Vintage Computer Fair East

[mozartpc27]

Attended this show today. A good time, with many exhibits different from last year. Was surprised to see very little Atari stuff - saw one 800XL and one ST (which was cool, I think the only other time I've seen an ST in action is at last year's show). No Coleco ADAM stuff.

 

Lots of Commodore, lots of Apple (including an Apple I in a hand-crafted, original WOODEN case - not nailed to wooden boards, an actual wooden case!), one of the coolest exhibit was of 80s French computers (France was not an easy market to enter for non-French companies in the 1980s; as a result, there are lots of French-only computers).

 

Had a lot of fun. Left thinking I should become an exhibitor. I have a pretty wide-ranging and eclectic variety of stuff - Coleco ADAM, Commodore 128 (which I have pretty well tricked out - has a wifi modem), a Commodore 64C, Commodore Plus/4 WITH 1551, Tandy Color Computer 2 (didn't see any of that line at the show), a TI-99 4/A (didn't see any TI-99 stuff being exhibited either, though there was a complete TI-99 set for sale with a Peripheral expansion box that I wanted, too rich for my blood however), and I have an Atari 800XL coming in the mail on Monday.

 

Anyway, it's a great show that is also at a very worthwhile venue - the InfoAge Science Center has a great vintage computer museum and a great museum dedicated to old radio and television and other electronic equipment. Great stuff.

[rpiguy9907]

Viva la France! I also thought the French machines were amazingly cool. Picture from today's exhibit attached.

 

I go to VCF East every year. It is great!

Edited April 17, 2016 by rpiguy9907

[Newsdee]

Post more French machines I wonder if they had any MO5 or TO7 which were super popular for schools.

 

If anybody is interested there's a huge archive of old French magazine computing/gaming mags here:

http://www.abandonware-magazines.org

 

Obviously not in English

[rpiguy9907]

That had both. Didn't get a picture of all of them. You can see the Alice 2 tucked to one side in the second photo.

 

~cheers

[carlsson]

Full list of exhibitors:

http://vcfed.org/wp/festivals/vintage-computer-festival-east/vcf-east-exhibits/

 

The French table obviously was due to a bunch of collectors from Quebec.

[CatPix]

I'm not sure the French market was that hard to get in... I mean, compared to other european countries.

The only requirement computer would have is to have either a SECAM RF out or a RGB out - and even that one fell short : the whole Atari 8 bits line never received a RGb output - the computer shops simply provided a PAL-to-RGB converter box. AZERTY keyboards were welcome but not compulsory either - Some mastrad CPC came on the French market with QWERTY keyboards, as well as the ZX Spectrum.

The only thing that couldn't fall through were taxes, but that was the case in all European countries.

Other countries might proven more difficult. In Germany, edge connectors were banned, requiring comuters to have connectors - German CPC have DB style connectors.

Spain added a tax on computers with less than 64 Ko of RAM (yes, LESS, not MORE, I know it's strange) - as a result, ZX Spectrum sold in Spain had 64 Ko or RAM monted in, but only 48Ko were active.

 

France was a huge market for computer, that's probably why there has been lots of French computers - One example could be the Oric line of computers, that failed in his home country the UK, but got successful enough in France that Frenchs bought Oric to keep selling computers in France. Does it make the Oric French?

Also, one part of this huge market was the State.

Everyone hoped to get aboard the comfortable ride of State-locked markets. Thomson got in (which was an easy deal since they were nationalized) Bull got in too (same reason) and Zenith Data System as well (when Bull bought ZDS from Zenith around 1987).

the major non-State owned brand to manage that was SMT Goupil, which unlike Thomson, released some very poorly build computers (I have seen Taiwainese commputer and even some Soviet clones that looked better built than some Goupil, it says much...).

The other brand such as Alice or Hector/Victor turner to the home personnal market - and with lazy solution. The Victor/Hector by Micronique are originaly a design from an US company (tho later models were different) and the Matra Alice is a licenced Tandy MC-10. Again, later models of Alice were improved (different video chip, more RAM).

It's a pretty cool story tho, really vivid.

And I'm not even going to delve into th real off obscure kits or hobbyist machines, and machines that were all hand-made for some months or weeks and sold less than 10 units, there are PLENTY.

I could quote the famous Tavernier kit, for that it could be the first kit computer sold in France (1978)

 

The Appolo 7 Squale; famous for having been made by ex-Bull employees who planned to make a larger series of it if they managed to get 1000 orders - it never happened.

Can I mention that it also look incredible cool with that logo, that vertical cart slot and that overall look?

 

Or the HBN Guépard (Leopard... Squale, and Goupil (old French for Fox). We like animals in our computers!)

This very professionnal machine came with a build-in battery, able to power the computer for about one hour. Oh my.

 

 

TL;DR

 

I wonder if the French market was really that alive and kicking, or if it's just that more French computer managed to get famous by selling more than 100 000 units and get into people's houses rather than on people's workplaces?

Edited April 18, 2016 by CatPix