| Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #322405] |
Wed, 20 July 2016 01:31  |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
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Wow! Year 20 for me! Ack! Odd how things have changed, yet of course, since we're talking about a computer that's "old", they've stayed the same.
It's the people here that have changed. It's a younger crowd. We still have us old farts, but this year there is proportionally more <35 yrs old folks.... And the gals are representing now too! I'm happy to see the diversity we're bringing to the conference!
I got here about 11:00 am, and there were probably 20 folks already here. There's been some chatter about adding a day to the conference just to visit and bum around KC.. We'll see. A lot of people came to KC Monday anyway, and if we can provide the dorms then instead of expensive motels, it might happen.
Parked in front of the dorms was a very large and conspicuous pickup/school bus conversion loaded with mysteries under a tarp. Good start!
I checked in and brought in a very small amount of luggage. This year the Kookout will be catered. Frankly, as Head Kook (Read ONLY KOOK), I don't think I could have grilled the grub for the 80+ participants we have this year without suffering heatstroke! The menu is better, but since this is a first in 15 years, I hope the catering works out this year. I know I'M stressing less!
LOTS of visiting with returning KFesters, and greeting our new participants.... and there was a lot of equipment, and luggage to haul to to rooms. And it was hot. Hot and muggy. The AC in the dorms is working great, so as long as we rarely leave the building, things are great! Geek Heaven!
And so it went until 4:30 when we took off for dinner. Most went to Jack Stack BBQ, and as usual, there was a long wait to be seated. As long as you wanted to be seated inside. I wisely chose to be seated outside, and the heat was bearable, particularly with the distraction of the great conversations at our table and the couple of beers I had.
The passengers I'd driven to dinner on the other hand, had unwisely chosen to wait to be seated, and it was a long wait. I'd happily finished dinner and realized the flaw in my planning when I had to sit around waiting for them to be served, and eat. *sigh*
After I'd rounded them up, we took a couple of side trips to do some last minute shopping, and got back in time to help unload the vast treasures aboard the converted Big Green Bus.. I'm not sure what acronym to use now. Big Gray Pickup? Many hands helped move boxes and boxes and boxes of equipment inside, where others started sorting through and organizing the documentation, computers, drives, cards, cables and so much more. They're still at it as I type.
The Giveaway tomorrow will be epic! Particularly since I'll actually get to witness it this year! I've participated in so many in the past that I've got more than I need, so I'll probably just watch... although there are Macs, Tandy Color Computers and other gear there that I may wrestle someone over...
That's pretty much the state of matters as of now. Maybe a seat has opened up in the lounge, so I can visit. Which is partially why I'm typing this now. :)
Oh! There are attendees here that I recognize from csa2 from years past as well! I've been lurking here since 1986, so... Heroes!
Still, I'm in a bit of a shock seeing how our little meeting has grown and shrunk and exploded recently... As I said earlier... Wow!
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #322406 is a reply to message #322405] |
Wed, 20 July 2016 02:16  |
Michael AppleWin Debu
Messages: 1262
Registered: March 2013
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On Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 10:31:21 PM UTC-7, Kirk Mitchell
> Still, I'm in a bit of a shock seeing how our little meeting has grown and shrunk and exploded recently... As I said earlier... Wow!
Thanks for the report! Sadly didn't get the opportunity to attend this year. Hoping for 2017 and 2018.
What percentage of the talks will be available online as videos?
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #322919 is a reply to message #322406] |
Wed, 20 July 2016 11:18 |
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Originally posted by: Mark D. Overholser
On 19-Jul-16 23:16, Michael 'AppleWin Debugger Dev' wrote:
> On Tuesday, July 19, 2016 at 10:31:21 PM UTC-7, Kirk Mitchell
>
>> Still, I'm in a bit of a shock seeing how our little meeting has
>> grown and shrunk and exploded recently... As I said earlier...
>> Wow!
>
> Thanks for the report! Sadly didn't get the opportunity to attend
> this year. Hoping for 2017 and 2018.
>
> What percentage of the talks will be available online as videos?
>
Last year had Video Coverage, but not of the Highest Video Quality..
It felt to me, like I was there... ( almost )
MarkO
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323261 is a reply to message #322405] |
Thu, 21 July 2016 01:23 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
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Well, I don't anticipate staying up late like last night, so I'll rip out another day's report. It's moderately quiet since many have gone for a late food run,but there's still a bunch of folk hanging out in the hallways chatting away, so I suppose there'll be some interruptions. :)
Today was the official start of s 2016, and it started slowly. Most of us made it to breakfast, and I won't fall into talking about food again, but the bacon was plentiful and good.
Javier and my roomie, Stavros were busy disassembly the cases of several computers. They plastered them with chemicals and put them in the hot KC sunshine. Nasty yellow cases as good as new!
For the first time in 14 years, I didn't have to make sure the burgers were thawed, and that I remembered to buy charcoal (both previous fails in years past) and got to relax and let go of the Kookout. It was great! The menu was expanded and tasty, and folks were fed in a much more timely manner. I think everyone was happy!
Afterwards, the vast treasure of hardware, software and documentation that had been sitting in the Lounge taunting us the previous day was quickly devoured by an orderly stampede of KFesters... A sight I'd been unable to see in years past! Lots of smiles and armloads of goodies redistributed and saved for future generations!
An ugly rumor emerged that this might be one of the last Giveaways... false of course. There is at least enough for 3-4 more years, but that requires storage, and storage requires money. There was a donation box there to help compensate the heroes that have worked so hard to collect and transport and store all these goodies. I know it's not enough. The next Kickstarter or Patreon that starts should be supported by the entire Apple II community.. The alternative is the recycler or landfill. We only saw a small percentage of the donations of several collectors that had decided to pass their collections on. I'm certain there will be more!
Several hours later, we had the Official Welcome to KansasFest 2016, and welcomed Mike Harvey, the founder and publisher of one of my favorite magazines, Nibble! His story is one of inspiration, guts, and passion. With experience as a business executive, he took a chance while between jobs and started a modest publishing empire that was successful for 12 years! Legal battles established that computer programs deserved copyright protection, and he told us many stories of his successes and setbacks, and the remarkable people he worked with and his business models that I wish more modern corporations would follow! When the video of the Keynote make it to light, I recommend you check them out... many details and insights!
Afterwards, the Committee awarded him with our "Apple II Forever" plaque, and *sniff* it was touching!
Henry and Anthony present their "State of UltimateMicro" session afterwards, and summarized their current products, and informed us of the products they are working on now. They stressed that if there were skilled hardware designers out there that they'd be happy to help them get them to market with their skills and marketing! Astonishing that we can still buy goodies to make our old stuff do remarkable new stuff!
Dinner was fine, but I won't discuss food beyond our discovery that the cafeteria had a soft serve ice cream machine and was well stocked with cones. That fact alone makes the walk to and from the dorms to eat a bit more bearable during the heat! And Dr. Steve took the KansasFest Golf Cart on it's maiden voyage to take Mr. Harvey to dinner, along with some other dead weight who could have walked. I suppose there're some sour grapes that I wasn't one of them. :) Of course, Steve had to take the most difficult path to the cafeteria, with some funny results. I've seen the pics. :) I'm sure he's learned his lesson.
After dinner, Rob Walch, a local of KC with a very successful podcast called "Today in iOS" gave his 10th year presentation for KFest. He's funny, and does his research, and while it wasn't Apple II related, it's been a session I've looked forward to. And of course, I subscribe to his podcast. :)
Charles Mangin gave a session on his new general purpose I/O board for the Apple II, but I... took a nap. I'll have to catch the video...
The rest of the evening has been late food runs, picking through the scraps of the Giveaway... munching on the cookies left from the Kookout, and visiting. And since the night is still young, I'll ignore the lesson I learned yesterday and go back out and stay up late!
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323287 is a reply to message #323286] |
Thu, 21 July 2016 08:37 |
zellyn
Messages: 173
Registered: April 2013
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On Thursday, July 21, 2016 at 8:11:37 AM UTC-4, Kirk Mitchell wrote:
> Seriously, that was like walking into an episode of Mr Robot, complete with a demonstration of their power! :)
Thanks for the updates. All of us jealous people who couldn't make it are avidly devouring your every word!
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323303 is a reply to message #323261] |
Thu, 21 July 2016 13:06 |
D Finnigan
Messages: 1154
Registered: October 2012
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Kirk Mitchell wrote:
> We only saw a small percentage
> of the donations of several collectors that had decided to pass their
> collections on. I'm certain there will be more!
>
I hope so. I had hoped to stop by this year to give away a lot of my old
Apple II (and maybe some Mac) things, but we'll see about next year.
The secret here is to have the least amount of things and still be
satisfied.
I haven't reached that goal yet.
--
]DF$
The Marina IP stack for Apple II--
http://marina.a2hq.com/
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323323 is a reply to message #323303] |
Thu, 21 July 2016 16:48 |
Michael AppleWin Debu
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Registered: March 2013
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On Thursday, July 21, 2016 at 10:06:35 AM UTC-7, D Finnigan wrote:
> The secret here is to have the least amount of things and still be
> satisfied.
Aw crap, and here I've been doing it backwards! DOH! :-)
> I haven't reached that goal yet.
You know what they say ...
"One man's junk is another man's treasure." :-)
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323381 is a reply to message #323261] |
Fri, 22 July 2016 02:03 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
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Today was busy, and loaded with sessions. Just like tomorrow will be!
Martin Haye got things going with a progress report on the open source RPG gaming system and all the tools that are currently being developed to produce Lawless Legends, an old-West RPG. Graphics, maps and a myriad of details are looking quite polished! Polished enough that a game demonstrating the details of the system called Ancient Legends was released to show everyone an example of how to use the system to make their own games!
Jason Scott gave us a bit of history on the evolution of browser based emulation from the concept of jsmess, a Javascript emulator, to the current MESS emulation that has superseded that project. He also explained the current state of the Internet Archive project and how difficult it has been to squeeze computer software into a system that basically classifies the books, movies and music as "items" and what's been required to get emulation to work on every browser, everywhere! While my eyes were closed through some of this session, I was listening to every melodious word!
Kate Szkotnicki demonstrated how to make small parts using silicon molds and casting. And I missed the session entirely! I discovered that drinking 5-6 cups of coffee, then coasting on the caffeine for the rest of the day didn't work. Since KansasFest appears to be awash in coffee makers provided gratis, I've functioned much better! I'm certain getting to sleep won't be a problem now.
Ivan Druckers' session concerned his project involving the Raspberry Pi which has the capability to act as an Appletalk Server for the Apple IIGS, and Apple //es with a Workstation card. He demonstrated NetBooting a GS with no drives installed at all, and access and storage are totally expandable! In addition, A2CLOUD allows IP traffic via MacIP so Uthernet or LANceGS ethernet cards are not required to connect a GS to the internet. So much for my Gatorbox! A $35 Raspberry Pi... or even the $5 Zero can handle it! The Raspple II project is also going open source with github so that others can help. T. Joseph Carter will be responsible for this aspect of a really nice, inexpensive way of adding power to our systems!
Geoff Weiss demonstrated the use of the graphics program GIMP to draw or convert pictures into IIGS format, using this powerful program and python. And this was yet another session I missed. Lisa Allyn showed me her efforts afterwards, and they looked great and I've nearly injured myself kicking myself for not getting another cup of coffee instead of a nap. *sigh*
Ken Gagne presented a session on the influence of classic Apple II games on the current Steam online gaming marketplace. I missed this one on purpose because Ken is so damned perky and full of energy that he annoys me. :) Oh.... and it was a long nap.
Henry Courbis and Anthony Martino of Ultimate Micro gave a session on their Universal Power Supply kit, which provides a safe, long lasting replacement for our increasingly unreliable PSU's. I want several, but while they say the user can easily make all the connections, I'm quite willing to pay more for a completed product. I may get my nerve up and try building several because I do have a //e and a IIGS with dead supplies that would be nice to get running again.
Paul Hagstrom had a very detailed session on the ins and outs of copy protection and how things like the Kryolux (sp?) and EDD+ card could be used to save our valuable old disks, while retaining yet allowing us to use the copy protected software in Emulation. He was very clear and I was very awake because the caffeine was beginning to work very well!
I skipped the remaining sessions while retaining consciousness. Dagen Brock had a Roundtable to discuss hardware and software projects for the Apple II, Ken Gagne and Kevin Savetz offered tips on how to interview folks without torture, and a soldering session was offered that had LOTS of participation from newbies led by experts. It's not true that I didn't try this one out because of a fear of multiple burns. I had a mission. That mission was....
Obtaining vast quantities of Krispy Kreme donuts and moo juice for the Ryan Suenaga Memorial Krispy Kreme Night!
After that, we had a Committee meeting. It went well.
Now, I hear a few more donuts calling my name, so I'm going to go shut them up!
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323391 is a reply to message #323381] |
Fri, 22 July 2016 10:44 |
scott
Messages: 4237
Registered: February 2012
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In article <fe9211f0-4118-4462-8d3b-33f3b40b73d4@googlegroups.com>,
Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitchell@gmail.com> wrote:
> Ivan Druckers' session concerned his project involving the Raspberry Pi
> which has the capability to act as an Appletalk Server for the Apple
> IIGS, and Apple //es with a Workstation card. He demonstrated NetBooting
> a GS with no drives installed at all, and access and storage are totally
> expandable! In addition, A2CLOUD allows IP traffic via MacIP so Uthernet
> or LANceGS ethernet cards are not required to connect a GS to the
> internet. So much for my Gatorbox! A $35 Raspberry Pi... or even the $5
> Zero can handle it! The Raspple II project is also going open source
> with github so that others can help. T. Joseph Carter will be
> responsible for this aspect of a really nice, inexpensive way of adding
> power to our systems!
Wouldn't you still need the GatorBox (or some other device) as a bridge? I
can see Netatalk running on a Raspberry Pi (have had it set up in the past,
though not on a Raspberry Pi), but you still need to bridge LocalTalk to
Ethernet.
_/_
/ v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( https://alfter.us/ Top-posting!
\_^_/ >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323392 is a reply to message #323391] |
Fri, 22 July 2016 11:24 |
mmphosis
Messages: 163
Registered: November 2012
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> Wouldn't you still need the GatorBox (or some other device) as a bridge?
> I
> can see Netatalk running on a Raspberry Pi (have had it set up in the
> past,
> though not on a Raspberry Pi), but you still need to bridge LocalTalk to
> Ethernet.
I wanted to ask the same question. Maybe the Pi can do this through GPIO
pins? There are some serial pins on the Pi? Maybe the Pi via GPIO can do
(RS-422) LocalTalk ?!?
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323423 is a reply to message #323392] |
Fri, 22 July 2016 15:56 |
Steven Hirsch
Messages: 798
Registered: October 2012
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On 07/22/2016 11:24 AM, mmphosis wrote:
>> Wouldn't you still need the GatorBox (or some other device) as a bridge?
>> I
>> can see Netatalk running on a Raspberry Pi (have had it set up in the
>> past,
>> though not on a Raspberry Pi), but you still need to bridge LocalTalk to
>> Ethernet.
> I wanted to ask the same question. Maybe the Pi can do this through GPIO
> pins? There are some serial pins on the Pi? Maybe the Pi via GPIO can do
> (RS-422) LocalTalk ?!?
I know that low speed (31.5K - MIDI) serial I/O has been implemented by
bit-banging the GPIO pins on a Pi, but a 230Kbps synchronous data stream is
probably not achievable on that CPU.
It could be done on a Beagelbone by writing code for one of the PRUs. They
are fast enough to read, write and emulate MFM hard disks. Might be a fun
project for someone (not I).
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323468 is a reply to message #323381] |
Sat, 23 July 2016 02:50 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
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Well, I was moving slowly this morning, and decided to skip hiking up the hill to the cafeteria, and instead worked to eliminate several of the leftover Krispy Kreme donuts left over from last night. I felt duty bound to do what I could!
Dagen Brock brought his family to his session, but quickly stole the spotlight from his baby when he started talking about changing the way we emulate our Apples! Working with KEGS/GSport, he showed some changes he's made that allow an emululated GS to communicate its processes much further than the current user, and allowing for enhanced remote automation among many possibilities! I've got to admit much went over my head, but some of the tools he's built and changes in some of the internals and how graphics are presented, while leaving important features, were impressive and who knows what great things this could open up.
Quinn Dunki has been digging around ROMs. Particularly the ROM in the Apple IIc Plus. She showed us the steps she used to find and modify the code in said ROM and then burn the changes into EPROMs. She had several such new ROMs available that changes the weird beep of the IIc Plus to something more.... natural. :) She certainly knows her stuff!
Henry Courbis and Anthony Martino had an entertaining spoof on Retrobrite, complete with tin foil hats and an new product to Restore Retrobrited computers to their more natural yellowed colors. :)
Father and son,Andrew and Ivan Hogan presented some hardware that maximized the Apples' Gameports and I/O possibilities to control relay switches and the like. In previous years, they used less sophisticated methods to launch a rocket. That was a fun session. This family team are truly adventurous "Makers", and they related the difficulties in making their interface.
Brian Wiser and that devil, Bill Martens, a man who left me bleeding and exhausted after a Diskette Ninja battle at an earlier KansasFest... uh... well, that's another story... gave an overview of last years A.P.P.L.E products, and then presented this years new efforts. A new enhanced edition of "What's Where in the Apple", a compilation of the rare and hard to find 1978 issues of Call-A.P.P.L.E., their collection of Mike Harvey's Viewpoints, and ... something else that I'm drawing a blank on. I swear I didn't fall asleep at ANY sessions today. It must be the head wound that fiend Bill left me with affecting me!
Melody and April Ayres-Griffiths demonstrated their product, PERCOL-8, a cloud based means of introducing kids... and I suppose adults who still think like kids... to programming using Applesoft Basic, Integer Basic, and Apple Logo compatible languages, with enhanced tools, internet access, BBS and chat... Which also allows our normal 2 dimensional programs to be rotated into 3-D. Impressive!
Mark Pilgrim gave a fascinating session on copy protection, and how some of the methods worked, and what could be done to ensure that our copy protected software survives the inevitable bit rot of flaky floppies. Using such tools as the EDD card, and/or a regular disk drive, he demonstrated a program call Passport, which can always read the boot sector of any disk, and use the data it receives or doesn't to detect what method or methods were used to "protect" it, then by patching, write out a copyable disk image file. Remarkable! Passport is being made available and I hope everyone gives it a try on their increasingly unreliable disks!
Steve Wehyrich discussed his research on early Apple II history when communications was text based, modems ruled the world, and we actually spent monthly fortunes to call such services as The Source, Compuserve, GEnie, Delphi, AppleLink, in the days before the Internet spelled their doom. Ah, nostalgia! As always, he was thorough and interesting! I sorta miss those days, but not the phone bills.
John Lane demonstrated some of his machine language routines the made it easier to draw characters to the double hires screen, and the difficulties of background and foreground colors in optimizing readability.
And then there was pizza. Good thing I notices how fast it was disappearing, so I got in line and escaped having to eat that nasty vegetarian pizza!
Awards were given to Jason Scott, 4am, Stavros Karatsoridis, my current KFest roomie, and the earlier presented one to Mike Harvey. Door decoration prizes were awarded, Crazy tie contest judged, and the announcement that we're going to have KansasFest next year! Yay!
Then we all went outside and took a group picture.
Then we went inside where it was MUCH cooler and many went off to play computer games in a tournament, laugh at some large podcaster meeting, go to movies or what I did, chatting with distant fellow geeks via Skype, in Sidney AU! Well, it wasn't just me... others of us were there too.
Keep in mind that I stayed awake the entire day, and went to all these sessions! Mass quantities of coffee consumed! Which is one reason I'm hurrying to finish this report. Nature calls. And so does the bed! If you want more, search for the videos! :)
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323561 is a reply to message #323423] |
Sat, 23 July 2016 19:43 |
Christopher G. Mason
Messages: 156
Registered: November 2012
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On 7/22/2016 3:56 PM, Steven Hirsch wrote:
> On 07/22/2016 11:24 AM, mmphosis wrote:
>>> Wouldn't you still need the GatorBox (or some other device) as a bridge?
>>> I
>>> can see Netatalk running on a Raspberry Pi (have had it set up in the
>>> past,
>>> though not on a Raspberry Pi), but you still need to bridge LocalTalk to
>>> Ethernet.
>
>> I wanted to ask the same question. Maybe the Pi can do this through GPIO
>> pins? There are some serial pins on the Pi? Maybe the Pi via GPIO
>> can do
>> (RS-422) LocalTalk ?!?
>
> I know that low speed (31.5K - MIDI) serial I/O has been implemented by
> bit-banging the GPIO pins on a Pi, but a 230Kbps synchronous data stream
> is probably not achievable on that CPU.
>
> It could be done on a Beagelbone by writing code for one of the PRUs.
> They are fast enough to read, write and emulate MFM hard disks. Might
> be a fun project for someone (not I).
There have been attempts to get this up and running:
< https://mac68k.info/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=275&tsta rt=0>
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323563 is a reply to message #323468] |
Sun, 24 July 2016 01:21 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
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Sadly, this was the last day, and folks are already leaving, or getting to bed early to leave tomorrow. I'll be relieved to get more than 5 hours of sleep, but the notorious KansasFest High will be tough. I hate the withdrawal symptoms.
Our first session of the day was presented by Martin Haye, who demonstrated in a half hour how to "reprotect" a disk that had been cracked by 4am's Passport program, because it's "fun". It was technical and involved lots of assembly code and disassembly, but he was successful! We decided to let him live anyway. :)
Rob McMullen and Kevin Savetz (two great Atari 8-bit fans and podcasters that we love and tolerate) walked us through the disassemble and reverse engineering of the Atari game "Jumpman", using Rob's program called "Omnivore". Other tools were built to add the capability of adding new levels to the game. Again, lots of assembly code!
The fascinating Michael Mahon (I drove him to Wichita after a KansasFest several years ago... that was the fastest 3 hrs I've ever lived through! What stories!) demonstrated what may well be the first emulator to run on an Apple II! Rather than emulating an Apple II on modern machines! The machine he chose to emulate was the Burroughs 220, a vacuum tube computer from the late 50's that he used at work. He gave us a bit of history on the machine, told us how it worked, and what he had to do to simulate it on the Apple II! Not easy, but Michael has always blown our socks off with his skills! Of course, in those days humans had to interpret blinking lights, but he was able to get it to run at about half the originals speed, on a //e.
Henry Courbis walked us through his methods of resurrecting the RAMWorks III memory card, using more modern chips and DRAM, and how they'll be using these techniques and the knowledge he acquired for future Ultimate Micro products. It was technical, with terms like CAS and RAS refresh, but it's always interesting to listen to a master talk about their work. :)
Peter Neubauer's session was about an alternative to the awkward and difficult way that Apple II's present graphics, by comparing it to how other computers have simplified it using the Texas Instruments TMS9918A Video Display Processor, which were available for the Apple II from several companies. He had one of these cards and demonstrated how it could have layers of graphics, from a Background layer, a Patterned layer, and a layer with 32 sprites. It was also compatible with VGA, and you could technically drive 7 monitors using a card in each slot. He quickly demonstrated how easy it was to quickly produce a simple game. Interesting, and something a hobbyist might want to explore!
Kevin Savetz returned to take over the Retro Computing Roundtable, and did a live recording featuring audience members competing in a Trivia game where he'd supply the name of a software publisher, and the members would have to come up with the names of programs they'd produced for the Apple II. Great fun and lots of laughs!
Charles Mangin shared his research on the mysteries of mouse minutia, specifically the M0100 mouse. Extremely detailed, and oddly enough, interesting enough that I didn't nod off! :)
We had some new product announcements, but I wasn't taking notes and previous sessions had already announce many of the products. My mind is a blank now...
I was late getting to the HackFest 2016 judging, so missed seeing the projects in action. Apparently there were only 4 entries, so everyone came up a winner. I just can't remember the placement or what their programs did. I'm such a failure! :P
Afterwards, prizes were presented to the winners of the HackFest contest, the Door decorating contest, the Dippy Tie contest, and many, many, more items because we had to give away a PHENOMENAL number of extremely generous prizes that sponsors had donated! Everything from bumper stickers to CFFA3000 cards and many valuable items in between! Lots of happy winners!
Dinner involved groups scattering to local restaurants, arcades or movies. I stayed to help my undersung hero, James Littlejohn, collect the unclaimed Giveaway items to take back to storage. Everyone should give him a big hug!
Now, we're getting in a little more chatting, doing some packing, and getting to bed earlier to catch planes, or be rested for long drives home.
So, until next year, save your pennies so you can make it to KansasFest 2017!
Chow!
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323743 is a reply to message #323563] |
Mon, 25 July 2016 20:13 |
Michael AppleWin Debu
Messages: 1262
Registered: March 2013
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On Saturday, July 23, 2016 at 10:21:24 PM UTC-7, Kirk Mitchell wrote:
Thanks for taking the time to write all these up Kirk !
I know it how hard it can be remember a flurry of activity -- all of us who couldn't make it definitely appreciate you doing this. We all got to live vicariously through you. ;-)
Michael
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323752 is a reply to message #322405] |
Mon, 25 July 2016 22:30 |
Hugh Hood
Messages: 678
Registered: November 2012
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Kirk:
Allow me to echo what the other guys here have stated -- thanks so much
for your Kansasfest reports, not just those from this year, but from all
the years that you've supplied them.
Year after year you've been a reliable source of daily Kansasfest
information for us here in the A2 newsgroups.
While I have yet to attend a Kansasfest, it certainly is something I
envision doing, and I look forward to meeting you in person.
I know that guys like Ivan Drucker, Martin Haye and 4am get the
wow-factor spotlight, and obviously it is deserved, but I assure you
that your contributions are not taken for granted.
Regards,
Hugh Hood
{Apologies to the other 'wow-factor' guys and gals that I may have left
out in the abbreviated list above. ;-) }
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323753 is a reply to message #323752] |
Mon, 25 July 2016 22:52 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
Karma: 0
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Awww, shucks!
I know I'm no star, but I'm happy to contribute in whatever small way I can..
And I might actually be like that drug dealer on the corner offering "samples"... The people you'll meet at KansasFest will blow your mind far further than any chemical means. Although, I'll admit to being a bit "tipsy" at times and mentally crashing at ALL times while typing these up before I went to bed. Absolutely no quality control at all!
In any case, I look forward to meeting anyone from csa2 who can make it at least once in their lives. The last 5 years of growing participation have eased my fear that it'd die, so I'm not as frantic as I may have been in the past. :)
Still, if you're on FaceBook, check out Kirk Millwood's Streamed sessions, Read the three stories on Cult of Mac, research it... and consider coming. Good times!
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323816 is a reply to message #323752] |
Tue, 26 July 2016 14:30 |
D Finnigan
Messages: 1154
Registered: October 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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Hugh Hood wrote:
>
> {Apologies to the other 'wow-factor' guys and gals that I may have left
> out in the abbreviated list above. ;-) }
I think anyone who is still fiddling with the Apple II these days deserves a
wow-factor award. :-)
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| Re: Kansasfest 2016 Report [message #323830 is a reply to message #323753] |
Tue, 26 July 2016 16:28 |
gids.rs
Messages: 1395
Registered: October 2012
Karma: 0
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On Monday, July 25, 2016 at 8:52:55 PM UTC-6, Kirk Mitchell wrote:
> Awww, shucks!
>
> I know I'm no star, but I'm happy to contribute in whatever small way I can.
>
> And I might actually be like that drug dealer on the corner offering "samples"... The people you'll meet at KansasFest will blow your mind far further than any chemical means. Although, I'll admit to being a bit "tipsy" at times and mentally crashing at ALL times while typing these up before I went to bed. Absolutely no quality control at all!
>
> In any case, I look forward to meeting anyone from csa2 who can make it at least once in their lives. The last 5 years of growing participation have eased my fear that it'd die, so I'm not as frantic as I may have been in the past. :)
>
> Still, if you're on FaceBook, check out Kirk Millwood's Streamed sessions, Read the three stories on Cult of Mac, research it... and consider coming.. Good times!
I think your "play by play" or recall of "session by session" is more related to watching a sports game on the tv or watching it live. I get to hear it from the announcer which means I don't miss much, but if I were watching it live, it's like "what just happened?""I missed the best part".
After all there are no replays when being there in person and watching it live. :)
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