00:00I'm here at the Vintage Computer Federation's East Coast Festival at the InfoAge Science and
00:09History Museums to check out a bunch of vintage hardware, not just on display, but currently in
00:15working order. From printers to keyboards to telephones to big desktops, here's the rarest,
00:21weirdest, and oldest vintage computers we found this weekend. This is my fourth time attending
00:26the event so I wanted to bring the video crew to share why getting your hands on some vintage
00:31computers is worth the trip. Located on a former army base, the InfoAge Science and History Museum
00:41in Wall Township, New Jersey, uses the Vintage Computer Festival as a way to spread the hobby
00:46of understanding old technology and the best way to do that is to see them working. One of the
00:52things about our museum was it's hands-on. If you go to the Smithsonian, everything's locked away.
00:57You can't touch it. I think it's also educational because then they can learn the fundamentals of
01:01how computers work, how programming work, in a very simple way. So I think it's a deeper
01:07understanding with the vintage computers than they are with modern computers. Festival goers are free
01:12to explore the vintage computer exhibit with their ticket to experience hardware, operating systems,
01:17early coding, and various peripherals designed over the past few decades.
01:22All right, my wagon is loading. This must be the beginning of the game because I just got Oxen.
01:35This museum right here has technology that you can only find literally right here. There's like only one
01:42left in the world and like the live demos they do in just this community it feels really good because
01:46it's primarily such a highly digital community. One of the rarest computers here is the UNIVAC 1219B,
01:53a military mainframe from the mid-60s designed for radar and weapons on navy battleships. I don't know
02:00if any are still in existence and if they are I don't think any of them are running. So that's one machine
02:07that's very unique that you wouldn't see anywhere else. Another thing is a Nova Chord. So it's electronic
02:13piano from 1939. You could probably spend all day in this one room just learning how to operate this
02:21stuff. The Apple Lisa. The first Apple computer with a graphical user interface. We did a whole
02:27documentary about this. I just love this little screen on like the way it's set up. Look at this mouse
02:33here. One big button. The real highlight of the festival is the exhibit rooms. Here's where hobbyists,
02:40professionals, and educators set up shop to share with attendees their projects they're working on.
02:46The common theme here is really keeping this stuff alive.
03:02Some attendees come from out of state not just to see the equipment but to meet the hobbyists they see
03:08online. Anything here you're excited to see? So there's this guy DOS dude. He always does really
03:13cool modifications to Macs and he had a bunch of really old iPhones he was trying to get working.
03:18He made a fake cellular network. Networks that no longer exist like 2G and stuff like that.
03:23So the iPhones here start with the original iPhone go all the way up to the iPhone 5S and then over
03:28here we have some other miscellaneous phones including the original Android phone the HTC Dream.
03:33These two antennas here are for my custom GSM base station that I've got set up here
03:38using a BladeRF X40 which I've got right here. It's an SDR or software defined radio and that's
03:44hooked up to a computer down here running a piece of software called Yate BTS which sort of drives this
03:51whole thing. The number for each phone is printed on this sheet here. So let's say we'll just dial the Nokia
03:5730 through 95 so that's 1012. Okay. You can just go in here. Dial 1012.
04:13All right and then we got that one to work. I can't believe what I'm seeing right here. This whole table
04:19all mini disc players and mini discs of all different models. This is very rare and beautiful
04:25machines. This is your personal collection? This is my personal collection. Do you have any favorites?
04:31Uh this one my first. Oh I have this one. Yeah. Okay. 56 hours. Yeah. On one battery. This is the actual
04:38one that uh was doing all the traveling with me worldwide. Nice. This had over 100 hours with this
04:44battery sidecar. Oh no way. Yeah so the gum stick went in there. Right. That was an extended battery. Yeah and then the
04:51AA went there and you had over 100 hours here. I love this purple one. That's beautiful. Yeah that
04:57that one was very popular and a hard to find color. The reason why this one was so popular is it was a
05:04cost reduced version. Yeah. Of a recorder and it was a worldwide model because it took AA's. Right.
05:11A lot of exhibitors are also putting personal touches to old hardware or upgrading pieces of equipment
05:18for a more modern taste. Oh there you go. It's an actual port of Minecraft. Yeah. Oh wow. As you can
05:25imagine there's a lot of mix and matching of various keyboard technology. You swapped out all the
05:30keyboards from these machines? Well on this machine it was notoriously poor at the keyboard so we built a
05:38brand new circuit board with cherry style keys with backlighting and that's all I replaced. Otherwise
05:44this is all original. This feels pretty good. There you go. Keeping some of these vintage electronics
05:53alive sometimes means 3D printing parts that no longer exist. This is uh an apple color plotter 410.
06:02This is a pretty rare piece. Apple did not sell a lot of these. Yeah. So you 3D printed some of the
06:08parts for this. Right. So there are a lot of consumables. There's a pen holder and then there are pens.
06:15The new old stock pens. That's a pen that I 3D printed. You can't get the pens anymore. Right. And
06:22the pen holders are very fragile because 40 year old ABS plastic. So really that's what's the first kind of
06:30project when I got it. It was getting it to the point where we had the consumables and where we had
06:38the pen holder so that I could you know actually use it. There's a lot more digging I get to do now
06:44that I have working. Yeah.
06:50This is a very cool part that I always look forward to is the consignment shop. People just come and bring
06:55stuff they want to sell. Other people come and buy a bunch of stuff. Vintage electronics. Vintage computers.
07:02People are already walking out with stuff. It's 9 30 in the morning and it is packed already. So let's
07:10go inside and do some window shopping.
07:18So portable TV from Quasar. Only ten dollars here. Macintosh Plus. This is the same PC I used to make
07:25like Audacity recordings on. Look at this. This has a whole stand for this iMac G4. It's got these
07:32speakers here. These little stands for the speakers. I just love the screen like the flowerpot thing.
07:39$350. Look at a bunch of mini discs. $20. I think I think I'm gonna get these honestly. Still taped on
07:47the top of this TV is all the channels from when this TV was being used. The consignment shop gets bigger
07:53and bigger every year. This is a huge space. I'm surprised how much stuff they have this year. Look at
07:59the Hot Wheels PC. It's even got the steering wheel and the pedals. This little CD case. Oh, look at all
08:06these Mavis Beacon. All the Hot Wheels games. Wow. Whoa, this works.
08:14Is that a Windows CE thing?
08:16Yeah, this is a Windows CE thing. Where are you coming from? Uh, Dartmouth, Massachusetts.
08:23Oh, cool. All the way up there. I, uh, I've been doing vintage computing all my life, uh, since I was a
08:27Wii lad of 14. I mostly do weird Japanese stuff like that. I used to do robots for the longest time.
08:34I basically kept a bunch of wilting, dying robot dogs from the 2000s from exploding.
08:40Aibo? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I have a bunch of them. Me too? Yeah, uh, I don't really use them.
08:47This is what I love about attending this show. It's a space where you run into all sorts of
08:51enthusiasts who get you excited about this whole world of old computers. Even at the consignment
08:57shop, it rarely ever feels commercial, like how conventions can feel. After four years of attending
09:03the festival, I noticed it's attracting more and more crowds from all ages. Jeff Brace, the showrunner,
09:10says the attendance tripled in size last year. Mostly it's, it's, it's people that are nostalgic.
09:16They either grew up with the computers or they did them at work. Younger people, my impression is they
09:22like them because they're simpler. They can actually get hands on. They always heard about these people
09:27and they want to meet them in person or they always wanted to own this computer and maybe they want to
09:32go to consignment and buy one or they want to see one that's working and the exhibitors just love to
09:36show it off. It's like a show and tell. Here at The Verge, we're always looking at the fastest,
09:41the latest, the brightest new things and coming to an event like this makes you appreciate how we got
09:47here. So if you ever get the chance to play around with some old tech like this, I highly recommend it.
09:55Thanks so much for watching. You can go on www.theverge.com. I've been learning so much today,
10:01but you know what? I have not learned as much as I do every day on www.theverge.com. So tap in.
10:09Tap in everybody. That's our new slogan.
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