Vintage Computer Festival 2025
As I mentioned in my previous post about Ultima IV, my first personal computer was an Apple II+ (replica). The Apple IIe and II GS were my dream machines growing up — the ones I never got to own. So, for years I’ve had this quiet wish to build a small vintage computer workshop at home. A fun hobby project... someday. Still TBD.
So when I found out that the Computer History Museum — just 10 minutes from home — was hosting Vintage Computer Festival, I marked it as a must-go. I imagined it as a nostalgic dive back into my early computing days. But when I actually got there, things didn’t go quite as expected.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed — mostly with myself. I realized that I hadn’t done my homework. I walked in expecting a sea of old Apple IIs. But vintage computing, as I quickly learned, goes far beyond the Apple universe. The majority of the exhibits were filled with Commodore PETs, Amiga 500s, and other platforms I wasn’t very familiar with. Interestingly, there were a fair number of Japanese X68000 machines — those felt much more familiar to me.
And it wasn’t just “look at this old hardware working!” either. Most of the booths showcased technical projects — like running modern HTTP protocols on ancient machines. Cool? Absolutely. But also way over my knowledge. I couldn’t fully understand or appreciate their ingenuity and greatness, and without that context, I couldn’t really enjoy or celebrate it either.
Lesson learned: vintage doesn’t always mean just familiar. And nostalgia, it turns out, requires a bit of effort to enjoy it. Next time, I’ll show up a little more prepared — and maybe finally get that home workshop going too. Not to recreate the past exactly as it was, but to build a small space where that spark the curiosity which can live again in the present.
