Description :

Click here for tickets for Saturday

We're very happy to announce our 2024 Retro Computer Festival - our biggest yet, with more exhibitors than ever before.

We'll be dedicating another entire weekend to the Retro Computing Community. The Centre for Computing History will be opening its doors on the 9th and 10th November 2024 and welcoming enthusiasts to exhibit their personal collections, retro computing mods and state of the art hacks.

The event will be free to exhibitors and entry for visitors is just standard museum entry.

Exhibitors

This isn't the complete list and new exhibitors will added when we get their details - keep checking back!

John Newcombe - @glasstty

John will be celebrating some of the many 'self build' systems available during the 1970s and early 80s. Come and see the genuine, non-original, 44 year Acorn System 3 and 6809 machines that were built last year, the 47 year old Newbear machine that will be built next year, and a very cute unfinished Microtan 65 started 4 decades ago. There'll also be a KIM1 and a replica to compare it with.

If that wasn't enough why not stop for a moment and marvel at a wire wrapped COSMAC Elf flashing an LED and if that fails to impress then come along and check out a ZX81 doing something really useful.
[Saturday/Sunday]

John Brown - @jcrowly

Unix, the operating system most normal people think they have never used. While it now runs almost every smart phone, smart TV, tablet, washing machine, and the Internet, Having been with us since the 70s, it means there is a huge variety of machines that ran it, many strange an exotic, and some more familiar you would not expect.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Jonathan Pallant

Jonathan is bringing “Backwards Compatible” - a selection of machines that worked really hard at being backwards compatible with their predecessor and consequently suffered with having much less native software than they deserved.

The display includes a Commodore 128D, and a BBC Master
[Saturday/Sunday]

Stephen Usher

The Sinclair QL is forty years old.
Come and see upgraded machines using both period and newly created add-ons and their sibling, the ICL One Per Desk, in all its glory.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Tony Jewell - @herebedragons3

So green, so very very green. The Dragon may have some of the greenest games out there, and this year Tony is going to celebrate the reason why - the Motorola MC6847. This low budget graphics chip is actually found in a surprising number of machines, and he’s going to see how many of them he can fit on one table. Bring sunglasses.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Eduard Garanskij

​​Eduard will showcase programmable calculators from the 70s, 80s, and 90s, including the Soviet Elektronika MK series. Ed will demonstrate how to program these vintage devices and show you how to play games on them!
[Saturday/Sunday]

Wi-FI Sheep - Tom Williamson 

This years RetroFest will mark the final in a series Tom's been running on Youtube called 'Going GUI!', showcasing early and pioneering 'point and click' graphical users interfaces and operating systems from the 8 and 16-bit home computing eras.
Follow the series and lead-up to this years show here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8Ltmk_Xax1pvXqIB9zTrDXfXc88Mt_e3

Come and play with Windows 3.x on 16-bit PC, GEOS for the 8-bit Commodore 64 and AMX Desk, the little known GUI for the original Acorn BBC Micro Model B!
[Saturday/Sunday]

Nic Chester

Nic will be taking us on a journey through home computing from around '85 to the turn of the century, along with the experience of going online for the first time, be it through dialup internet or a BBS.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Stephen Clemmet - Cambridge Micrologic

Development kits microprocessor-based architecture on a microcontroller, designed for machine learning and sensor integration, programmable with MicroPython. Discover hands-on projects and the iconic 1984 SP0256 allophone speech synthesiser in action!
[Saturday/Sunday]

Spencer Owen - RC2014

A selection of RC2014 retro computer kits based on the Z80, which will be demonstrating some of the things you can do with CP/M, BASIC and Z80 assembly code, along with a few kits for sale so you can build your own Z80 computer from scratch!
[Saturday/Sunday]

Tim Gilberts - @timbucus

Heathkit (a major American supplier of electronics kits) was very active in the UK and brought over their microprocessor trainer in 1977, computer kits like the H8 in 1978 and then the iconic all in one H89 for winter 1979.  Come and see all three along with contemporary catalogues and price lists. The H89 will be running CPM which is 50 years old this year!
[Saturday/Sunday]

Pete Golding - Short Circuit

Pete will be showcasing some of the early home computing machines people made when they had a lot of talent but little money, when a simple circuit board truly became a piece of art!
[Saturday/Sunday]

DosFox

An orchard of not Apples - after successfully cloning the Apple Lisa last year, DosFox is back with yet another reverse engineered Apple computer - the Macintosh Plus. 

DosFox will also be showing off their other handmade Apple clones - including the Apple Lisa clone from last year, as well as a cloned Apple ii rev 0.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Roy Templeman - @loudscotsbloke

From Toggle to Keyboard.

Roy will be bringing a number of 70s and early 80s machine's from his extensive collection of underdogs and oddballs. Showing the transition from toggle switches to hex pads to keyboards. Showing how various manufactures progressed on the journey from development kits to full-blown computers. Come and see how we get from the Titus Mark-8 to the NEC-8001.
[Saturday/Sunday]

John Metcalf

To celebrate 40 years of Core War, John will host the 40th-anniversary tournament on his collection of modern retro SBCs. Core War is a programming game played between two or more programs in the memory of a virtual computer. Alongside the tournament, expect a demo of genetic programming, optimization techniques, and related programming games.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Pixel Addict

Pixel Addict and Amiga Addict, Britain’s best selling magazines for classic computer users will be at the show selling all of their back catalogue and related merchandise.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Chris Oddy and Owen Randle

Chris will be bringing along his original Acorn System 1 and 2 computers built in the early 80’s together with more recent replica System 3,4, & 5 and Atom's.  Also his SC/MP related collection of replica Sinclair MK14s and SOFTY PROM Programmers.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Atari Invasion

Atari Invasion is a group of retro enthusiasts from the Netherlands with a love for the Atari brand. They’ve been in contact on-and-off since the eighties and more recently they get together during the HCC Commodore club meetings in the Netherlands. This is where they got the idea to start an annual Atari takeover of a club meeting and so Atari Invasion was born. Here they are now, showing you that the Atari legacy lives on and that there are still many enthusiasts that release new hardware and software for the various Atari platforms.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Flamelily Retro Store

New stuff for your old tech. If you love modern hardware for old systems you will know about the Raspberry Pi Pico. We are the UK reseller for a few Pico devices, the BlueSCSI, the PicoGUS and the PicoMEM. We have wallet friendly kits and fully assembled units for purchase. Come and see all these in action at our table.

Get your SCSI Hard drives and 100MB Zip disks imaged for free at our table. Bring these with you and we will image "while you wait"
[Saturday/Sunday]

Neal Crook

Neal will be demonstrating his 1980-era Nascom 2 (which he built as a teenager) along with his Nascom 1 and "Nascom 4" (an FPGA-based Nascom-that-never-was) along with various cassette-tape and floppy-disk replacement storage systems.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Quazar - Colin Piggot - @QuazarSamCoupe

Colin is a veteran developer for the SAM Coupé doing everything possible to keep this quirky 8-bit British computer alive! For over the last 30 years he's been designing hardware, writing games and producing SAM Revival magazine to support the system. Being demonstrated on the the SAM Coupé will be a range of the software and hardware marvels he's released over the years, including the latest revision of his Quazar Surround soundcard giving SAM advanced sound capabilities, plus prototypes of some of the new hardware that he is in the pipeline including an eZ80 co-processor, which forms part of the work towards his own new SAM system codenamed: Pandemonium.

Colin also produces some hardware goodies for the ZX Spectrum and RC2014 systems and compatibles, these will also be on show to check out too. A selection of all the products will be available to purchase during the show, along with copies of SAM Revival magazine including a revamped back issue focused on audio and computer music on the SAM Coupé which was produced for the 'Synthesized' show earlier this year.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Dolo - @6502Nerd

Dolo (6502Nerd) is once again bringing a curious mix of actual retro and retro-homage.  He will show off his owned-from-new Oric-1, a niche British computer that started it all for him in 1983.  And, as a tribute to pioneers such as Wozniak, he will have his big mess-of-wires homebrew computer built from scratch on breadboards including all the software.  Now that is nerdy!
[Saturday/Sunday]

Dave Williams - @Devilish_Design

Dave will be bringing some big blue machines. No, nothing to do with IBM. Just some big, blue S100 based systems from the late 1970s. There will be a full IMSAI setup running CP/M from 8" floppy drives along with a Processor Technology SOL-20.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Ross Bamford

We'll be showing off our rosco_m68k Classic m68k retro kits, along with our brand new video & audio board and will be bringing along a few kits to sell so you can build your very own rosco_m68k!
[Saturday/Sunday]

Tom Stepleton

It's a PERQ --- can it WORQ?

The PERQ computers --- unusual British-American graphical workstations from the early 1980s --- are among the trickiest single-user computers to restore to working order. In this exhibit, you may see a functioning PERQ 2T2, but it's more likely you'll find a live diorama of an aspiring restorer hard at work. Drop by throughout the show to see Tom's progress in troubleshooting one chip at a time --- the PERQ has around six hundred of them! Learn about the effort's mysteries, woes, and triumphs, and trade theories or offer suggestions if you like. Check out the tools of the diagnostician: logic analyser, oscilloscope, schematics, desoldering gun, and more, and maybe... just maybe... be there for a breakthrough!
[Saturday/Sunday]

The National Museum of Computing

The National Museum of Computing, located on Bletchley Park, is an independent charity housing the world's largest collection of functional historic computers and WW2 machines, including, Enigma, Lorenz the working Turing-Welchman Bombe, the rebuilt Colossus, and the WITCH - the world's oldest working digital computer. The Museum's volunteers will bring along a selection of rare and unusual hidden gems from its collection - both working and otherwise - for you to nerd out over!
[Saturday/Sunday]

Ian Murray and Ian Reynolds

SC/MP will be the central theme with items ranging from an original 1977 National Semiconductor Low Cost Development System (LCDS), complete with ultra rare "Telekit" handheld teletype, to the very latest non-volatile 3 chip SC/MP computers and MK14 expansion modules. RealView and PiView MK14 VDU cards will be in full use along with a web-server connected Fast Loader for program loading. Add to that a number of replica MK14s showcasing games, applications and hardware developed over the last 2 years.
[Saturday/Sunday]

Could you exhibit? Sadly, the event is now full, but if you'd like to be involved in future events, drop Tony a line on tony@computinghistory.org.uk for more details.

Payment is taken by PayPal immediately. Please print a copy of the receipt that is displayed at the end of the payment process and bring it with you as your e-ticket.

We are still maintaining some Covid precautions to protect our staff & visitors. Hand sanitisers are available throughout the museum. Please wash your hands regularly when using the machines.