VzEkC
This year I had the opportunity to visit the yearly event of the „Verein zum Erhalt klassischer Computer e.V.“( VzEkCeV). I only had a limited amount of time, nevertheless the three hours I spent in Lehre were very entertaining and informative. So here are some impression from that meeting.
History Tour
The room where the meeting was held was rather spacey (Börnekenhalle), so a lot of old and partly very historical hardware was shown. Approximately seventy exhibitors used, played and repaired their systems. Due to historical reasons the Amiga-related stuff (old and new like the AmigaOne or the Vampire [standalone]) was by far the most prominent. Commodore had their famous German factory nearby at Braunschweig – so a lot of the locals are still (or ex-) Amiga users…
In contrast the Sinclair side of things was rather sparsely populated, only one running Sinclair QL (incl. Charles Ingley’s marvelous a vDriveQL) and a Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48K were visible (and some more east European Sinclair clones – not operating – were shown, thanks to Harzretro).
Very interesting was the Z80 operating system SymbOS shown by Prodatron – running on Z80 hardware like the Amstrad CPC/PCW series, Enterprise 128 and MSX computers. Of course me and others are still waiting for a port to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum – at least one for the all-new ZX Spectrum Next would be very nice! 🙂
Of course there were much more systems on display (Apples, East German Robotron systems and much much more) – but of course my heart beats for Amigas and Speccies, so please be lenient with me…
Addendum
Beneath my hodgepodge of old computers was a Apple Macintosh Color Classic, which I really didn’t use anymore and wasn’t switched on since many, many years. Due to the contact I had with the nice guys from Harzretro (see above) it finally found a new home and hopefully someone who takes care of it. Thanks!
Related Links
Verein zum Erhalt klassischer Computer e.V.
Commodore Werk Braunschweig
Harzretro
SymbOS
vDriveQL
Sinclair ZX Spectrum Next