May 12th-14th 2017 Cambridge ABUG (FULL) & Acorn World event at CCfCH

[jbnbeeb]

Hi everyone,


The ABUG attendee list is FULL

..but don't forget there is also an Acorn World exhibition at the museum on this weekend. And you can drop by as a visitor to meet people at the ABUG event in the classroom.


**Acorn World is an exhibition that will be taking place in the museum at the same time as the ABUG meet
see http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/ ... -May-2017/ for details**

*Entrance fee for weekend payable on arrival at museum (this was £8 last time. Will confirm soon)*[/color]



After a couple of phone calls and emails in November and December (and then being too busy or on holiday to get chance to do a write up...) I'm very chuffed to announce ....

An ABUG meet up once more at the Cambridge Centre for Computing History in May 2017!

This will take place in the "80s classroom" as per our first visit in August 2016. In parallel, there will be a display in the main museum area under the theme "Acorn World". This will be a series of stands, doubtless full of Acorn related kit.. the purpose of which will be to tell the story/history of Acorn throughout the company's life. Jason Fitzpatrick (who runs CCfCH) will also be attempting to invite some people who worked at Acorn to visit and give us a talk or two (no firm commitments on this yet, obviously depends on availability - I'll confirm as soon as I know).

I'll edit this post over coming weeks as I learn more, including the usual attendees lists etc.

For now, here's a write up about what I know so far re ABUG and the Acorn World display.

ABUG
For the ABUG meet, the "itinerary" is pretty much the same as last year:

Friday 12th from 4pm til late.
For those who can come friday, come along and set up your kit in the 80s classroom.
Pizza night at the museum in the evening. Jason F is happy for us to stay til late as before.

Saturday 13th from 9.30 til late.
Any remaining peeps come along and set up your kit..and do our usual thing re hardware/software projects / demos / repairs etc.
For the evening - not sure yet.. there could be an Acorn talk or two. For evening meal, not sure whether we'll be eating in at the centre or eleswhere yet.

Sunday 14th from 9.30am til 4.30pm
Carry on with our projects etc and pack up by 4.30ish


Acorn World
Planning is underway.
Acorn World will be an exhibit that tells the story and illustrates the history of Acorn throughout it's life. Alongside copmany history, there will be themes such as education, games , ARM legacy and retro software/hardware (mostly the work of Stardot people here - assuming they're happy to have their work on display). Besides all the computers and ephemera of the day like magazine articles, adverts etc, a key exhibit will be the Valiant Turtle which members of the public will be able to play with via Logo.

More to come on this, but in the meantime, the event is now on the What's On section of the museum website here http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/ ... -May-2017/


OK. That's it for now. I'll be updating the thread over coming weeks. Thanks for reading!




Museum address
Centre for Computing History
Rene Court
Coldhams Road
Cambridge
CB1 3EW

There is limited parking: space for up to 30 vehicles.. so if large numbers of the public turn up to the museum , we may need to move our vehicles elsewhere during the day. We can leave our cars there overnight (at own risk). They lock gates overnight.

Accommodation
I'll add to this if I get more info from peeps who went last year.

Oakley Lodge hotel
627-631 Newmarket Rd, Cambridge CB5 8PA
..some folks stayed here last year. It's just over a mile away from the museum.

Travelodge Cambridge Newmarket Road Hotel
180-190 Newmarket Road
Cambridge
Cambridgeshire
CB5 8HF
..I and several others stayed here last year. It's 10 mins walk from the museum. That's about the only thing good I can say about it. Clean but sub par breakfast and rooms were very hot in August. Parking is an extra fee here.



Attendees

1. jbnbeeb (Jason). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
2. kieranjh (Kieran). Arriving Saturday, leaving Sunday afternoon.
3. IanS (Ian). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
4. tricky (Richard). Arriving Saturday, leaving Sunday afternoon.
5. SarahWalker (Sarah). Arriving Saturday, leaving Sunday afternoon.
6. sydney (Simon).Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
7. Dave Footitt (Dave). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
8. z0m8ied0g (Stephen). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
9. flibble (Peter). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
10. daveejhitchens (Dave). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
11. lazarusr (Robert). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
12. flynnjs (Jason). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
13. mattyj (Matthew). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
14. Arcadian (Dave). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
15. sbadger (Stewart). Arriving Saturday, leaving Sunday afternoon.
16. pau1ie (Paul). Arriving Saturday Leaving Sunday
17. bitstik (Andrew). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon.
18. sixxdog_uk (Alex). Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon
19. BigEd (Ed). Sunday only
20. philmanwaring? (Phil)Arriving Friday afternoon, leaving Sunday afternoon
21. dp11 (Dominic) Arriving Saturday, leaving Sunday afternoon.
22. jgharston (jonathan) Arriving Saturday, leaving Sunday afternoon.
23. Prime (Phill) Arriving Friday, leaving Sunday afternoon.
24. MattH (Matthew)Arriving Saturday, leaving Sunday afternoon.
25. JimRussell (Jim)Arriving Friday, leaving Sunday afternoon.

If anyone in list above can't attend, people in list below will be moved to Attendee list in the order that post appeared in thread
Tentative/Reserve

1. ThomasAdam .

[kieranhj]

Hey Jason - this is great news! What an awesome idea for an event. Sign me up when you have a list please.

[IanS]

Fantastic, it was great last time. Stick me down when you start a list.
Maybe try a different restaurant for the evening meal.
I don't think I have any Acorn gear or artifacts that the centre won't have, other than an Acorn Umbrella, but it looks a bit manky as it has spent the last two decades rolling round the boot of the car.

[tricky]

I'd be up for another Cambridge event.
The only acorn thing I have is a letter giving me permission to use the BBC basic and OS images for a project I was doing while they were still pursuing copyright in them.
Different food for me to, sorry to be ungreatful.

[SarahWalker]

I'd be up for this again.

I have a prototype ARM3 board the Centre can have, if they don't already have one.

[sydney]

Great work Jason! Obviously I'll be there.

[helpful]

Sounds fantastic, put me down for all three days! Added it to my calendar already

Bryan.

[z0m8ied0g]

Put me down for coming, I'll have a look through my collection for anything that you might not have.

[daveejhitchins]

Well . . . despite Mrs H knowing about this meeting for several months she's booked us both to go to Antigua from the 19th to the 31st So, unfortunately, I'm not going to make this meeting! Please put my 'deposit' into the fund for extra drinks/cakes etc.

Lots of photos and descriptions, please . . . I hope to have 'tinternet access, but I'm not sure, as we'll be on some rich dudes yacht which is being skippered by Mrs H's youngest - owners are away, of course! I suppose the destination is some sort of compensation, however . . . .

Dave H

'Doh! - Wrong meeting . . . As we're going in January . . . I'll repost in the right place here.

[leenew]

she's booked us both to go to Antigua...
we'll be on some rich dudes yacht which is being skippered by Mrs H's youngest...

Dave H

Yeah, I bet you are gutted you can't attend the meeting Dave

Lee.

[richardtoohey]

Can't we have some sort of collection to save Dave from this terrible fate?

[flaxcottage]

We could set up a web cam so Dave could be there virtually.

[Prime]

I May be up for this,

However a couple of comments on the last Cambridge meet, I mostly didn't enjoy Saturday as much as I could because I felt the room was too crowded especially for me trying to do repair work and I was getting frustrated that every time I moved I was bumping into things / people. So we might want to considder spreading people out more, especially those who are trying to do diagnostic / repair work. I perhaps think if I had been on the same side of the desks as Jason with his repair setup I might not have felt so hemmed in

This is not taking anything away from jbnbeeb for organizing this, just a suggestion that might make it more enjoyable / productive for all.

Cheers.

Phill.

[BigEd]

Yes, maybe the rows against the walls are best for people with lots of kit and an intention to repair. (The other tables, at right angles to the main ones, had lots of space too.)

Who was most interested last time in the Acorn Cambridge Workstation 32016 machine? Any idea of trying again to get it working? If we haven't already found a machine to run it on, it might be interesting to run litwr's Pi benchmark on it.

[jbnbeeb]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. It did get a bit crowded last time. And that was using more tables than originally planned too. I'll have a think.. perhaps this time I could draw up a table plan and allocate as the attendee list fills up.. maybe with 3 or 4 dedicated hardware tables (i.e one person/per table for those with lots of bulky electronics kit like oscilloscopes etc) with the remaining tables being half a table per person.

Regarding evenings - we could eat in both nights ..or on the Saturday, besides the Turkish, which didn't work out for everyone.. there's only a chain restaurant whose name escapes me nearby. If we didn't fancy that, we'd have to venture further afield, like Cambridge town centre, which would entail cars/taxis. Happy to see what people think..

I'll contact Jason F over the next few days to see if there have been further developments on Acorn World, and then update the top post with the usual attendee lists and anything new that I've learned..

Cheers,
jbnbeeb.

[flibble]

Well, I'll put me name down for this again. Last time was excellent.

[BigEd]

Regarding evenings - we could eat in both nights ..or on the Saturday, besides the Turkish, which didn't work out for everyone.. there's only a chain restaurant whose name escapes me nearby. If we didn't fancy that, we'd have to venture further afield, like Cambridge town centre, which would entail cars/taxis. Happy to see what people think..

I'm happy to have pizza in the museum, but the one nearby is
frankieandbennys.com 12, Cambridge Retail Park, Newmarket Rd, Cambridge CB5 8WR, UK

Edit: oops, I haven't said I'm coming yet - but I probably am. 75% likely.

[daveejhitchins]

Well, as I said I wouldn't be able to make it, here, due to a forced holiday, I suppose I'd better book my place - I'll try to avoid the alternative hospital stay, this time!

Dave H

[JudgeBeeb]

Count me in too. Happy to do, go and eat whatever/wherever I'm told.

[flynnjs]

I'm in. I'll bring fixit gear and the aircon again.

[mattyj]

Hi Jason

Count me in again!

I might bring the other half as she likes the museum.

I'll get this event pinned onto the Acorn Computer and BBC Micro Enthusiasts facebook page after the East Midlands event.

Thanks

Matt

Matt Nicholson

[jbnbeeb]

Hi All,
Though I've been in touch with the museum , I don't yet have a meaningful update re Acorn World.. but I'm involved in the planning and will report back as soon as I have info.

I've updated the top post with attendees in the order that posts came in on the thread.. To all that indicated they'll be coming so far, please can you PM Arriving/Leaving days ?

Based on feedback here, and the number of tables, I've decided to put a limit of 24 people. This may flex up or down very slightly depending on number of confirmed tables available (I'm assuming same as last time presently).

Also based on feedback, 4 tables will be reserved for 4 people setting up large hardware "workstations" . These will be the 4 tables where the chair backs are facing a wall. The rest of us will get half a table each. I'm very conscious this might sound a tad unfair... I don't mean it to be, given that the guys who bring their oscilloscopes etc typically help others as well as work on their own projects. I hope everyone is OK with this.

Some of the "half table" spaces ought to be OK for bringing a soldering iron etc (limited by the confines of the space!) but will depend on location - i.e. tables that face off to the main walkway from the door wouldn't be ideal. I'll cobble together a floor plan soon.

Thanks all.

[IanS]

Are zombiedog & z0m8ied0g different people? (Or is it a cunning plan to get a full table?)

I plan to do the full weekend, Friday to Sunday.

[z0m8ied0g]

Are zombiedog & z0m8ied0g different people? (Or is it a cunning plan to get a full table?)

Well I'm z0m8ied0g but I've no idea who is zombiedog is? (but i'll have a full table if there is one going )
I'll be coming all weekend, probably late on the Friday till Sunday.
Where is the best place to stay?

[Arcadian]

I'll be there

(Fri-Sun)

[danielj]

I should be able to pop along for the w/end on this one...

d.

[jbnbeeb]

Are zombiedog & z0m8ied0g different people? (Or is it a cunning plan to get a full table?).

and I've edited the list so we only have one z0m8ied0g !

I'll add / amend list some more tomorrow re recent posts.

I'll also take a look through the thread for the event last yr for places to stay / parking etc and put in the top post

[flynnjs]

Hope to be there for all of it.

[IanS]

Are zombiedog & z0m8ied0g different people? (Or is it a cunning plan to get a full table?).

and I've edited the list so we only have one z0m8ied0g !

Still got Sydney x 2 in the list.

[jbnbeeb]

Still got Sydney x 2 in the list.

I really wasn't paying attention was I!?

Top post updated with attendees list to date with museum and possible accommodation addresses (the two of which I know of anyway!)