Why hundreds flock to play with decades-old computers

“ That’s one of the things about our museum, it’s hands-on,” says VCF East showrunner Jeffrey Brace. “If you go to the Smithsonian, everything’s locked away. You can’t touch it.”

Throughout the festival, I played Oregon Trail on an Apple IIe, operated a renovated Heathkit H-89, doodled using every paint application from the ‘90s, and tested almost every kind of mechanical keyboard vintage computers had to offer.

Both the permanent museum and the exhibit halls for the festival were filled with computers dating back to the 1960s all the way to modern Macs — but the real highlight of the festival is meeting the makers, hobbyists, and educators who are there just to share their collection of vintage electronics and the various projects they’ve been working on to keep them alive. I spoke to a variety of people who were running their own GSM base stations, 3D-printing ink cartridges, updating old hardware with modern keyboards, or even just showing off their minidisc collection.

Even after my fourth year attending, I’m still learning something new or playing with a computer I’ve never seen before. This year, I was able to document my day trip to the festival for The Verge, so if you’re feeling a bit left out from the excitement, go check out our video coverage of the event.