Vintage computer collectors are preserving the classic machines that helped launch the digital revolution. These hardware enthusiasts are intent on saving the Atari, Commodore, and IBM machines that are ancestors to today’s laptops, wearable devices, and smartphones.
Vintage Computer Festival
The Vintage Computer Festival, held in Mountain View, California, celebrated the 50th anniversary of Apple, founded in 1976. The festival featured a panel with co-founders Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne reminiscing about the company’s early days.
Software engineer Josh Dersch loves old computers and spends countless hours tinkering in his garage, trying to coax decades-old machines back to life. He estimates he owns more than 200 vintage computers and devices in his Seattle home.
Dersch drove down from Seattle to showcase the pride of his collection: the Xerox Alto. He spent years restoring what’s considered ‘the grandfather of the modern computer,’ which was developed at the pioneering Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in the 1970s.
The Alto was one of the earliest computers to move beyond text on screen and use the mouse and graphical user interface — such as windows, icons, and cursors — that became the industry standard.
Original reporting: Alexandria, VA News – WTOP News — read the source article.
