August 2018 Meeting Report

Thanks to everyone who came out for our Sega and Nintendo event!

Last week marked possibly the last time our meetings will be held in Eastwood. In September we will be trialling a new venue, so please refer to previous blog posts about that if you haven't already. 

A big thank you to the Eastwood Community Centre for having us for the last few years. It's been a fantastic venue and we're very grateful for their support.

Australian Computer Museum Society collection faces imminent demolition - Help Needed

Rather unfortunate news to report here. The Australian Computer Museum Society’s massive collection of vintage computer equipment, software and documents faces bulldozers this week unless a solution can be found.

Currently located in Villawood, Sydney, the warehouse containing the collection will be demolished this Friday to make way for apartment blocks. The Society’s collection is a gold mine of 70s mini-computers, rare EAI analogue computer, terminals, vintage test equipment and thousands of irreplaceable documents.

They are desperately seeking help to re-house the collection before it is destroyed forever.

Curator John Geremin:

“We need bodies, we need people with a corner of a garage, a bit of basement, a caravan not being used by the grandparents. So long as they come with transport and a bit of muscle, come and grab some stuff. I hope the collection is distributed to enthusiasts who have an idea what they are taking and its heritage, and who will care for it rather than scrape the gold off the connectors inside. If it stays here and the bulldozer gets it, it is gone forever. If it goes somewhere else we may not see it for a while, but that will be better than not having it at all.”

Here is YouTuber EEVblog rummaging through the collection a few days ago: https://youtu.be/mK4M8dv4NNU

If you’re able to help, contact John Geremin at info@acms.org.au.

August 2018 Event - Sega and Nintendo Night!

Adelaide Retro Computing Event - Nintendo & Sega Consoles
Time: 7:30pm
Date: Friday August 10, 2018
Location: Eastwood Community Centre Hall
95 Glen Osmond Road, Eastwood SA 5063 

Cost of entry is $4 per person (children under 12 exempt).

For this themed event we want to see everything Sega and Nintendo - from the NES and the SG-1000 to the Game Cube and Dreamcast. Handhelds are also most welcome!

If you don't have anything to bring in that's fine too; we'd like to see as many people attend to spectate as those with displays.

We request that systems be dated 2001 or earlier.

Second hand sale tables for those wanting to sell retro systems and accessories will be available as usual.

The event starts at 7:30pm, but for those bringing in systems please arrive at 7:00pm to set up. Please bring power boards and extension cables for your equipment. Tables are provided.

There is a $4 entry fee to cover costs of room hire and running of the group.

For directions to the Eastwood Community Centre please visit our website at http://adelaideretrocomputing.blogspot.com.au/ and click on Meeting Location for directions.

We look forward to seeing you all there!

July 2018 Meeting Report & Possible Venue Change

Thanks to everyone who came out on Friday for our July event. As usual there were some fantastic machines in action, including a BBC Micro, Apple II, multiple Neo-Geo consoles, Ataris, Amigas and plenty more.

If you haven’t already done so, please read Nick’s post about a possible venue change for future meetings. This is something we’re very excited about but we want to make sure everyone is on board with the change. If you have any concerns or queries don’t hesitate to get in touch with us. We’ve organised to have a trial run at the new venue in September to see how it goes.

The venue details are as follows:

Unley Civic Library
181 Unley Road, Unley
(corner Oxford Terrace & Unley Rd.)

The library staff are also keen to co-ordinate with us on additional activities outside of normal monthly meets. This could include special events or workshops relating to retrocomputing. If you have any ideas, please let us know!

Further announcements will be made closer to September.

ARC July Event (Time-lapse)

New Venue

Hey everyone, Nick here. Hope you've all had a good weekend and you're keeping warm.

If everyone could please read this whole post in your own time, I'd be ever so grateful.

As you may or may not know, we, the ARC Group, co-hosted a retro computer & gaming showcase for the local community at the Unley Civic Library's hall earlier this year on the 12th of May. The event was a huge success, the library's team were very happy with the result. So happy in fact that they've offered their hall to us for our regular monthly meetings.

The regular September meeting, on the 14th, will be held at the library as a trial to determine if the hall is a good fit for our group. I will make the Facebook event and post the details here on our blog for the meet soon. If enough of you like the new venue, we will be moving there permanently!

Having our meetings at Unley's hall has quite a lot of benefits for us. Such as, way more space, more/better power outlets, more/better tables & chairs, better parking, advertising on behalf of the library, which will encourage more people to join our group, and it's free for us to hire the hall !, which means, no more entry fee!

We will be giving the a library benefit too by increasing the amount of visitors they have. I was also informed that they had been looking for a while for a group such as ours to host events much like ours. So, this is a major win-win situation. This is also a golden opportunity we have been given since we were looking for a new venue with no luck. This hall truly exceeds all our hopes.

For those of you who are concerned about distance and dates & times, don't worry. The library is quite literally a 5 minute drive around the corner from the Eastwood Community Center, where we currently meet. Unley Civic Library is located at; 181 Unley Road, Unley, on the corner of Oxford Terrace. The library is very flexible with time slots on Friday nights and have offered us priority. So, we are able to keep our meetings at the usual time of the second Friday of each month from 7:00pm until 11:00pm.

With all that being said, there should be very little if not any down side to moving to this potential new venue. However, on the off chance that there is a lot of you that don't like it at Unley for any reasonable reason, we will stay where we are.

I would very much like to see as many of you there as possible in September. That way we can get a decent idea of what you guys think. Your opinions WILL be heard.

Please don't hesitate to ask any questions that you may have. I'm more than happy to answer them.

Thank you so very much for taking the time to read and understand this. I really do appreciate it.

Have a good week everyone :)