Just now I was looking thru iPhoto to find another picture to post to Flickr. I came across this photo:
powerbook100.jpg
I could not help but think this was the last time my PowerBook 100 ran correctly. I was going to use it to upload Intellivision games to my Intellicart at my 2003 Intellivision display at the Vintage Computer Festival 6.0.
The Intellivision uploader I wrote (in REALBasic) would not run on the PB100 because its operating system was so old. I remember hauling out a Macintosh Quadra 610 and installing an old copy of CodeWarrior to write a simple drag and drop Intellivision Uploader. It worked beautifully. But the next day my Powerbook would not boot. I just got sad mac error codes (pointing to faulty memory) and that was it. A dead Powerbook 100.
I instead took the Quadra 610 to the exhibit. The funny thing is the DigiBarn had a nice exhibit of old Macs at the show. They included a PowerBook 100.

Pony up the music list!

Wow, I’ve had a blog for almost a year and have not done a list. Well since iTunes gladly tracks which songs I listen to let’s
have a list of my favorite songs:

People Are People Depeche Mode
Love like we do Edie Brickell & New Bohemians
Forgetful Lucy Adam Sandler
Ghost In You Mark McGrath
Bittersweet Symphony The Verve
Should I Stay or Should I Go The Clash
Star (Single Mix) Erasure
The Way Fastball
All Things Dull And Ugly Monty Python
No One Lives Forever Oingo Boingo
Walk tall Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Messages Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Nothing Bad Ever Happens Oingo Boingo
King Of Stone Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Big town Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Electricity Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Tesla Girls Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Storms In Africa Enya
88 Seconds In Greensboro Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark
Mad World Tears for Fears
Pale Shelter Tears for Fears
Don’t Be Cruel Cheap Trick
Finland Song Monty Python
Maid of Orleans Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark

OMD

It turns out my favorite band is OMD. I know this because of some interesting behavior I’ve noticed about my iPod usage.
I mainly use my iPod on my drive to and from work five days a week. On average my commute time is an hour each way. I am usually sitting there with my hand on my ipod (in the seat next to me).
I have two playlists, No Classical and No TMBG. The no classical playlist is every song I have except my classical music. The no TMBG playlist is all of my music except the classical and my They Might Be Giants library. I have so much TMBG music that it’ll be easy for me hear three or four songs in a row of TMBG music without any other band in there. This is my usual playlist because most of the time I just don’t want to hear that much TMBG.
I listen to these playlists on shuffle. But during playback I’ll forward thru a song as soon as I remember it and have determined that I don’t want to listen it. This happens all the time. Except for one band. Whenever I hear the start of an Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark song I take my hand off the iPod and sit back (and usually sing along). One of my earliest memories is seeing OMD on American Bandstand on TV. It was a real fluke to see them play as I never watched that show regularly. Below is the last remaining bit of an OMD tee shirt that my sister gave to me.
omd.jpg

VCF

Yesterday I went to VCF 8.0. I had a lot of fun. I sat thru three presentations. The first one was a presentation called The Future of Pinball. I thought it was a odd title for a presentation at the Vintage Computer festival. But a few minutes into the movie I realized that the documentary was about a product of Williams Pinball called Pinball 2000 which was suppose to take pinball into the 21st century. Overall I give the movie a thumbs up. The producer is looking for a television deal and will produce DVDs soon after.

Next I watched the Homebrew Computer Club 30th anniversary retrospective. It consisted of a panel of former members. The only celebrity was Steve Wozniak. Woz told a funny joke. People spoke of what the club exterience was like. Overall, a lot of fun. I was glad it ran long.

Then I watched Sellam Ismail’s Q&A/Show & Tell session. He was entertaining as usual.

After that I went thru the Computer History Museum’s Computer Chess exhibit. A very nice display of artifacts, plus multimedia explanations of everything. Here is what really caught my eye:
computerchess.jpg
I noticed the Color Computer ROM Pak of Chess produced by Radio Shack. It was nice to see my favorite computer represented in such an exhibit.

Then I wandered upstairs to view the exhibits. The only thing that really caught my eye was the TTL CPU. That really geeked me out. He had a wonderful LED display of the current internal state of the CPU — a real blur of flashing lights.