| KansasFest 2018 Report [message #370935] |
Wed, 18 July 2018 00:26  |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
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After skipping my responsibilities/tradition of doing these reports last year, I'll try to be a better human and return to the rambling of the past!
So far, the experience has been ... moist. Sorry, but it's true. From packing my stuff to bring here (sweat glands went into overdrive, but perhaps that's too much information) to the soaking I got from a cloudburst, picking a couple of folks up at the airport. To yet another soaking running (stop snickering, that's as fast as I move nowadays) to the car after dinner at Jack Stack's BBQ, to the third time from running (I said stop snickering!) to the dorm after parking the car on the return from dinner. This time I'll omit the overactive sweat gland business of hauling my stuff to my third floor room.
The fun part has been greeting old and new friends while drying out. And what a great crowd we have! Perhaps a third of the folks are newbies, and they're fitting right in!
The stuff in our final Garage Giveaway, while not as large as last year, still has lots of treasures for our participants to sort through. Lots of GS's and monitors, software, books, old computer magazines, boxes of wall warts and cables. While this may be the end of the official GG, many brought old equipment to add to the already large pile. I suspect that in future years, we'll see more participants bring their own extra stuff to share as they refine their collections. I know I could certainly do without some of the goodies I have.
So today was mostly just moving in, although quite a large percentage of folks arrived on Monday to take advantage of our early arrival dorm rates. And it looks like they did a great job loading and unloading the GG stuff early. Like before I arrived. Suckers!
Roger Wagner has arrived and is staying in the dorms with us, to participate in the fun! He won't be able to stay the entire event, but I'm looking forward to his keynote. I haven't introduced myself yet... I must have some mental flaw when I meet celebrities. :P
The night is young, but I am not, which is why I'm typing this up earlier that in all those years past. Still, I'll try to make the rounds, and do some more visiting, while avoiding any more opportunities of attaining dampness.
Oh! Keep an eye on our youtube channel for when videos become available. Some may try to live stream them, but when you have >100 geeks in a room, all with laptops or tablets or phones on the single wifi connection, it hasn't gone well. The videos will be well lit, and we've put extra effort into the sound, but someone still has to edit it (not me!) while still remembering to have fun here as well!
Take care!
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #370938 is a reply to message #370935] |
Wed, 18 July 2018 01:37  |
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Originally posted by: awanderin
Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitchell@gmail.com> writes:
> After skipping my responsibilities/tradition of doing these reports
> last year, I'll try to be a better human and return to the rambling of
> the past!
Thanks Kirk! I cannot be there, so I appreciate your summary of what's
happening!
--
--
Jerry awanderin at gmail dot com
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #370941 is a reply to message #370935] |
Wed, 18 July 2018 03:52 |
olivier.zardini
Messages: 51
Registered: August 2013
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Le mercredi 18 juillet 2018 06:26:14 UTC+2, Kirk Mitchell a écrit :
> After skipping my responsibilities/tradition of doing these reports last year, I'll try to be a better human and return to the rambling of the past!
Tanks for the detailed reports you provide every year. They are always appreciated, especially for foreigners that can't go there.
> The stuff in our final Garage Giveaway, while not as large as last year, still has lots of treasures for our participants to sort through. Lots of GS's and monitors,
Can anyone grab the Apple IIgs serial numbers before they went away ?
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UB9TyF1h3mDyUXQgGm3Z 7gxENAGOTFwL1fwLySoBRyU/edit#gid=1
Thanks
Olivier
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #370942 is a reply to message #370941] |
Wed, 11 July 2018 03:57 |
Jeff Ramsey
Messages: 35
Registered: May 2018
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"olivier.zardini@cooperteam.com" wrote:
> Le mercredi 18 juillet 2018 06:26:14 UTC+2, Kirk Mitchell a écrit :
>> After skipping my responsibilities/tradition of doing these reports
> last year, I'll try to be a better human and return to the rambling of
> the past!
>
> Tanks for the detailed reports you provide every year. They are
> always appreciated, especially for foreigners that can't go there.
This is seconded by those of us "locals" who cannot go! Thanks Kirk.
:)
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #370944 is a reply to message #370935] |
Wed, 18 July 2018 11:05 |
Hugh Hood
Messages: 689
Registered: November 2012
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Kirk,
I truly missed your reporting last year.
Thanks for taking on that responsibility this year.
Just think -- people willing pay good money to sit in saunas and steam
rooms, and you're getting those benefits for free at KansasFest.
Have fun, and make sure somebody fills up Littlejohn's BGT before he goes
back to Oklahoma.
Hugh Hood
in article b8262953-d6a3-4d09-a2dd-25c6f38d89f6@googlegroups.com, Kirk
Mitchell at kirkmitchell@gmail.com wrote on 7/17/18 11:26 PM:
> After skipping my responsibilities/tradition of doing these reports last year,
> I'll try to be a better human and return to the rambling of the past!
>
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #370953 is a reply to message #370944] |
Wed, 18 July 2018 21:07 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
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On Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at 9:05:19 AM UTC-6, Hugh Hood wrote:
> Kirk,
>
> I truly missed your reporting last year.
>
> Thanks for taking on that responsibility this year.
>
Thank you! Doing tasks to the sound of crickets can be discouraging!
> Just think -- people willing pay good money to sit in saunas and steam
> rooms, and you're getting those benefits for free at KansasFest.
>
Those are both sometimes clothing optional. I fear if I tried it, the screams of terror would disrupt our normal activities here. :)
> Have fun, and make sure somebody fills up Littlejohn's BGT before he goes
> back to Oklahoma.
>
>
>
>
>
> Hugh Hood
>
>
>
>
> in article b8262953-d6a3-4d09-a2dd-25c6f38d89f6@googlegroups.com, Kirk
> Mitchell at kirkmitchell@gmail.com wrote on 7/17/18 11:26 PM:
>
>> After skipping my responsibilities/tradition of doing these reports last year,
>> I'll try to be a better human and return to the rambling of the past!
>>
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #370961 is a reply to message #370935] |
Thu, 19 July 2018 00:47 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
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Whew! First official day of KansasFest an I survived!
I accidentally stayed up until 1 am last night. You know how you get to talking to someone who won't shut up? Well, that was me. Thanks for your patience, anonymous KFester!
I'm also at that awkward age where if there's light coming through the window, I won't get back to sleep. So, up at 6:45 am. Showered... (Hint: While I regret my decision to take a 3rd floor room, the showers on the third floor are ALWAYS nice and hot. Don't tell the lower floor suckers.) and went to breakfast.
A great deal of visiting happened until 10 am when the sharks started circling. The load of hardware, software and literature on the tables in the lobby. The Garage Giveaway was to commence. It was remarkably orderly and kind, although I kept my distance. I've been through lots of these, and my greed has been sated, so I kept my distance. I plan to bring much of what I collected there back home here for others next year. I'm short of storage space. (Heh... you thought I was generous, didn't you?)
Next came the KFest Kookout. Catered in the large echoey Student Center, it was good. Several folks told me that when I was doing the cooking, the burgers tasted better. I reminded them that that was because I was dripping sweat on the burgers while I was grilling them. They weren't amused. Catering is better, and we ain't going back!
So, I went back to my room and took a short nap. Not short enough in that I missed the Welcome to KFest session, and only got there when... every...stinking...seat... had been taken for the Keynote by Roger Wagner. So I stood at the door and watched the magic from there.
I was wrong about the live streaming. Dagen Brock got it through. Check out the KansasFest YouTube channel from now on. We were successful on almost all of our attempts. Call me a pessimist, but that's never happened before! Watch it yourself, and I won't have to go on and on about what a great job Roger did, and has done!
Next was New Product Announcements, and they were streamed too! Hmmm... this really simplifies my reporting job here. I like it! Henry Courbis presented the latest products with his stunning model, Javier Rivera. I'm going to drop some serious coin this year. How can I resist?
There was a new diagnostic card by... Oh Crap... I should have kept notes. I never keep notes. Watch the video. Jeremy Rand (programming phenom, and my KFest roomy during one of my pathetically depressed KFest years) is offering a disk of his Hackfest winners. Looks good!
Mark Lemmert demoed some of the progress 6502Workshop has made on the new Ultima style game, Nox Archaist. Things are looking sweet there!
After dinner, Rob Walch, podcaster of Today in iOS, a local KC guy presented his 12th KFest presentation of the happenings of Apple's physically smaller and flatter relatives of the Apple II. Loved his insights, and thoughts. Of course, I subscribe to his podcast. I love his use of the word "ANALysts" when he speaks of so called experts. :)
I skipped the next session called SolderFest. I just have a fear of very hot objects since I had to withdraw from my college Scientific Glassblowing class. While I made a successful test tube, my bong was a disaster.
Oh. Apparently I also missed the Bite the Bag session. Well, I've been to one, and the spilt blood, contusions and bruises just don't do it for me anymore.
Missing in this report are the dozen conversations I've had with interesting people from around the world. Australia at least... Didn't know we had one of those, and he's just across the hall from me. So, I'm just going up to these new strangers and talking to them. I'm a bit of an introvert, but apparently at KansasFest, this is a safe practice. It's been fun!
So, that's all you get from me tonight. I'm out of here! Gonna have some more fun!
Take care!
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #370996 is a reply to message #370961] |
Fri, 20 July 2018 01:39 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
Karma: 0
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Damn! Today was just packed with compressed awesome! I got up at around 7 am, after staying up until 1 am. They served bacon at breakfast, so I knew it was going to be a good day!
First session was Vince Weaver, who wrote a version of Portal for the Apple II, and who demonstrated some of the results of his programming adventures.. A bit mind blowing on how he used cycle counting to get a screen to show text mode (on the UPPER third of the screen, High res in the middle, and low res on the bottom. He's been pretty quiet and shy here so far, but he's a programming god!
Ken Gagne was next, with a session on blogging. Of course, he works for Wordpress now and shared some of the tricks of the trade, and his experiences blogging Apple II info. Apparently he's not satisfied with being the king of the hill of Apple II paper publishers with his wonderful Juiced.GS publication, and has the means and motivation to take over the internet as well. I'm rooting for him!
J. Graham (dunno his first name... he's not staying in the dorm) presented a session on CP/M. I didn't know that the Apple II was the most numerous CP/M machine on the planet, of course with the addition of a CP/M card. I played with an MS Softcard that my school district didn't need anymore, and was a bit shocked that it kicked the 6502's butt for speed on a little lowres animated program I ported over to it. Informative and detailed.
I missed Daniel "Krue" Kruszyna's presentation on emulating the Apple II on FPGA. I forget why. Oh, I remember. Nevermind. I'll have to check the KansasFest youtube channel.
M. Guidero (another off campus participant) informed us on the current Apple II Desktop Disassembly and Enhancement project. I'd only ever used that because that's what Apple shipped with my GS in 1986. I was impressed then, and //e and //c folks might enjoy it now.
Martin Hayes gave us an update on the development of the Lawless Legends Game that a team of remarkable and talented artists, composers, and programmers are working on to push the limits of the Apple II's. Impressive graphics, music and story line built on an open engine. Release may be before Christmas!
Tom Phelps took us through many strategies what we could implement in our software that would allow us to go back in time. Several methods of saving the state of a running program that would allow you to go back to any instance. He discussed advantages and disadvantages of these methods, and how we could mix the best of each to make it efficient and easy! It sure would be nice if our emulator authors could incorporate these in future versions!
John Brooks, whom I'd only known as a great programmer, presented the VidHD card, which he and his team have developed and which he demoed. Using a slot in any Apple II, it watches for graphics output, mushes it through an ARM CPU or two, and outputs it to HDMI. From text mode (40/80 cpi) to 3200 SHR. Phenomenal! And targeted at $129. And of course, I forgot the email address to put my name on the waiting list for the 2-3 that I plan to buy. Grrrr... Oh... KansasFest Youtube channel!
Quinn Dunki demonstrated her methods of programming 60 fps destructible 2d terrain. Scrolling terrain, with smooooth scrolling. It looked like Taylor Series Polygons from my college Calculus course, and Sean, STFU! I wasn't snoring! She's also a programming god. And evidently also one with a metal lathe. Look for her BlondiHacks blog!
I missed Lane Roathe's presentation of his book "Tomes of Copy Protection", published (I think!) by CALL-APPLE. I fell and hit my head on a mattress. Regained consciousness after Andrew Hogan's session on a Memory Testing Utility. Sorry. Accidents happen.
After dinner, I did regain my health and attended the Lightning Talks, where folks had 5 min. to get their message out. They were good, but went by so fast. Sheesh, just check the @kansasfest twitter feed to get the story, so I don't have to.
I missed Kate Szkotnicki's MAME Monster session, but for a good cause. I had to go get 14 dozen Krispy Kreme Donuts, 5 gallons of milk, plastic cups, and paper towels. (Walgreens doesn't sell napkins? WTF?) Thanks to James Littlejohn for his assistance!
After donut munching, the Tie One On contest was held, but I missed it because I was across the street poisoning myself with nicotine. The campus is a no poisoning yourself with nicotine campus. I'm OK with that.
And then I visited. A lot. And came here and typed this. Now I go out and visit some more, until maybe 1 or 2 am. The Days are Packed!
Take care!
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #371029 is a reply to message #370996] |
Fri, 20 July 2018 18:44 |
scott
Messages: 4272
Registered: February 2012
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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In article <23b002ec-b1ce-4a00-9399-87a29b7c83b7@googlegroups.com>,
Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitchell@gmail.com> wrote:
> John Brooks, whom I'd only known as a great programmer, presented the VidHD
> card, which he and his team have developed and which he demoed. Using a
> slot in any Apple II, it watches for graphics output, mushes it through
> an ARM CPU or two, and outputs it to HDMI. From text mode (40/80 cpi) to
> 3200 SHR. Phenomenal! And targeted at $129. And of course, I forgot the
> email address to put my name on the waiting list for the 2-3 that I plan
> to buy. Grrrr... Oh... KansasFest Youtube channel!
Went looking for more info...here's the live-stream session:
https://youtu.be/gT1R4hIl8l4?t=1h51m58s
Sounds like it follows the same approach as the Second Sight, but with a
faster processor and HDMI output instead of VGA.
_/_
/ 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 2018 Report [message #371037 is a reply to message #370996] |
Sat, 21 July 2018 01:34 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
Karma: 0
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Well, that sucked. Almost had my report done before I went downstairs to visit with WOZFest in Sydney, when the stupid editor on Google Groups lost everything. I don’t know how I’m going to explain the blistered paint on the walls of my dorm room. :P
So, I’ll try again. First session was a fun number done by Kevin Savetz, “The $6502 Pyramid”, a game of intelligence and wit, which I deftly avoided participating in. Having dodged that embarrassing prospect, I began enjoying myself and life in general. As I said, it was fun. Not as fun as if I’d had TWO cups of coffee rather than one, but fun.
John Morris, inventor of the Applesauce disk controller card and the new .woz disk format standard gave us an overview of the progress he’d made since last year, resulting in an actual product that will help archive even copy protected software. I don’t like copy protected software, but I understand that there are some that do, simply so they can have something to poke and pinch and get to submit.
Hmmm… I just got back from the WOZFest chat, and find that I’m thinking in weird ways. Sorry. Oh. That’s Canadian. We have a few of them here too. Weird.
Melody and April Ayres-Griffiths demonstrated the enhancements they’ve made to their Apple II emulation project. It’s fantastic! They demonstrated their 3D enhancements before, but they’ve also worked in the Time Machine methods that Tom Phelps showed us yesterday that allows you to rewind a computer session. And so much more! Built in Logo, and Proterm and… and… so much more. Check out the live stream video.
KFest business took me away for a bit (why didn’t I think of this alibi earlier?!?!) so I missed the next three sessions, but enjoyed myself immensely. Keep in mind that I don’t think anyone here is running on all cylinders now. Of course, most have hundreds of cylinders.
John Brooks gave a report on the progress of Prodos 2.5. No features lost, but some nice enhancements to Bitsy Bye, lower case filenames and more. I’ve fallen behind updating my software, so this will be a pleasant way to productively spend hours with my rarely handled floppies. Or just my hard drive.
I missed Stephen Buggie’s session on converting PC power supplies for use with Apple II’s, because I’d already done that 20 years ago. I decided to buy a couple of Henry’s Universal Power supply Kits instead.
Kelvin Sherlock presented “So You Want to Write an FST”, where he shared how he’d found the information that Apple never shared, on how to do so. I decided I didn’t want to write an FST.
I should mention that I’ve found the coffee machine in the lobby and haven’t had to rest my eyes during any of these sessions! Truth! Really! Trump’s Honor!
I missed Neil Forsyth’s session on the BBC Micro computer, well… because it was the BBC Micro computer. I ain’t never seen one and probably never will.
Then we had pizza, Ken Gagne went on and on about his wonderful publication, Juiced.GS, we gave out some Awards (Apple II Forever!) to John Brooks, Peter Farrie, and John Morris for their phenomenal efforts for the Apple II world, and prizes for the Tie contest, and that brutal, hideous, can’t bear to watch but can’t stop contest, Bite the Bag. I forget who won, but… they had more gray hair than me. Showoffs.
Jason Scott climbed out on a tall ledge and threatened to jump unless we all got into the group picture. Picture taken. Jason saved. I haven’t seen it, but I suspect I’d have jumped if I had to herd us KFest Cats.
Then it was back to the basement to Skype with our Australian friends at their WOZFest. Does America really have any friends anymore? I shudder to think. It was nice to see familiar faces, although Andrew hid behind his laptop for far too long. I miss that guy! Insults were slung and stung, Winter there actually seems sorta nice.
So, now I’m free to wander back downstairs and get a slice of leftover pizza, and visit some more. Someone ate all the leftover cookies. :(
Take care!
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #371073 is a reply to message #371037] |
Sun, 22 July 2018 00:29 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
Karma: 0
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Whew! What a ride! I’m doing this report a little earlier because I’m going to bed earlier. 10 hr drive home.
First session was by Charles Mangin, a gentleman who’s done various hardware projects of the mostly non-electrical type. He present how to Turn your Apple II into an 8-bit Weapon, a reference to the duo of that name which produce albums of chip-tune music, using retrocomputers. This presentation demonstrated the use of a program called DMS II, and took us through what we’d likely need to do our own chipmusic. I enjoyed it! I have no skills to DO it, but this isn’t about me. :)
The next session was given by Kevin Savetz, and Carrington Vanston, and told us about the rise and fall of Infocom. From the mountain of success to the crater of getting bought by Activision. I couldn’t take notes because my tears of sorrow kept shorting out my iPhone.
Peter Ferrie led us down the path he took on producing a Z-machine, an interpreter for Infocom’s wonderful text adventure, that spanned every type of game from the Z1 versions to the Z5 versions, with improvements to each. Let me tell you, if Peter tells you “Yes we can”, you’ll finally find utter certainty that we will. He’s Genius! An inspiration! Sorta quiet and doesn’t toot his own horn, so imagine one of the 50 coal trains that go through my town every day, blasting it’s horn next to your bed at midnight. That would be me tooting Peter’s horn for him!
Mark Pilgrim, then revealed that he’d enslaved Peter to produce the One Ring of Infocom Adventures! A program called Pitch Dark, which can be found on archive.org in the 4am collection. Don’t ask me how he hacked into that. It includes ~20 of the commercial Infocom favorites, and most run on 64k machines, and all on 128k Apple II’s. With art from the covers, and Invisiclues included. As a 32 mB disk image. Damn! And another collection on the way with 40 more non-Infocom adventures written with Inform! I have the Lost Treasures of Infocom for the GS, but this is sweet! And free! Play it with your kids, or grandkids.
I missed the next three sessions, Vintage Computer Design/Repair w/ 3D printing, by Alex Jacocks, Fast HGR Font Rendering by Rob McMullen, and The First Laserdisc Video Game for the Apple II by Kevin Savetz, because… Well, you know why.
I woke up with minutes to spare before the Apple II Exhibition Hall / Swap Meet / Vendor Fair, the awards ceremony for HackFest, Door, and… there is no and. I think. Again, I didn’t take notes, but these were tears of joy. It was a good time, and the goodies were really GOOD goodies.
Groups dispersed to various restaurants, but being a party pooper, I stayed and grazed on the leftover pizza from the night before. Some went to the movies, or the arcades, and they can tell their own tales or not.
Quite a few folks left today. Watching them strain under their loads as they drug their gear to their cars upset me, so I went upstairs to visit with others. That was more fun, and I didn’t get moist again.
Things are still churning though… people aren’t ready to leave, but if we stay, it’ll become some Hotel California kind of thing. We’ll all need some time to recover.
With that, I’ll sign out. Hope to see you here next year!
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #371211 is a reply to message #371177] |
Tue, 24 July 2018 23:35 |
Kirk Mitchell
Messages: 55
Registered: July 2013
Karma: 0
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On Monday, July 23, 2018 at 8:34:25 PM UTC-6, Delfs wrote:
> Ya thank you from the csa2 lurkers!
Thanks, all. I know all about lurking. Kirk the Lurk was a GEnie handle of mine. It was fun this year, and I'll continue. I don't mean the thread to be mine, but hope that other KFest folks chime in and shut me down where appropriate. I'm mostly recovered, but understand that if you can make it, it's awesome, and wearing and will engage various glands that you didn't know existed in ways that you've never experienced. No, Elvis... not that gland.. Everyone knows about that...
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| Re: KansasFest 2018 Report [message #371258 is a reply to message #371211] |
Wed, 25 July 2018 22:00 |
sicklittlemonkey
Messages: 570
Registered: October 2012
Karma: 0
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On Wednesday, 25 July 2018 15:35:57 UTC+12, Kirk Mitchell wrote:
> On Monday, July 23, 2018 at 8:34:25 PM UTC-6, Delfs wrote:
>> Ya thank you from the csa2 lurkers!
>
> Thanks, all. I know all about lurking. Kirk the Lurk was a GEnie handle of mine. It was fun this year, and I'll continue. I don't mean the thread to be mine, but hope that other KFest folks chime in and shut me down where appropriate.
Your thread has more views than almost any recent thread - including the VidHD one. ; - )
Thanks!
Nick.
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