Adventures at the Trenton Computer Festival!
2008: the year of the 33rd annual Trenton Computer Festival. As I was unable to attend the 2007 event, I swore to attend this one, and so I did. Let me tell you, I did not regret it.
The 2008 Trenton Computer Festival, which took place at The College of New Jersey, was divided into several sections, including a large fleamarket, a recreation center with tons of vendors, and two buildings packed with people eager to speak on the subject of computers. Although I arrived later than I expected (at around 11:00), I was able to experience a bit of how much TCF (Trenton Computer Festival) had to offer. And so, I give you my journey around the campus of The College of New Jersey.
The line of cars was moving extremely slowly as I pulled into the campus and searched for a parking spot. The first area I saw was the fleamarket, and eager to find something valuable, I quickly ran for the entrance. However, I was stopped by a security guard who demanded I pay. Now, I had two options: punch him in the gut and run (I was younger than him, and could outrun him!), or I could actually pay to get in. I chose the second option.
So, after being issued a yellow TCF wristband, I entered the fleamarket area. iMacs were a very common find. I even found a guy who was attempting to sell them for $10 each, but his items lacked the specs, and he did not specify if they worked. I managed to come across one person who was selling some old audio equipment, and I haggled him down from $25 to $17 for a Yamaha RX21L drum machine. Oscilliscopes of various sizes were also extremely common: there must have been at least 100 of them for sale. One of the more comical areas of the fleamarket was the sock section. For some reason, there were approximately three tables worth of nothing but socks of various shapes, sizes, and types. Kinda funny when you realize that a geek has the stereotype of wearing high socks, and the event must have been filled with computer geeks. I did not buy any socks, but my friend did almost buy a Mac computer for $35. However, towards the end of the event, he asked for a refund, as he had no room and no use for an older Mac computer.
At around 1:00, we headed towards the Social Sciences building for the end of the theremin concert by Kip Rosser. For those of you who do not know, the theremin is an electronic instrument that is played using two hands, but you do not even tough the instrument while playing. Accompanied by a synthesizer, Kip Rosser entertained an audience of people with a variety of songs, including a rendition of “Hey Jude” by the Beatles.
When 1:20 came around, I headed for room 102 for the speech “Ubuntu Linux: What It Is; Where It's Going”, given by Joe Terranova of NJ LoCo. As the speech was just beginning, the projector went into sleep mode, but Terranova did a great job conducting his speech while his slideshow was not available. Terranova gave his audience a brief explanation of Linux and walked the crowd through a tour of Ubuntu Linux. After showing several programs on the computer, the room was filled with laughter as one person asked if Windows was free. Sadly, it's not.
After the speech was over, we all followed Terranova over to the Rec Center, where several vendors and information booths were setup. Ubuntu was present, and so was the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey (ACGNJ), as well as the Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists, who had many vintage computers at their booth, including an Atari 2600, Commodore PET, and Apple II. There was even one of those computers that require five men to lift!
The Rec Center was home to many products being sold, like pirated video games, old computers, sunglasses and batteries, and HDTVs. Sadly, my day was soon over, and after taking another look around the fleamarket, I left to go home and write this article. I look forward to attending TCF next year, and I hope some of my readers will, too.
Before I made some mistakes in my article, including misnaming MARCH as ACGNJ, and Evan Koblentz as Evan Williams. I apologize to those affected by my errors!
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CORRECTION >>> the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey (ACGNJ), which had many vintage computers at its booth, including an Atari 2600, Commodore PET, and Apple II. There was even one of those computers that require five men to lift!
The vintage computer exhibit was not part of the ACGNJ booth. That exhibit was from another user group called MARCH -- Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists -- our booth happened to be adjacent to ACGNJ's booth.
The large system you mentioned is MARCH's newest acquisition, a DEC PDP-8. Ours is the first generation ("Straight 8") in the desktop (250 lbs.!) model.
Learn more about our non-profit user group at midatlanticretro.org.
- Evan Koblentz
president/co-founder, Mid-Atlantic Retro Computing Hobbyists
PS -- That's me in the dark red shirt and tan baseball hat -- "me" is Evan Koblentz of MARCH. There is no Evan Williams and he's not from ACGNJ. :)
I was at TCF as a iMac seller. I know that PDP-8, an absolutely CLASSIC computer of the 1960's.
For decades, the TCF flea market was a place to buy OLD computers, not new. These days both are there, in smaller numbers. Hamfest and computer fleamarkets also sell socks and tools, no surprise. There were Macs, Intel-proc-based servers; digital test equipment; electronic parts. The vendors inside had CURRENT PC motherboards and parts; I bought a SATA DVD-RW for $23 new.
The photos shown are mostly of MARCH, not ACGNJ. MARCH has a vintage computing museum at InfoAge science center in Wall NJ. That PDP-8 with 4Kwords CORE is the original "straight-8" model from 1969, run by 70's high schoolers at national computer shows. It ran SAM-76, the "BASIC" of its time.
TCF was first to promote and provide personal computing technology, before the Web and email. It still has some vintage "chops", with groups like MARCH, ACGNJ etc.
Herb Johnson
retrotechnology.com
I had no idea that a Trenton Computer Fesitval exists. And I live right next to Princeton!
I probably would not have been able to go there anyway though :-(
Because Rutgers University, Cook College had their annual Ag Field Day & NJ Folk Festival on Apr 26 as well. Funn!
Interesting thing is even Princeton had a folk festival/flea market down in Nassau Street...