The first ever Mactoberfest Meetup, held Saturday October 14, 11:00am to 5:00pm, in Belmont California, was a success! Everybody seemed to have a great time, and there were no serious hiccups. In a hobby that tends to be pretty insular, it was nice to spend a day with other people who share the same enthusiasm for old Apple computer stuff.
Mactoberfest Meetup is a free social event for classic Macintosh computer collectors in the San Francisco area, and their Apple II friends. Attendees are bringing their computer collections to display, and we’ll also have a flea market, a freebies table, a workshop area, and a Tetris Max high score competition. It’ll be a fun day poking at old computer hardware and revisiting the days of Hypercard, desk accessories, and flying toasters! We’re expecting about 40 collection displays and 100 people total.
The day was chock-full of interesting people and interesting stuff. We did get at least one of the original Macintosh developers in attendance. And the variety of computer displays was staggering. I regret that I didn’t have time to see everything or talk to everyone, but some of the highlights were:
a PC sidecar for compact Macs, with dual 5.25 inch drives
an enormous Daystar Genesis MP Quad-604e system
an extensive collection of Dog Cow items
a set of tiny displays with integrated microcontrollers that directly run After Dark screensaver code resources
an RP2040 digitizer-upscaler-VGA converter for compact Mac video output
a Mac SE logic board in a very nice custom display case, with modern power and video
Yamaha audio card for Apple II, and a custom-made stand alone audio synth
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!
Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Select Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: PyCon AU 2024 Talks, New Raspberry Pi Gear Available and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
