Classic Computing 2019

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. 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…

Related Links

Verein zum Erhalt klassischer Computer e.V.
Commodore Werk Braunschweig
Harzretro
SymbOS
Sinclair ZX Spectrum Next