We had a really great showing for the club meet this week, with eight members in attendance.
Rob brought his Compaq Deskpro 2000: Pentium 166, 32 MB RAM, VGA and a Sound Blaster 16. It was a very snappy system and – for me at least – brought back a lot of good memories thinking of my step-dad on his beloved PC’s in his computer room. When you see that teal, you know. (Forgot to take a pic, dang it!)
I brought my A1000 that has a fully installed Rejuvenator board. Beyond playing some demos, I cracked open the case so some of us could observe the board while discussing next-steps for reverse engineering it.
Christian brought a few things. He first hooked up a very unusual and quite cool looking (and rare) Commodore PC 20-III.
This is an old 8088 PC-compatible business machine – you know, from that era when Commodore really lost their way. He proceeded to launch Spacewar on the box, which was pretty cool to witness. The Spacewar we saw was the 1985 version by B. Seiler in 1985, based on the 1962 original.
Next, Christian was gracious enough to show us a quick soldering demo so we could understand how he went about things. He did this after we all marveled over his GBA1000 work at the previous meet in July. I got a few great tips in just a few minutes, and have already ordered a decent pair of flush cutters.
Handy tip: Sometimes the best way to desolder something is to solder it first. Sounds strange, but it works.
He proceeded to show us his process for quickly soldering surface mounted chips using the naked eye. I wish I had eyesight like that! Due to our pretty dim lighting situation, we all helped out with some hilarious phone flashlights. Hah!
Matt brought a ton of extra stuff he picked up recently from a retiring Commodore Group leader (and librarian?) and placed them on the floor for anyone that wanted anything. There were magazines and tons of loose and boxed software, some in mint condition. It was a very cool mix of productivity and creative software as well as games. Lots of games.
As usual, a really great and fun evening. If this meet did one thing, it reinforced that they go by way too quickly!
Now that we have 4 club meets under our belt (and at least two more before the 2018’s end) I think it may be time to create a logo for this club. And maybe some shirts.
— Eric/intric8
So happy Matt was able to pick up the rest of the Amiga goodies from that guy. We made two trips from Vancouver, WA up that way back and forth and it just didn’t make sense with gas and mileage to do a third trip. 12 hour round trip for us. Anyway, Viva Amiga rescue!