The Emergency Chicagoland Commodore Convention

The Emergency Chicagoland Commodore Convention was a great success with Commodore, Atari, Apple, CoCo, Amiga, Texas Instruments, and IBM enthusiasts converging together this weekend. "fill your day with 64K!" was a quote from the invite. After attending both days, 64K was in the agenda!

I also loved the Raspberry Pi setup, the 1950s UNIVAC and soviet-era computers.

The Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 7.0 was held in the same facility with ECCC. Stacks of Apple II's lined the wall, next to Atari ST's, Sun Workstations, and analog computers like the UNIVAC II (1958). I received a demo of the symbolics Mac ivory 2 computer (LISP) workstation. A motherboard was on display, running an OS called Symbolics Genera 8.3.

The original Lisp machines were implemented at MIT, with spinoffs as LMI (defunct) and Symbolics. Xerox (Dandylion, Dandytiger), Texas Instruments (TI Explorer).

The Portland Commodore Users Group attended with their Comet64 Internet Modem, starting at $49.99, the modem uses RS-232 to:

-Call Internet BBSes using your existing Terminal Programs
-Chat online
-Play online, multi-player games on CommodoreServer
-Use V-1541 with CommodoreServer to access disks/files remotely
-Compatible with other S2E software
More apps / games coming soon

Vendors from around the US and Canada attended, with new technology making these old computers fun to compute with.

There was classic games and consoles on sale along with new hardware and software.

Top 10 Reasons to Switch to Commodore Computers

Top 10 Reasons to Switch to Commodore Computers
- by Captain Video

10. You close your eyes at night and see the Blue Screen of Death: STOP 0xC000021A Fatal System Error.

9. Best Buy advertises "crash" and "boot" as a form of multitasking.

8. Microsoft updates Vista with Windows 8.

7. Siri told you so.

8. You decide to revert back to Windows95.

7. You start to rationalize dusting off that old 386 dx computer in the garage.

6. You believe that sealing your windows at home will keep the bugs out.

5. Your idea of a Saturday night is using your deinstaller...

4. You still have a grudge with Apple for firing Steve Jobs.

3. C:\DOS> puts a bad taste in your mouth.

2. x86 is like that annoying neighbor who just wont leave.

1. You want to get back to BASIC.

Commodore SID Symphony II 6581 Cartridge

Commodore SID Symphony II 6581 Cartridge designed by Digital Audio Concepts

Commodore 64 Users who want to expand the sound capabilities have a new option. Adding a second SID to your 64 & 128 is as simple as it can be, insert your Commodore 6581 SID (not included) into the empty socket and plug into your Commodore 64. The interface works with any software which access between the $DE00 to $DFE0 address range (the address can be changed by moving a few simple DIP switches). Sized to fit standard Commodore 64/128 case shells (such as those sold by Protovision or Vesalia Online). Commodore 6581 SID is not included.

"The designer of the SID Symphony II, Vanessa Ezekowitz, was kind enough to furnish me with circuit diagrams of her SID expansions. There are internal and external expansions available, from her website Digital Audio Concepts:

http://digitalaudioconcepts.com/

Clones:

There are reports of a SID Symphony II cartridge, being sold by an ebay and are not to be confused fir the real Sid II.

Commodore 8 Bit Search

Commodore competing with Google? You betcha! Enter Commodore 8 Bit Search engine, currently searching through 1557354 files (1166 GB) spread on 22 servers. You can find Commodore files for the 64, C16, VIC-20, Plus/4, C128 and the list goes on and on. Started by Shane Wood, the project has taken countless hours of coding and is a true testament to the viability of the Commodore in the 21st century.

Take it for a spin and tell your 8 bit friends:

http://search.cbm8bit.com/