> 18:12.520]  Phil cried.
[18:13.600 --> 18:15.600]  So, you know, that's what you often find.
[18:15.700 --> 18:16.480]  It's just the human side.
[18:16.660 --> 18:26.240]  So I ended up...so anyway, so in terms of bulletin board systems, there's just a few interesting things that are worth keeping track of with that history that I'll mention.
[18:28.580 --> 18:43.120]  Certainly, from the early 80s onward, there was an amateur network called FidoNet, which was started by a crazy gay skate punk named Tom Jennings who had worked on, among other things, the Phoenix BIOS, and was one of the architects of that.
[18:43.420 --> 18:52.900]  And he went off and created a bulletin board system that could send messages to another bulletin board system, which sounds like a basic, understandable thing, but it really wasn't.
[18:53.540 --> 18:56.060]  It was like everyone was saying, well, it's going to cost all this money.
[18:56.160 --> 18:59.560]  And he basically came up first with a system where they could call each other and leave it.
[18:59.560 --> 19:00.660]  You should really pick that up.
[19:01.220 --> 19:08.200]  And you could leave messages and have it automatically overnight during the magic hour, call the wrong person and wake them up.
[19:08.500 --> 19:10.740]  But then eventually call the right person and leave the message.
[19:11.140 --> 19:27.440]  And this moved to an extremely complicated net node system that exists to this day, where hundreds of bulletin board systems, mostly in developing countries now, automatically call and route messages all through the world, all done using amateurs, all with people just on their computers.
[19:27.680 --> 19:29.760]  Sometimes they didn't have to join the main net.
[19:29.880 --> 19:33.020]  They could have their own little net of six computers that all made themselves redundant.
[19:33.540 --> 19:35.940]  You know, redundancy is something that we often lose now.
[19:36.180 --> 19:42.940]  There's often a lot of dedication with things to, uh, uh, have a website, and then you find out the hard way that that website is gone.
[19:43.200 --> 19:44.900]  And there's facilities to deal with it.
[19:45.020 --> 19:55.800]  But, you know, for everything where you have, like, USENET, which is existent on all these different computers, a lot of bulletin board system history is lost because that computer got turned into the thrown-out computer.
[19:56.400 --> 19:59.900]  So, you know, there's a lot of lost history that gets lost its way.
[20:00.060 --> 20:01.000]  Oh, go away.
[20:01.280 --> 20:18.480]  The, um, system, um, the, the, the one piece of trivia which I do want to give you is that, um, often when people are talking about bulletin board system history, they say, oh, there were, um, rocks and stones, and then there were mainframes, and people were doing something with networks,
[20:18.700 --> 20:21.660]  but then there was bulletin board systems, and then there was the Internet.
[20:22.140 --> 20:38.500]  Uh, I had the opportunity and the pleasure of talking to, um, uh, Ward Christensen, who created Xmodem, uh, a really nice crypt program, which nobody knows about, and a, um, basically what became the first dial-up bulletin board system.
[20:38.600 --> 20:44.880]  And what he tells me is he created Xmodem, which was the old days, you see, when you sent something across phone lines, it sucked.
[20:45.340 --> 20:47.000]  So, it would get corrupted.
[20:47.000 --> 20:55.840]  If you can just imagine blasting a text file down a dirty phone line to pick it up on the other side, and hoping at the other end it becomes Pac-Man.
[20:56.820 --> 21:00.120]  Um, you know, everything that could possibly go wrong could go wrong.
[21:00.260 --> 21:08.900]  So, what Ward did was, he was inspired reading about various things, various ideas, to come up with a protocol where it would go, hey, here's some data.
[21:09.080 --> 21:09.560]  Did you get it?
[21:10.400 --> 21:12.260]  Sounds simple, but he did it.
[21:12.440 --> 21:14.000]  And created this thing called Xmodem.
[21:14.100 --> 21:17.000]  And it just happened to be because he was using it to transfer CPM.
[21:17.360 --> 21:22.360]  Because he had to get it onto a new machine that didn't have any CPM on it, didn't have an operating system.
[21:22.560 --> 21:34.500]  So, he kind of wrote this thing so that they could blast it into a tape recorder, and then blast it back out again into a modem, and allow the thing to, uh, because he only had one modem, to install this operating system.
[21:34.640 --> 21:39.380]  And because of that, he made it 128 byte blocks, which turned out to be just what he needed.
[21:39.600 --> 21:40.860]  So, he creates Xmodem.
[21:41.060 --> 21:42.580]  Well, this thing goes everywhere.
[21:42.580 --> 21:44.120]  By the way, it was originally called modem.
[21:44.200 --> 21:45.920]  You can imagine how much fun that had caused.
[21:46.200 --> 21:52.660]  So, Xmodem was so cool that some guys on the ARPANET said, man, you are a pimp bitch.
[21:52.920 --> 21:55.400]  We're gonna give you access to the ARPANET.
[21:55.400 --> 22:00.460]  So, they, they blew, uh, uh, Ward Christensen onto the ARPANET for free.
[22:00.720 --> 22:02.520]  Just for being Ward Christensen.
[22:02.720 --> 22:04.440]  So, they were doing them back in 76, 77.
[22:05.240 --> 22:09.940]  So, he's on there, and everyone's like, you know, these new microcomputers are kind of cool.
[22:10.220 --> 22:14.700]  It'd be kind of cool if someone could phone it and leave a message.
[22:15.460 --> 22:16.600]  Wouldn't that be neat?
[22:17.320 --> 22:19.600]  And then they all just sit around and stare at each other and be fat.
[22:19.780 --> 22:24.480]  So, he basically said, come on!
[22:24.860 --> 22:33.860]  And so, he sat down with a gentleman named Randy Seuss, who was the hardware guy, who, um, basically said, so what do we need this thing to do?
[22:33.980 --> 22:35.080]  And we need, how do we do it?
[22:35.140 --> 22:36.280]  And let's do it, let's do it, let's do it.
[22:36.340 --> 22:39.820]  And they wanted to bring it to their computer club, and he said, no, that'll never get done.
[22:40.020 --> 22:45.740]  So, they went off and they did this, and they created it in about two weeks, but nobody would believe it was created in two weeks, so they officially called it a month.
[22:46.500 --> 22:49.600]  So, in fact, it's February 1st, but nobody knows that.
[22:49.700 --> 22:53.120]  It's February 16th is the official date, that bulletin board systems.
[22:53.120 --> 22:57.280]  February 16th, 1978 is the first day that bulletin board systems were functioning.
[22:57.640 --> 23:00.280]  And I'll mention quickly how their auto-answer work.
[23:00.380 --> 23:02.780]  Because again, this is a basic, well, now we're losing auto-answer, right?
[23:03.040 --> 23:03.840]  Yes, we are.
[23:04.040 --> 23:14.520]  But, you know, modems would answer the phone and then say, hey, but that's not how they did it, because they didn't really have an auto-answer routine.
[23:14.520 --> 23:22.200]  So, what they did instead was they hooked something up to the phone line, so that if they noticed that the voltage of the phone rang, it would reboot the system.
[23:23.040 --> 23:30.300]  And since the system was relatively small, it would load the microcode fast enough and assume that when it got reboot, somebody was calling it an answer.
[23:31.460 --> 23:34.100]  So, basically, that's how they hacked auto-answer.
[23:34.300 --> 23:38.160]  Now, on Atari computers, they did it via the joystick port watching.
[23:38.760 --> 23:42.000]  So, when it said, somebody's pressing to the left, it must be a phone call.
[23:43.140 --> 23:46.120]  So, you know, people think that it just starts out a certain way.
[23:46.240 --> 23:46.800]  It really doesn't.
[23:47.400 --> 23:48.280]  How am I doing for time?
[23:48.360 --> 23:48.920]  Have I killed everyone?
[23:49.940 --> 23:51.160]  Am I doing okay?
[23:52.040 --> 23:52.900]  All right, we'll keep going.
[23:52.960 --> 23:54.680]  All right, we'll go with there.
[23:54.940 --> 24:02.040]  So, in doing the bulletin board system documentary, another group that I covered were ANSI artists of the 1990s.
[24:02.420 --> 24:04.460]  And now this is, again, this is the thing.
[24:04.600 --> 24:07.300]  If I call out these names, just raise your hand, you go, of course, okay?
[24:07.300 --> 24:08.580]  Let's go with ice.
[24:09.320 --> 24:09.800]  Boom.
[24:10.380 --> 24:10.860]  Acid.
[24:11.660 --> 24:12.140]  Excellent.
[24:13.160 --> 24:17.880]  And so, these two groups, ice and acid, were the two big ones.
[24:18.020 --> 24:29.420]  Basically, on PC computers, they implemented a poor subset of this standard that was around from the 1970s that allowed you to do bold blinking color if you were capable of it and so on.
[24:29.600 --> 24:32.360]  Basically, what a lot of people think of as VT100 codes or whatever.
[24:32.360 --> 24:43.520]  Well, Microsoft, showing great prescience in their later work, implemented a poor subset of it in a later version of DOS called ANSI.SYS.
[24:43.680 --> 24:55.700]  And the reason it was called ANSI.SYS was because it was implementation of American National Standards Institute to number X, I think it was X, X something dashed 1979.
[24:56.040 --> 24:58.380]  In other words, one of their many thousands of standards.
[24:58.560 --> 24:59.700]  Let's call it ANSI.
[25:00.460 --> 25:06.580]  It's like coming out with a new car part and calling it car.sys.
[25:06.580 --> 25:13.460]  So basically ANSI.SYS was a part of it which would allow them to use color.
[25:13.720 --> 25:20.840]  And on the PC, there were slightly, you know, with ASCII, which will bury you, there's basically the first 128 characters.
[25:20.840 --> 25:25.040]  And then it's this chaotic, anarchic freefall with all the rest of the microcomputers.
[25:25.160 --> 25:26.660]  So on one, you get a smiley face.
[25:26.760 --> 25:27.660]  Another one, you get a block.
[25:27.940 --> 25:29.280]  Another one, you get another A.
[25:29.500 --> 25:31.000]  You know, we just don't really know what you're going to get.
[25:31.040 --> 25:36.980]  Well, on the PC, you've got a solid character, a slightly dotty character, and a couple slashes, and a few other things.
[25:39.960 --> 25:49.780]  So, destroying the basic concept of the modem, which is to allow people of varying different computers to all communicate without having to worry about this shit, they started putting in special things.
[25:49.780 --> 25:53.880]  So it would only work on a Commodore 64, and it would only work on an Atari, and it would only work on a PC.
[25:54.080 --> 25:55.220]  So we'll stick with the PC group.
[25:55.400 --> 26:01.540]  The PC group had basically ANSI.SYS, and they could send the control code over, so suddenly you could draw a little house.
[26:02.040 --> 26:10.100]  Not a great house, but you could draw a little tiny house that said, welcome to the telescoping head BBS, and you would have the little house with a little telescope.
[26:10.260 --> 26:10.440]  Boom.
[26:10.700 --> 26:11.900]  And this was a big deal.
[26:12.020 --> 26:12.920]  But they were very basic.
[26:13.020 --> 26:13.980]  They were very basic drawn.
[26:16.140 --> 26:20.560]  You know, two-dimensional, kind of, you know, like, put your hand down and make the turkey kind of crap.
[26:21.900 --> 26:30.860]  So, what happens is that in the early, late, well, late 80s, early 90s, there starts to be some artists like Ebony Eyes and so on, who start creating pretty good art.
[26:30.860 --> 26:32.900]  You know, you start saying, okay, is this just a bunch of blocks?
[26:33.360 --> 26:39.300]  And all of them are 80 by 25, because that's what you can edit in, using a program called The Draw by Ian Davis, who doesn't want to talk to me.
[26:40.340 --> 26:44.940]  And the later programs would allow you to scroll.
[26:45.420 --> 26:47.000]  Now, keep in mind, you had no way to look at it.
[26:47.060 --> 26:50.820]  You just had to kind of, it's like, you know, it's like doing a painting by using a little magnifying glass.
[26:50.820 --> 26:52.600]  You can't quite see the whole painting.
[26:52.900 --> 26:59.880]  Well, so what these kids started to do, starting with a group called Aces of ANSI Art, was let's make some, and why people would do this?
[26:59.980 --> 27:00.740]  Some people wonder.
[27:00.900 --> 27:03.720]  But basically, these kids said, we're going to kick some ass with computer art.
[27:04.360 --> 27:08.200]  And we're going to make little graphic images using these characters.
[27:08.680 --> 27:11.760]  And initially, it starts out being, like I said, simple little houses.
[27:11.760 --> 27:17.440]  But then, it's like Marvel characters rendered with 500 lines, taking them two months.
[27:17.760 --> 27:22.220]  And at some point, they can't keep track of all the stuff that's coming out every month.
[27:22.460 --> 27:29.720]  And so, Radman of Acid creates something called the Art Pack, where they basically say, so for October, here's our acquisition of all the cool art this month.
[27:29.780 --> 27:30.400]  Here's another one.
[27:31.060 --> 27:41.600]  And by having a group called Acid, which stands for ANSI Creators in Demand, and ICE, which stands for Insane Creators Enterprises, this, of course, starts competition, starts a scene.
[27:41.780 --> 27:43.880]  And when you have a scene, you have politics, you have anger.
[27:44.240 --> 27:45.860]  A lot of great things are started by anger.
[27:46.060 --> 27:52.760]  And you end up with a battle to create the best free art that you can get out there.
[27:52.880 --> 28:03.560]  And this thing rages for the early part of the 90s, where groups are releasing 100 pieces of art, all of them beautiful, trying to say, we're better than these other packs.
[28:03.700 --> 28:05.200]  And there are literally dozens of groups.
[28:05.200 --> 28:08.940]  Now, this is one of these things where you say, okay, well, why are you telling me this?
[28:09.340 --> 28:16.500]  And part of it is that it's kind of interesting to me how even on these little tiny scenes, these little tiny battles, which still rage today, right?
[28:16.600 --> 28:24.300]  I mean, you have these little things which happen in forums where somebody becomes famous because they posted a particularly disgusting image.
[28:24.440 --> 28:28.040]  And that disgusting image travels everywhere, and everyone remembers that image.
[28:28.420 --> 28:30.840]  You know, it's the threat of Goetze everywhere.
[28:31.440 --> 28:41.940]  And, you know, Goetze, as they say, you know, Goetze has its roots in, you know, these competitions to say, look, everyone, I've done something, I'm going to add something to it.
[28:42.240 --> 28:43.640]  Again, the human side.
[28:46.180 --> 28:47.560]  That was very odd, wasn't it?
[28:47.640 --> 28:47.840]  Yes.
[28:47.840 --> 28:51.700]  And just to mention one other group I've had to deal with.
[28:52.300 --> 29:02.160]  In, you know, when we think of where's groups now, all of us were watching a really bad version of a show, you know, on a shaky cam and stuff.
[29:02.940 --> 29:11.040]  You know, there you have a case where the activity done by the pirating group is either, A, they know somebody who can get them a copy of it and they give you the copy.
[29:11.700 --> 29:18.560]  Or, B, they can sneak a camera into a movie theater so you can watch, you know, Julia Roberts head blur back and forth for 20 minutes.
[29:19.680 --> 29:28.440]  But what used to be the case was with computer software, it was a major deal to find all the special copy protection that was put inside of a program.
[29:29.020 --> 29:32.000]  And in some cases, layers upon layers with dead ends.
[29:32.200 --> 29:41.440]  And so the problem is that the people who were creating it and the people who could break such software were about the same age with about the same experience in computers.
[29:41.440 --> 29:45.860]  So there was this interesting battle to take software, crack it down.
[29:46.180 --> 29:53.120]  And initially it was just simply to break, not so much to break protection, but the fact that with modems it took so long.
[29:53.120 --> 29:59.680]  Again, it could take you a few hours to transfer a 143k floppy from one Apple II to another.
[29:59.940 --> 30:06.040]  You set that sucker going and you went out and got a burger and when you got back, if you were lucky, you got Karotica.
[30:06.620 --> 30:06.920]  Maybe.
[30:07.480 --> 30:17.520]  So, one of the things that the cracking guys would do is they would crack it and figure out what part of the disk was just the program and crack it down to, you know, a 50k program.
[30:17.520 --> 30:23.460]  That saves you an hour, multiplied by hundreds of hours from all the people who are downloading it.
[30:23.580 --> 30:31.200]  So there was almost a skill set involved in it that was so worthy of pride that they would actually change the program to put their names on it.
[30:31.720 --> 30:36.040]  So they would say, hello, we're with the Buccaneers and we just cracked Crisis Mountain.
[30:36.460 --> 30:41.060]  And here you can, you know, call our bulletin board, which if you think about it is pretty crazy.
[30:42.160 --> 30:45.540]  You know, it's like, hey, here's this illegal copy of Star Wars.
[30:45.840 --> 30:46.760]  Write to me.
[30:48.540 --> 30:49.600]  But they did this.
[30:49.680 --> 30:51.000]  Call our bulletin board system.
[30:51.280 --> 30:58.200]  So these crackers have gone on to wonderful, you know, and of course their names were burned in my memory.
[30:58.340 --> 31:01.640]  We're talking 1200 Club, Black Bag Society, Crackowitz.
[31:02.040 --> 31:03.100]  Sorry, Crackovich.
[31:03.900 --> 31:07.380]  I had the pleasure, one of the nice effects of doing...
[31:07.380 --> 31:07.860]  Okay.
[31:08.220 --> 31:09.500]  I should shut up is what you're saying?
[31:09.500 --> 31:11.640]  Two more minutes before I shut up.
[31:12.100 --> 31:12.980]  Okay, we'll do that.
[31:13.820 --> 31:17.860]  I had the pleasure through my bulletin board system documentary and stuff.
[31:17.980 --> 31:19.160]  And this is one of the benefits.
[31:19.260 --> 31:24.160]  People say, so why do you spend all this time traveling around, talking to people, when you can probably just sit home, collect text files and be done with it.
[31:24.560 --> 31:27.420]  But through my work, I'm able to meet some really amazing people.
[31:27.580 --> 31:33.020]  I had the pleasure of spending an hour with Vinton Cerf, talking about bulletin boards, which he doesn't know much about, by the way.
[31:33.560 --> 31:34.920]  But he's friggin' Vinton Cerf.
[31:35.240 --> 31:36.320]  What the hell with f*cking Vinton Cerf?
[31:36.320 --> 31:42.880]  So I got to track down a lot of these crackers who now have families, who are living all over the place, who remember.
[31:42.940 --> 31:47.080]  And they'll just suddenly kick, and they're suddenly 12 years old again, figuring out how to crack Crisis Mountain.
[31:47.260 --> 31:53.280]  And there was one gentleman, I was down to two people left who I couldn't reach, that I couldn't find.
[31:53.380 --> 32:04.280]  One was BIOCAgent003, who was a great gentleman, and someone named Crackovich, who created the Cracking Tutorials, the Cracking Corner series, which was just this beautiful...
[32:04.280 --> 32:05.800]  I mean, this was a how-to file that...
[32:05.800 --> 32:06.280]  Shut up!
[32:06.440 --> 32:09.760]  That told you how to crack Apple II software.
[32:10.060 --> 32:11.540]  You know, it's one thing to say, we finished it.
[32:11.720 --> 32:13.180]  Trust us, we know how to rock.
[32:13.440 --> 32:16.480]  It's another thing to sit down with you and say, here's how I did it.
[32:16.580 --> 32:18.040]  You know, that's an important...
[32:18.040 --> 32:20.460]  You know, not everyone has that urge, and Crackovich did.
[32:20.740 --> 32:22.740]  So I made an attempt to find Crackovich.
[32:23.040 --> 32:28.060]  Crackovich contacted me through a double-blind system, because his son found it.
[32:28.660 --> 32:31.940]  I don't know Crackovich's name, where he's located.
[32:32.060 --> 32:34.980]  I simply know that he is in his 60s, and he runs an aerospace company.
[32:36.540 --> 32:42.140]  And he just simply doesn't want anyone to know, because he's the CEO of an aerospace company of some sort, I think.
[32:42.400 --> 32:43.340]  Maybe he's lying.
[32:44.920 --> 32:52.460]  But he told me how he had a friend, who was going through a really depressing time, who was quasi-suicidal.
[32:52.600 --> 32:54.360]  It just seemed like this friend had no motivation.
[32:54.780 --> 33:06.140]  And so Crackovich, wanting to do something for his friend, started to write the Cracking Corners series to say, well, okay, life seems kind of down right now, but you could do something illegal.
[33:08.120 --> 33:10.460]  And look how complicated it is to commit this crime.
[33:11.280 --> 33:12.480]  And let me show you how.
[33:12.680 --> 33:16.340]  And so he wrote this for his friend, and then turned them into this series.
[33:16.580 --> 33:18.080]  And that's the kind of stuff you just kind of lose.
[33:18.180 --> 33:19.080]  That's nowhere else, you know.
[33:19.100 --> 33:20.060]  I mean, he just tells me this stuff.
[33:20.560 --> 33:21.360]  You're tapping out?
[33:21.520 --> 33:21.740]  Okay.
[33:21.740 --> 33:23.460]  All right, so yeah, I fold.
[33:23.660 --> 33:24.380]  Thank you very much.
[33:33.180 --> 33:43.980]  By the way, Selim isn't going to tell you this, but one of the rules of life is that for everyone who thinks you're some crazy guy who's really into something, that person always personally knows someone who kicks his ass and makes him feel normal.
[33:44.780 --> 33:47.120]  Selim is my, makes me feel normal.
[33:47.920 --> 33:51.260]  And Jason also has a table downstairs on the exhibit floor.
[33:51.460 --> 33:53.300]  You can feel free to stop and say hello to him.
[33:53.840 --> 33:56.260]  And, um...
[33:56.260 --> 33:56.860]  Jason has.
[33:57.300 --> 33:58.540]  Selim's going to speak now.
[33:58.740 --> 34:06.520]  And just if anyone in the room has a CF to PC card format converter we could borrow for about two minutes, that'd be very helpful.
[34:06.760 --> 34:09.440]  But try to read a little CF card, do a little more projection.
[34:09.440 --> 34:11.540]  In the meantime, uh, here's Selim.
[34:12.420 --> 34:12.920]  Hi.
[34:14.320 --> 34:15.240]  Selim Ismail.
[34:15.800 --> 34:20.740]  And, uh, I'm, uh, uh, basically a computer collector.
[34:21.060 --> 34:29.420]  Um, um, well, I was able to, uh, turn, uh, basically create a career out of collecting old computers.
[34:29.740 --> 34:31.420]  And, um, this is how I did it.
[34:32.320 --> 34:36.940]  Uh, basically, uh, I grew up in the era that Jason did.
[34:37.360 --> 34:41.600]  Um, I modemed around, you know, called around to BBSs and stuff like that.
[34:41.880 --> 34:43.180]  Got active in the scene.
[34:43.420 --> 34:45.420]  I was, uh, in the Apple II world.
[34:45.940 --> 34:50.800]  I came in sort of late on the tail end of the decline of the great civilization.
[34:51.380 --> 34:56.880]  Where, you know, anarchy basically was, um, well, I mean, it was more anarchic than normal.
[34:57.040 --> 35:00.580]  But, uh, it was at the end of the BBS era, late 80s.
[35:00.580 --> 35:01.900]  I was the ramsacker.
[35:02.260 --> 35:06.280]  I, you know, did some pretty decent work, if I say so myself.
[35:06.560 --> 35:06.980]  Cracking.
[35:07.320 --> 35:07.720]  Cool.
[35:08.300 --> 35:10.480]  And, um, that was my thing.
[35:10.620 --> 35:14.400]  I, I, I engaged in all this modem warring stuff that Jason talked about.
[35:14.520 --> 35:22.620]  And it was, uh, you know, the flame wars and trading the, uh, the software and competing with other pirate groups.
[35:22.820 --> 35:35.200]  You know, so, you know, there's all these, uh, teenagers with way too much hormones running around, uh, you know, competing against each other to see who can, you know, inflict more economic damage on software companies than the other guy.
[35:35.400 --> 35:36.500]  It was really interesting.
[35:37.140 --> 35:48.260]  Uh, but basically, uh, at a certain point in time, you know, you, even though those days were not, you know, always as fond as you would remember them to be, uh, there's this nostalgic bent.
[35:48.300 --> 35:50.740]  And that's sort of what creates the computer collector.
[35:50.740 --> 35:58.840]  Uh, everybody at some point wants to go back to find their first computer that they had access to or that they used or owned.
[35:59.400 --> 36:01.020]  And that's sort of what got me into it.
[36:01.680 --> 36:12.480]  Um, uh, I was, uh, I remember one day, um, I was walking in a flea market and I walked by a stall with all these old eight bit computers from the eighties.
[36:12.480 --> 36:20.460]  And it was like a Commodore big 20 and Atari 800 and TI 99, all these computers that I couldn't afford when I was younger.
[36:21.300 --> 36:27.320]  And, um, and so I kind of, you know, I was checking them all out and I was just, I was like, you know, excited.
[36:27.540 --> 36:29.840]  It was just like, wow, I could have all of these.
[36:30.740 --> 36:38.620]  And so I kind of went around the corner and composed myself and then came back and, and, um, you know, asked the guy, well, how much do you want for all these?
[36:38.620 --> 36:41.560]  I was like, oh, those little computers, um, I don't know.
[36:41.960 --> 36:43.920]  Um, how about five bucks each?
[36:44.000 --> 36:45.520]  And I was like, sold.
[36:46.380 --> 36:48.240]  So I filled my trunk.
[36:48.440 --> 36:49.280]  I had a little Honda Civic.
[36:49.440 --> 36:56.080]  I filled my trunk with like 23 of these different machines, um, basically for a hundred bucks.
[36:56.880 --> 37:06.720]  And so I went home and I took them all out and lovingly cleaned them all up and tested each one and tinkered with the ones that weren't working, but I think most of them worked.
[37:07.680 --> 37:20.960]  Kind of, you know, messed around with them for a little while and then, um, lovingly packed them away in, in, uh, anti-static bags and, and bubble wrap and foam peanuts and put them in the boxes all nice and perfect and sort of set them aside.
[37:21.120 --> 37:24.220]  And so this was my collection for, uh, a while.
[37:24.340 --> 37:28.060]  I had computers that I'd accumulated from, uh, when I was younger.
[37:28.340 --> 37:30.560]  Um, there's, there's also, there's two types of computer collectors.
[37:30.740 --> 37:34.140]  There's the collector, you know, the active collector, and then there's the accumulator.
[37:34.520 --> 37:42.580]  So most people are at least accumulators, you know, you just, you buy a computer and when you upgrade, you don't get rid of the old one.
[37:42.720 --> 37:45.540]  It, it finds a new purpose or you just don't have the heart to throw it out.
[37:45.680 --> 37:49.040]  So, um, a true collector is the latter.
[37:49.140 --> 37:50.400]  You don't have the heart to throw it out.
[37:50.400 --> 37:58.400]  So, uh, first my collection started as an accumulation and then it became a collection, I guess, that, that day at the, uh, at the, uh, flea market.
[37:58.740 --> 38:02.180]  Um, but that was it for about, you know, uh, for a long time.
[38:02.340 --> 38:03.500]  I got involved in my work.
[38:03.640 --> 38:05.840]  I did telecommunications, software engineering.
[38:07.100 --> 38:14.480]  And, um, and then one day with this on the Internet, I saw a message, uh, on the USENET, uh, somebody posted.
[38:14.480 --> 38:19.900]  And, uh, said, if you are interested in old computers, I'm starting a mailing list called the Classic Computers Mailing List.
[38:19.960 --> 38:21.960]  And if you want to join, send me an email.
[38:22.100 --> 38:22.660]  And I thought, wow.
[38:23.380 --> 38:32.860]  You know, up until this point, I didn't realize there was other people out there who had this strange notion that, you know, holding on to ancient computers was, you know, somehow normal.
[38:33.240 --> 38:38.500]  Um, I had always justified it by saying that, um, you know, oh, one day I'm gonna start a computer museum.
[38:38.640 --> 38:42.260]  You know, my mom used to always bug me about all the computers I had piled up in my room.
[38:42.300 --> 38:43.380]  Oh, why don't you sell some of these?
[38:43.440 --> 38:44.080]  You don't need all these.
[38:44.080 --> 38:46.960]  And I said, well, mom, you know, some of these are classics.
[38:47.200 --> 38:49.740]  You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, um, they're gonna be museum pieces someday.
[38:51.300 --> 38:52.580]  And that's, this is true.
[38:52.820 --> 38:55.760]  They have actually literally become museum pieces.
[38:56.540 --> 39:02.700]  And, um, so when I found out that there was other people out there who thought the same way I did, I was like, wow, this is interesting.
[39:02.840 --> 39:06.820]  So I joined the mailing list and there was a core group of about 25 people originally.
[39:07.780 --> 39:09.020]  And, uh, it was great.
[39:09.180 --> 39:17.600]  It was just, it was nerd heaven because we would just sit there and just talk about the old days and talk about old computers and, and share stories and things like that.
[39:17.820 --> 39:25.440]  And, and, um, and it just kind of got me really interested in, you know, researching it further, studying it further.
[39:26.020 --> 39:34.100]  And so, um, I, I started to go out to, uh, uh, thrift stores and flea markets and electronic surplus shops.
[39:34.220 --> 39:35.560]  I'm, I'm living in Silicon Valley.
[39:35.760 --> 39:40.000]  So it's, you know, it's a really convenient place to be, uh, for this sort of thing.
[39:40.160 --> 39:49.180]  And everywhere you went, you'd find these great old computers, you know, like, uh, old Apple IIs, old Atari computers, Atari video game systems.
[39:49.180 --> 39:52.960]  Uh, you know, and there's just wacky things that you never even conceived of before.
[39:53.100 --> 39:58.240]  You know, like the mini computers from the seventies, the PDP 11s, the PDP eights, the data general stuff.
[39:58.600 --> 40:02.220]  And even farther back, you know, you started to get into big desk sized machines.
[40:02.580 --> 40:14.120]  But, you know, the, the thing is you used to be able to go out and there would just be tons of these great old computers from, from the seventies and eighties that you never had a chance to play with because they were too expensive and you couldn't afford them.
[40:15.160 --> 40:20.060]  And so I was making a lot of money at the time and, um, and they were, they were really cheap.
[40:20.240 --> 40:21.580]  You could get them for five bucks.
[40:21.700 --> 40:22.940]  Sometimes you can get them for free.
[40:23.180 --> 40:29.120]  You know, I, I used to go and, uh, I posted, I would post messages to the USENET saying, I want to buy your old ass computers.
[40:29.620 --> 40:31.880]  And I would get all kinds of responses from that.
[40:32.320 --> 40:35.060]  And some of the people were just, you know, they didn't want any money.
[40:35.140 --> 40:38.960]  They just wanted, uh, you know, they were just happy to know that it was going to a good home.
[40:39.080 --> 40:41.140]  Somebody who would preserve and appreciate it.
[40:41.220 --> 40:43.420]  Cause they were the same, you know, they had that same nostalgia.
[40:43.420 --> 40:50.280]  You know, they didn't want to throw away that computer that served them so well for so many years and also cost them so much money.
[40:50.580 --> 41:01.540]  Um, and, uh, so just the, the, the knowledge that it was going to somebody who would really appreciate it and hold onto it and not throw it out was, um, you know, something they were, they were, they felt good about.
[41:01.760 --> 41:07.700]  Um, but you know, they were cheap five, 10 bucks, 20 bucks maybe for something, uh, you know, something big.
[41:07.760 --> 41:12.540]  It was really more of like a weight scale, you know, just scrap, uh, scrap weight value at that point.
[41:12.960 --> 41:18.160]  Um, uh, but now you have, uh, actually, and I'll go into this a little bit more later.
[41:18.480 --> 41:26.380]  Um, some of these old, uh, computers, some, like some from the, uh, 70s and everything, they can go for thousands, literally thousands of dollars.
[41:26.780 --> 41:29.220]  Um, it's gotten to that point.
[41:29.740 --> 41:33.740]  Um, so anyway, I, I was, I started accumulating a collection rather quickly.
[41:33.740 --> 41:39.560]  I had, you know, all of a sudden my collection swelled from 20 to 30 to 50 to 100 to a couple hundred.
[41:39.920 --> 41:43.300]  And, you know, I just, it was an insatiable appetite to just go out.
[41:43.380 --> 41:49.720]  Cause every, it was, it literally became an addiction because you'd go out and you'd find some old computer that you'd never heard of before or never seen.
[41:49.880 --> 41:52.580]  And you'd be like, wow, I, you know, that's something completely new.
[41:52.640 --> 41:57.060]  And you would grab it and, and run home with it and try to get it working and play around with it.
[41:57.060 --> 42:07.440]  And it was just the excitement of discovering something new and, um, just like, you know, not unlike the thrill you would get maybe from, you know, hacking into different systems that you would find, uh, uh, out there.
[42:07.560 --> 42:13.120]  But, um, so this, this continued, the computer collector mailing list grew.
[42:13.800 --> 42:16.240]  And I started to realize there's a community building here.
[42:16.340 --> 42:23.040]  And so I thought, well, you know, any community like this needs a, a, uh, uh, like a convention of some sort.
[42:23.040 --> 42:26.660]  So I, I pitched the idea to the group and everybody thought it was really cool.
[42:26.660 --> 42:28.480]  It was very positively received.
[42:28.640 --> 42:36.280]  So I went ahead and started planning what was originally going to be called the, uh, classic computing convention, but which became the vintage computer festival.
[42:36.880 --> 42:41.880]  And it was held in, uh, October, uh, 25th and 26th, I believe in 1997.
[42:43.580 --> 42:48.300]  And, um, about, uh, oh, I think 150 people came.
[42:48.840 --> 42:56.640]  Um, and, uh, that was, uh, kind of disappointing because I lost about $6,000 in terms of organizing the event.
[42:56.640 --> 43:02.020]  But, uh, it was the start of, uh, something that has now grown to about half a dozen events worldwide.
[43:02.780 --> 43:09.900]  Um, in, uh, five, uh, or in various cities in, in, in Europe and here in the United States.
[43:10.300 --> 43:12.760]  Uh, we're looking into doing one in Japan now.
[43:13.760 --> 43:13.780]  Um.
[43:15.260 --> 43:15.460]  Mm-hmm.
[43:15.520 --> 43:15.980]  Four minutes.
[43:16.240 --> 43:16.560]  Oh, okay.
[43:17.100 --> 43:17.200]  Um.
[43:19.040 --> 43:19.620]  Sell them?
[43:19.840 --> 43:20.080]  Yeah.
[43:20.360 --> 43:24.220]  Tell the assembled addicts how many computers you currently have in your warehouse.
[43:24.600 --> 43:24.800]  Okay.
[43:24.900 --> 43:25.760]  I'll get into that in a second.
[43:25.940 --> 43:26.180]  Okay.
[43:26.460 --> 43:27.560]  I'm, I'm leaning up to it.
[43:27.680 --> 43:28.000]  Okay.
[43:28.160 --> 43:34.800]  So, uh, so then, uh, um, my collection was growing.
[43:35.060 --> 43:38.380]  It outgrew my, my, uh, three car garage.
[43:38.520 --> 43:39.740]  It literally took up the whole thing.
[43:40.060 --> 43:42.480]  Boxes piled, floor to ceiling, wall to wall.
[43:43.060 --> 43:46.560]  Um, then had to move it out into, uh, storage.
[43:46.880 --> 43:49.460]  Then got a warehouse, a small 1200 square foot warehouse.
[43:49.660 --> 43:51.620]  And I thought, wow, I have all the room I'll ever need.
[43:51.900 --> 43:52.340]  No.
[43:53.240 --> 43:57.260]  Uh, and then, uh, that moved into a larger warehouse.
[43:57.480 --> 44:05.780]  I was given space with a non-profit, um, computer recycling place in, uh, Oakland called the Alameda County Computer Resource Center.
[44:06.540 --> 44:09.640]  And, uh, that was a very generous thing for them.
[44:09.640 --> 44:21.100]  My collection then continued to grow rather rapidly because now all of a sudden I had access to, um, all of this, uh, incoming stream of, uh, quote unquote electronic waste, which to me was, you know, gold.
[44:21.720 --> 44:28.380]  And so, uh, eventually, um, I had to leave, uh, we, um, I had to move my collection.
[44:28.480 --> 44:29.320]  The business was moving.
[44:29.420 --> 44:30.780]  There was no room for me in the new place.
[44:31.440 --> 44:45.420]  And so, uh, I had to scramble to find some way to store something over 2000 computers, thousands of books, manuals, magazines, software, um, video games, you name it.
[44:45.520 --> 44:46.940]  It was an immense collection.
[44:47.260 --> 44:54.300]  And so, um, I ended up moving it to a warehouse, uh, in the city where I live, which is Livermore.
[44:55.080 --> 44:57.760]  And, uh, it's a 4,500 square foot warehouse.
[44:58.100 --> 45:00.940]  I lost count over how many computers I have.
[45:00.940 --> 45:06.840]  But I, I think the, uh, I think 37 Mac pluses is my kind of yardstick.
[45:07.020 --> 45:08.760]  Oh, you, you can never have too many Mac pluses.
[45:08.920 --> 45:15.500]  Uh, but there's, I have over 2000 computers, uh, in terms of unique models, there's probably over a thousand.
[45:15.880 --> 45:19.180]  Um, like I mentioned, I have literally thousands of books.
[45:19.360 --> 45:20.780]  Uh, I have a huge library.
[45:21.120 --> 45:25.400]  Um, I have of, of books, of manuals, of manuals, computer documentation.
[45:27.300 --> 45:29.680]  Um, software for all different platforms.
[45:30.360 --> 45:35.680]  Um, uh, posters, t-shirts, mugs, computer games.
[45:35.860 --> 45:37.720]  You know, just all kinds of, everything having to do with computing.
[45:37.960 --> 45:46.900]  I, I was, um, I just kind of took on, uh, I, I felt my role, uh, is, uh, uh, was to be basically an archivist of everything.
[45:47.080 --> 45:56.540]  You know, most people, when they start collecting old computers, they usually, you know, kind of grab whatever they find, they can find at first, and then after a while, they sort of start getting preferences.
[45:56.740 --> 45:58.160]  Well, I never developed any preferences.
[45:58.240 --> 46:00.640]  I just love computing, period.
[46:01.300 --> 46:05.200]  And so, my, my goal was just to basically collect everything.
[46:05.500 --> 46:12.040]  So, uh, by this point though, of course, you know, a 4500 square foot warehouse in California is not the cheapest thing in the world.
[46:12.160 --> 46:18.860]  And so, uh, I started an electronics recycling business to offset the cost of the, of the, uh, warehouse.
[46:19.000 --> 46:22.220]  And then since 2000, I've actually been doing consulting.
[46:22.220 --> 46:27.240]  I managed to turn this obsession into a business, uh, where people basically pay me to have fun.
[46:27.500 --> 46:30.280]  And I cater to all kinds of different businesses.
[46:30.620 --> 46:34.900]  Um, my biggest clients are attorneys, patent attorneys, because I provide patent litigation support.
[46:35.240 --> 46:40.300]  Attorneys come to me looking for a piece of hardware or some software or something to overturn a patent.
[46:40.460 --> 46:42.160]  And I'm more than happy to oblige.
[46:42.280 --> 46:45.220]  I charge them for my time for, uh, research.
[46:45.240 --> 46:48.740]  I also rent out the materials in my collection to them.
[46:48.740 --> 46:51.800]  Uh, I do also this for Hollywood, renting out props.
[46:51.960 --> 47:00.540]  In fact, the last time I was in New York, I was providing a little teletype, uh, for a movie coming out in the next six months with Richard Gere, uh, called The Hopes.
[47:01.140 --> 47:04.880]  Um, I do data conversion, so I can read basically anything you throw at me.
[47:04.980 --> 47:08.900]  Punch cards, paper tape, nine track tape, um, floppy gist of any kind.
[47:09.260 --> 47:12.800]  You know, you name it, I can read the data off and send it back to you on CD.
[47:13.220 --> 47:15.900]  Um, and this is with all the original hardware, of course.
[47:16.540 --> 47:23.560]  And then, um, I do sales brokering, uh, for real high-end, um, collectible computers.
[47:23.740 --> 47:26.420]  I've sold four, I've brokered the sale of four Apple Ones.
[47:26.460 --> 47:29.780]  Now, the Apple One, uh, was the first computer, of course, for Apple.
[47:30.140 --> 47:31.760]  Uh, about 200 were made.
[47:32.320 --> 47:33.600]  Less than 50 exist today.
[47:34.400 --> 47:37.260]  Um, over the course of the years, I've brokered the sale of four of these.
[47:37.400 --> 47:39.200]  The cheapest one sold for $14,000.
[47:39.200 --> 47:41.260]  And the most recent one sold for $28,000.
[47:42.000 --> 47:44.620]  So these things are actually, you know, picking up value.
[47:44.800 --> 47:47.440]  Um, and then I do, uh, appraisals.
[47:48.520 --> 47:54.920]  I do appraisals, uh, for insurance purposes or when, for, you know, museum donations, tax valuations.
[47:56.080 --> 47:59.200]  And other, uh, build replicas of old computers.
[47:59.360 --> 48:00.920]  I was gonna show you some photos maybe later on.
[48:01.080 --> 48:03.960]  Uh, but anyway, enough of the same, shameless self-promotion.
[48:04.460 --> 48:11.800]  Uh, I'll, when, when we get rolling, I'd like to maybe give a few more, uh, tidbits on, uh, kind of a timeline of computer history and give some people some of it.
[48:11.800 --> 48:12.280]  We're out of time.
[48:12.560 --> 48:13.440]  Oh, we're out of time.
[48:13.860 --> 48:13.880]  Yeah.
[48:13.880 --> 48:14.000]  Oh.
[48:14.100 --> 48:16.300]  Do you have one or two pictures you want to throw real fast and I'll take questions?
[48:16.660 --> 48:18.280]  Um, uh, yes.
[48:18.460 --> 48:21.760]  Well, the only thing that I would really want to show here is the, is the blue box.
[48:22.140 --> 48:24.480]  Uh, everybody's familiar with the blue box.
[48:24.740 --> 48:29.580]  Um, and, uh, I, first of all, I apologize for just babbling on about myself for so long.
[48:29.580 --> 48:32.840]  I don't think it was as interesting as the stuff I really want to talk to you.
[48:32.900 --> 48:33.000]  Sure.
[48:33.640 --> 48:40.520]  Um, but, uh, you know, speaking, I just wanted to, uh, show a photo of, uh, a replica I just built.
[48:40.620 --> 48:43.740]  Well, let's, let's pull on, pull, pick up, uh, put up that one right there.
[48:44.300 --> 48:47.260]  So, um, this is a PDP-1.
[48:47.500 --> 48:49.620]  This is Digital Equipment Corporation's first computer.
[48:50.100 --> 48:57.060]  And, uh, it's, uh, the significance of this is that it's the, um, computer that the first video game system was written on, which is Space War.
[48:57.060 --> 49:04.620]  So, these are becoming popular with, uh, with, uh, museums these days.
[49:04.980 --> 49:09.880]  Um, because, you know, they're, they're documenting the history of the information age and video games are a big part of it.
[49:10.000 --> 49:12.900]  So, this is actually a replica, uh, a functional replica.
[49:13.080 --> 49:14.600]  The front panel is actually functional.
[49:14.740 --> 49:16.380]  It's got a PC inside simulating the hardware.
[49:16.760 --> 49:20.220]  Of a Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-1 circa 1961.
[49:20.680 --> 49:25.320]  And if you scroll this way, it has the, um, there's also CRT associated with it.
[49:25.320 --> 49:29.200]  But this computer had, uh, it's, uh, this computer was basically a personal computer.
[49:29.320 --> 49:32.580]  Or what we know of as today is a personal computer in 1960.
[49:32.940 --> 49:34.220]  And it had graphics and everything.
[49:34.500 --> 49:45.040]  And then, um, more, uh, pertinent to this discussion, let's go, go back and, uh, uh, one of the other replicas I just built is a, uh, blue box, uh, replica.
[49:45.200 --> 49:49.280]  And now this is, uh, modeled after the blue box that Steve Wozniak built for himself.
[49:49.280 --> 49:51.280]  This was his personal, uh, blue box.
[49:51.840 --> 49:57.500]  And, um, uh, uh, uh, this is a functional blue box.
[49:57.600 --> 50:01.500]  Of course, functional, uh, I mean, you can't really actually use it anymore, unfortunately.
[50:01.760 --> 50:04.480]  But, um, well, that's a fairly horrible photo.
[50:04.700 --> 50:10.440]  But anyway, um, that actually has a basic stamp inside and generates the proper tones for MF signaling and stuff.
[50:10.860 --> 50:23.140]  And, um, anyway, uh, if you have any questions, uh, I'll be around, um, uh, and be happy to show you some more photos and, and, um, um, you know, answer trivia questions about old computers and things like that.
[50:23.320 --> 50:27.200]  We'll be up by the ham radio station after the talk if anyone wants to reach us.
[50:27.640 --> 50:35.300]  Uh, my only, uh, wrap-up comment is that when everything else in my life breaks down, I throw four double A's in my RadioShack Model 100 and keep on going.
[50:36.780 --> 50:39.260]  And, um, I'll just throw in one of my conclusions.
[50:39.440 --> 50:41.180]  I'll ask each speaker to make a brief comment.
[50:41.400 --> 50:43.500]  And until they, uh, kick us off the stage, we'll take questions.
[50:44.160 --> 50:45.620]  Um, my thoughts.
[50:48.870 --> 50:58.410]  Are one of the most important things, one thing I see a thread through a lot of advances in technology, or at least worthwhile, uh, works, is that you have what's been referred to as the freedom to tinker.
[50:58.830 --> 51:12.230]  That when you buy technology, especially now there are a lot of restrictions, and there are a lot of battles going on, when you buy technologies, for you to be able to experiment with it and extend it beyond what was intended to perform, that in and of itself is a worthwhile task,
[51:12.350 --> 51:16.550]  a lot of, uh, positive things that can follow from it.
[51:16.930 --> 51:21.810]  Um, anyway, would anyone else on the panel like to make a brief comment?
[51:21.990 --> 51:27.490]  Oh, if I may, in my follow-up, I'm taking a quote from, uh, the band Rush, uh, from the spirit of radio.
[51:27.830 --> 51:30.870]  All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted.
[51:31.110 --> 51:33.510]  It's what you do with the technology and where you want it to bring you.
[51:34.310 --> 51:36.750]  Um, would anyone like to make a follow-up comment, then we'll take questions?
[51:38.290 --> 51:39.250]  Don't throw it out.
[51:39.590 --> 51:42.670]  Find the guy, and you know the guy, who will take it from you.
[51:43.970 --> 51:44.330]  Thanks.
[51:44.850 --> 51:47.690]  Okay, I'd like to thank the individual who gave us the, uh, CF reader.
[51:47.850 --> 51:48.970]  We'll be sure to give it right back.
[51:49.130 --> 51:51.690]  And anyone who'd like to ask a question, uh, raise your hand.
[51:55.500 --> 51:55.940]  Yes?
[51:57.160 --> 52:10.640]  If one has, uh, word processing files from old word processors that are no longer supported by Windows and Mac, uh, programs, can you recommend any kind of, uh, conversion software that's sold?
[52:10.640 --> 52:15.940]  I mean, I'm talking about like old stuff, like early word store, uh, Amiga word perfect, things like that.
[52:16.080 --> 52:16.180]  Yeah.
[52:16.180 --> 52:17.780]  There, you won't find it.
[52:18.080 --> 52:23.420]  Um, you can, um, try to find, uh, well, I mean, I could do it for you.
[52:23.600 --> 52:26.440]  Um, I have the software to do it.
[52:26.500 --> 52:36.260]  There, there, you know, used to be software published that did this sort of thing, but that was, you know, especially for the, for the formats you're talking about, that you're not going to find that anymore on the market.
[52:36.260 --> 52:54.560]  Um, I was doing a project with the Long Now Foundation, um, last year, we were trying to create an online database of, uh, of, uh, um, basically it was called format convert, uh, um, I forgot, but basically the idea was you put in what your, what your format was that your file is in,
[52:54.880 --> 53:07.760]  and it could be anything, and then you put in what your target format is, like, you know, modern PC, and it would, it would, uh, show you a mapping of, of the various steps you had to go through to convert it from point A to point, you know, B, C, D, E,
[53:07.780 --> 53:13.580]  F, or whatever, however many points in between it took, but, um, that project never progressed beyond the prototype mode.
[53:14.180 --> 53:18.600]  Um, but if you contact me, uh, I'm, my website is vintagetech.com.
[53:18.680 --> 53:19.940]  That's my business, Vintage Tech.
[53:20.280 --> 53:28.300]  I'm salam at vintagetech.com, S-E-L-L-A-M at vintagetech.com, and I'll be happy to help you out with that.
[53:30.140 --> 53:30.540]  Okay.
[53:30.540 --> 53:31.600]  Next question, please.
[53:32.200 --> 53:34.940]  Actually, I would just like to give a shout out to my first computer.
[53:35.140 --> 53:39.640]  It opened many doorways for me, and was, like, the most magnificent journey that I ever embarked on.
[53:40.080 --> 53:42.040]  The color computer tool from Tandy.
[53:42.400 --> 53:45.440]  It started with basic, went all the way up to assembly language with it.
[53:46.740 --> 53:52.040]  Every day when I work on my stuff, and I'm working on the Internet and doing things, within 20 feet of me is my first computer.
[53:52.240 --> 53:53.700]  Okay, and that will have to be our last question.
[53:53.840 --> 53:55.120]  Thank you very much.
[53:55.120 --> 53:57.800]  Just one question, did you know it's team one?
[54:00.600 --> 54:02.280]  You can repeat it, then we'll have to throw the floor.