Bill Lange

I guess I meant at VCF East. It is not an Atari specific event. In my five years attending and displaying, we've never had more than 3 to 4 exhibits with Atari computes (sometimes less). To take up half of the big room with about 15 tables of Atari exhibits was amazing.

Lucy and I enjoyed having Nir, Thomas, Allan, Kevin, and Randy stay over one or more nights. Even Maciej and Michael Sternberg came over for a few hours. Someone joked that if a meteor hit our house, it would have taken out half the world's Atari 8-bit enthusiasts! As for making Joe's Keynote possible, it was a team effort really. Peter Fletcher and I funded it, but Curt had the contacts, and Evan approved it and made the arraignments. I'm glad that it all worked out. It was such an amazing weekend. For me, it was the best VCF East yet. We are not likely to see that kind of Atari exhibit again.

At this point, no. I've only started going though the paper matter in this collection. Maybe it would make a nice exhibit for next year. We'll see.

On the morning of Saturday, April 20th, 2019, my wife Lucy and I made the short drive from our house in Somerset, NJ up the hill to Morristown, where we met up with none other than Dr. David H. Ahl, publisher of Creative Computing, Atari Explorer, and Atarian magazines, as well as many other well known magazines and books. We spent an hour or so at his house listening to his stories of Nolan Bushnell, Paul Allen, etc. Oh, and also while there, we acquired Dave’s remaining retro-gaming collection: hardware, software, books, magazines, etc. The collection included mostly common Atari hardware (2600s, 5200, 7800, Home PONG) and software (dozens and dozens of cartridges), but it is/was the hardware and software used to write reviews and articles in his various magazines, so it has some street cred and cool history. Some hardware highlights include a PONG arcade machine control panel, a Lady Bug arcade cabinet (which I need to go back and pick up), and a Commodore PET computer. The most interesting part of the collection is a file box full of Dave’s personal papers (from the early 1970s to the late 1980s and beyond) including Atari (Commodore, Sega, etc.) New Releases, Product Announcements, Legal Files, photographs, slides … just thousands and thousands of pages of printed matter treasure. As always, I’ve been scanning as I go along, uploading the files to archive.org, posting to The Ahl Collection blog, and my Twitter feed. I’d like to keep this collection together, virtually at least. Maybe scan it, organize it, bag it and tag it, then donate most of the printed matter to a museum. Also included in the collection are some magazines and books. Not as many as I would have liked … I had dreams of multiple copies of BASIC Computer Games and More BASIC Computer Games for multiple platforms and in multiple (spoken) languages. But to be honest, the bankers box of files alone was worth the price of admission, a donation to a charity of Dave’s choice. How did this acquisition come to pass? I was chatting with my friend Rob Wanenchak (@AtariSpot on Twitter) about the upcoming Atari Party East. Rob is the guy that took the amazing photos at APE 2017 and APE 2018. I knew that Rob had dealt with Dave before, so I mentioned to Rob that he should invite Dave to APE 2019 in September. Rob invited Dave via email and copied me. Dave responded that he was open to coming but September was a ways off and he would have to see. He also responded that he was looking to move his remaining retro computer / retro gaming collection. I responded that I would take it all, sight unseen. We worked out a deal that was acceptable to him and I (and most importantly, my wife). As I mentioned, we made a donation to a charity of Dave’s choice and my company matched it. The money is earmarked to help build a school in Peru, which just happens to be where my wife is from. Win, win, win. Tax write off. I've got some scanning to do!

I'll be around the big Atari display. I'll be wearing my GTIA t-shirt.

Yea, or the green ink pen.

I have a 3d printer. If I can find a model (or design one), I could print these by the dozens.

https://www.shapeways.com/product/CMBQ6D2Z4/alps-x-y-plotter-gear-qty-3-commodore-atari

This is Side B of the the Atari 1020 The Print Shop Print Driver. It contains the Atari 1020 The Print Shop Companion Print Driver. atari-1020-ps-pd.atr

Steve Boswell created some nice artwork for the header on my Inside ATARI PASCAL blog. He designed a retro-looking ATARI 400/800 "Computing Language" style big box as if Atari Pascal was released in Atari's main line catalog back in the Ferg rather than the APX catalog. Thanks again Steve! Bill

I bought some Blue filament and it arrived today. I have one printing, but it is still a few hours away from finishing. Here's how it looks about 2/3 of the way done. You get a good view how the "solid" part isn't really solid, but honeycombed. I like the look. It should look good with XE boxes and cartridges.

My smallish Flashforge Finder printer can only print slightly less than 6 inches square. The cart holder is slightly more than 4 inches deep. I can whip up another version that has an inch and a half or so of "footness" that a book or two can sit on. Its not much, but its something.

Something like this? https://www.amazon.com/LD-Compatible-S015337-Printer-Cartridges/dp/B0080L8H5G/ref=pd_sbs_0_1/145-2162305-0907028?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0080L8H5G&pd_rd_r=79b3c266-51cd-11e9-8836-b3396bafd0bf&pd_rd_w=SnLLr&pd_rd_wg=qYKqj&pf_rd_p=588939de-d3f8-42f1-a3d8-d556eae5797d&pf_rd_r=055E3H9QDGT1H4971SHT&psc=1&refRID=055E3H9QDGT1H4971SHT

Here are some other Hatchbox colors.

I usually print them over night.

I printed mine with a $300 Flashforge Finder 3d printer using $20 HATCHBOX PLA 3D Printer Filament, Dimensional Accuracy +/- 0.03 mm, 1 kg Spool, 1.75 mm, Gray I'd be willing to print them at $15 each plus shipping. Note that it takes 7+ hours to print and takes up to about 20% of a spool of filament. I'll weight and see how much of the 1 KG of filament is used.

Here is a test one that painted gray a few weeks ago using Testors 1233 Flat Light Aircraft Gray spray enamel.

That is a nice idea. They are not open on the bottom, but they are not exactly solid (as I printed them) either. The 3d printer kind of honeycombs the "solid" internal parts ... just enough material for the needed structure. You can increase the "solid-ness", but it already takes about 7 hours to print and uses 15% to 20% of a spool of filament.

Upload the .STL file into Tinkercad and have at it.

I created this Atari 8-bit cartridge holder based on something I saw on Thingiverse and modified it with input from folks on FB. I'll use it to hold (and quickly keep track of) cartridges for my VCF East exhibit. Here is the zipped up STL file: Atari 8-bit Cartridge Stand.zip

My wife and I took some friends to the military exhibits at InfoAge this past weekend. As I was walking through the empty VCF East exhibit rooms, I was imagining how it is going to look with the epic Atari and UNIX displays this year. Its going to be fun. If you can make it on Friday, there will be an full slate of interesting talks scheduled (but no exhibits). Saturday is usually packed with the general public coming through. Sunday is usually a slower day, giving the exhibitors more time to talk to folks, plus Joe D will be giving his keynote that day.

I used UCSD Pascal on the Apple II in high school as well. UCSD wasn't released for the Atari, but there were: Available Atari 8-bit Pascal Packages

I knew it was going to be buggy going in. :-) I wanted to kick the tires and try to see why it failed as an official Atari product and as a APX product.