Classic Computing 2004, Germany

Text: Mad Butscher/F2
Pictures: Grisu/WGL

Some time ago, I read at the ABBUC forum, that Michael Vogt, another ABBUC member, wanted to run an ABBUC stand at a meeting called Classic Computing 2004. So I visited the web page of the meeting and came to the idea that the WGL should also attend the meeting. I got in touch with Michael, and we agreed to do an Atari stand there together.

First it looked like Wizard, Grisu and I would go to the party, but a few days before the party Wizard told Grisu that he had to work on Saturday. I got the message that Wizard had to work six hours before I left, so of course nothing was prepared. But the best parties are the ones where you aren't organized at all.

Saturday morning Grisu arrived in Wiesbaden and we loaded our stuff into my car. Because we didn't have Wizard's notebook with the SIO2PC cable with us, I had to bring all my disk boxes with me. Beside that I took my TFT flat screen, my good old 800XL and the MultiJoy8 interface, of course. Only one hour later than we planned we got out of Wiesbaden and started travelling to the south.

The location of the party was called "Neu Bulach", a 5,000 person community in the Black Forest hills. We could ride on the highway until we reached Pforzheim and then we had to follow the river Nagold until went up a hill to Neu Bulach. This last part of the journey took a long time, because the road was narrow, so we had time to discuss the fact that most parties we attend are right in the middle of nowhere.

Finally we arrived at the party. The party took place in a village community hall. A hall on top of a Black Forest hill surrounded by a smaller village, and a lot of trees. It really looked like a holiday weekend.

The party was organized by the Classic Computing Club. The club built up a lot of walls, so there were a lot of single rooms for different computer systems.

After a first walk around I saw an Atari entrace and a Sinclair area.

On the other side of the CBM machines the club arranged a glass display cabinet for some smaller but interesting stuff like a Atari 400, Portfolio, C64 console system and others.

Then in a corner there was the Atari area where we built up our 800XL and a collection of old PC laptops, or what people called a laptop these days.

In the middle of the room there was collector from Munich who runs a museum there with 540 computers. This time, he brought some old IBM machines with him.

Next to him there was the Amiga area, C64 area and a collector of MSX maschines. In the back of the hall thee was a Apple collector, a C64 gaming park and a chill out area.

In the entrance area, Uli Scheele, an Atari fan from Luzern/Switzerland built up a Milan040, Milan060 a 1040ST which controlled a robot and a Falcon CT60. Uli demonstrated that it is still possible to do almost everything you need on an Atari computer.

The Sinclair area was run by members of the Spectrum User Clubs. They showed me some cool Spectrum stuff and it was impressive what kind of hardware is standard today in the Sinclair scene.

The Commodore Business Machines room was filled with office computers, floppies and a PET. It was the first time I saw a real PET. I really like these built-in datasettes and the old monitor.

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MyAtari magazine - Feature #6, November 2004