World of Commodore 2014

The people from the Toronto Pet User's Group did it again: Exactly two decades after the demise of the company of which the user group owes its raison d'etre, they've kept the flames of a computer industry legend alive with another annual World of Commodore.

Great turnout at this year's World of Commodore

This year's World of Commodore took place once again at the Admiral Inn, conveniently located off the Queen Elizabeth Way in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Inconveniently for me, I had three other obligations on what turned out to be one of the busiest December the 6th's of my life, and there was to be no Commodore festivities to follow on the 7th. Fortunately, I managed to re-align my schedule so that I could spend a little bit of time re-acquainting with old friends and pay my annual membership dues.

The turnout was very good, with plenty of people attending. Jim Brain was unfortunately not in attendance again this year, but the itinerary was nicely filled with Glenn Holmer demonstrating Abacus Super Pascal, Rob Alders demonstrating the Kerberos MIDI cartridge for the Commodore 64, Chiron Bramberger demonstrating his musical experiments with Arduino and Commodore, Leif Bloomquist demonstrating his motion sensing game glove for the Commodore 64, and a behind the scenes "Meet me at Starbucks" commercial featuring TPUG.

As usual, people out on the floor had on-going demonstrations of the really neat things they're doing with their Commodore equipment, like bitmapped graphics on the Commodore PET, or connecting an old 8 bit Commodore to the Internet. There were also rare machines, like the colour PET.

There was the freebie table with lots of goodies; I scored some Compute!'s Gazette magazines I was missing from my collection. There was also the raffle table. Add in Steve Gray's collection, some interesting machines from others in attendance, as well as perusing Joseph Palumbo's wares, and the price of admission ($5 for members, $10 for non-members) became an excellent value for my dollar.

In all, it was a great time with great people. My only regret was that I was unable to spend the entire day there and take in the demonstrations; but then again, there's always TPUG 2015 to look forward to. Hope to see you there next year!

More photos from the Classic Gaming Expo 2014

Seth and Michelle Sternberger rock out!

A wider view of their sales table

SCCAN member Tim Waite explains Commodore.

One side of the C= machines set for play

Another side of the C= computers

5C's v.p. Forrest Nettles (right) talks to Tim about the A1200.

Chris Romero's Vectrex machines share table space.

A Vectrex-like machine with the game, Flapping Bird

Flappy Bird on the C64

There are giants among us!

Cosplay characters in action

Seth enjoys some gaming time.

Seth's Lawless Legends Apple II screenshot

Will it ever come to the C64?

Peter Hanson's Plus/4 playing Adventures in Time

Carling the Spider on the VIC-20's screen

The crowded auction room

Commodore in the museum

And an A1200 in the museum

Plus a C= button

And another button

The Amiga Joyboard

With details

(l to r) Joe Santulli, John Hardie, Howard Warshaw, Sean Kelly

Ah, a SuperPET in the museum...

...but given the description of an ordinary PET.

The SuperPET's back

And its serial number

Here are some more photos from the Classic Gaming Expo 2014 with the Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network, Fresno Commodore User Group, and the Clark County Commodore Computer Club (of Las Vegas) minding the C= tables.  Stay tuned for the video when I announce it!

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

First photos from CGE 2014

In the gaming room

In the vending room/presentation hall

In the middle of doing grades

Aw, the life of a teacher.  While helping out at the Clark County Commodore Computer Club's exhibit table, I can't enjoy myself fully at the Classic Gaming Expo 2014 here in Las Vegas, Nevada.  I have to sit in a corner (wedged between Blitz 99 and Pacman arcade machines) and do grading for the students.

Check out that big box of student paperwork,

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group

http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

Gaming at CommVEx v10 2014

The game - Commodore International Soccer

The contestants - trying to win the cash prize

Here are a few shots of the gaming festivities at the July 26-27 Commodore Vegas Expo. For next year's CommVEx, we'll need another intense game for the competition.

To see Mario L.'s phone pictures of CommVEx, go to

http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/RobertBernardo/library/

or

http://s1293.photobucket.com/user/RobertBernardo/slideshow/

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

Plus/4 adapters for the Ray Carlsen power supply

Notice the keyway built into the square plug

Hand built from brass

I knew that Ray Carlsen had C128 adapters for his new C= power supplies, but for the Plus/4 he wanted users to cut off the power lead off of old Plus/4 power supplies and send the lead to him so that he could attach it to his new unit.  There just was no source for the Plus/4 square plug.  Well, now Ray can supply you a Plus/4 adapter with a new square plug.  He builds his Plus/4 adapters one at a time, fashioning the square metal plug out of a sheet of brass, molding the insert for the 4 pins, and building a keyway into the plug.  That is a lot of labor, a lot of hammering metal!  It takes him 30 to 40 minutes to construct one Plus/4 adapter.  The adapters cost $15 when bought with his p.s..  For a full view of the Plus/4 adapter, go to his website at

http://personalpages.tds.net/~rcarlsen/cbm/universal_ps/misc/SQUARE%20DINS.jpg


To read a full review of his new p.s., go to

http://www.commodore.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12328&p=16755&hilit=carlsen#p16755


Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

More photos from CommVEx v10 2014

A lot of the Saturday crowd 

Mike Hill ponders the meaning of life... and C=.

A.J. tries out the PET 2001 with Mike.

Josh S. (standing) looks over the Tim's stuff.

John Ferrell hauls his goods.

Everybody listens to Steve Davison (right).

The happy couple

The computers on FCUG's table

Packing away the Amiga items which were on sale 

A.J. works on his AT&T computer.

Dave Maurer in front of his C64 ATX board exhibit

VIC-20 and Plus/4 games from Psytronik/Binary Zone

C64 games from Psytronik/Binary Zone

I finally had my roll of 35 mm from the Nikon SLR developed.  And there are still more photos to come from another attendee!

Back to work in California,

Robert Bernardo

Fresno Commodore User Group

http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm

July 26-27 Commodore Vegas Expo v10 -

http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex