I had a great time at Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2024! I’ve always loved exploring the latest tech, but I still appreciate the roots. I managed to get some fall/winter project materials queued up on the workbench. Our basement rec room is gonna get a healthy dose of 80’s tech.

The motherboard is from an Apple II+ and is in rough shape, so it will become a cool piece of wall art (and a set of spare chips).

Not pictured is a sleek clear acrylic case for the Apple //e, which will then be both 80’s and 90’s retro at the same time! Some people like to restore the systems to their original state. I am going for hot rod with this Apple. The C64 will probably go the full retro route (with the tiny exception of a pi-1541). And, like all good retro computing folks, I have two of the Apples, so one can be in original condition.

The highlight of the weekend was getting to meet Veronica of Veronica Explains and Taylor from the Taylor and Amy Show. They are genuinely nice people and gave me some sage advice on not blowing up my C64. The three of them are in a rocking band known as “The Stop Bits.” The lucky folks at VCF Midwest got to see the beta test of the Stop Bits: