Re: KFest 2009 Report

[Kirk Mitchell <kirkmitchell@gmail.com>]

This is an early report.  First, because we'll soon be driving to a
nearby restaurant (Jack Stack) for dinner, and then to the movies, and
also because Andrew Roughan wanted to have something for our
Australian KFesters to talk about.

There were dual sessions scheduled, so I didn't get to everything.
Vince Briel of Replica-1 fame had a workshop where 6 participants
build their very own Replica-1 with Vince's guidance.  It drew quite a
crowd of the curious, and they had 100% success and minimal burns.

Ryan Suenaga held a live podcast recording session with audience
participation.  Then he spoiled it by forcing the microphone on me...
You'll be able to hear my melodious voice, along with Sheppy, Ryan and
Andy.  I think it was a good half hour, and Ryan's already edited it
and published it on his website, or iTunes.

Sheppy demonstrated some features of his new Sweet 16 v.2.1 emulator,
then showed us two new freeware projects he's offering.  One is a
Weather NDA, using Marinetti and the National Weather Service, and the
other was a Stock Quote NDA.  I think we'll be seeing many more such
applications in the near future, especially since Ryan released some
source code on how to do this ourselves!

Ivan Drucker showed us how he hacked the Apple II game "Time Zone", a
graphic adventure that spans 12 disk sides, so that all the disks
could be mounted on an emulator, or a real Apple II if you had 12
drives, which negates the boring disk swapping the game previously
required.

Jon Lipp gave us an idea of what Garmin GPS was up too (he's employed
there), and enlightened us about the scope of GPS.  Good session!

After lunch, Geoff Weiss pimped OpenSolaris, and I rested my eyes a
while.  Just for your information, future presenters...  you can have
the greatest session in the world, and a certain percentage of your
audience here at KFest, will be resting their eyes.  That's just the
way it is.  B-{)=

Paul Zaleski had to cancel his session.  Evidently the components he
needed hadn't shipped.  What a disappointment for all of us!

Sean Fahey had to cancel as well, as the Carte Blanche apparently
didn't work.  Another disappointment!

Tony Diaz stepped in, describing some other methods of cleaning our
plastic computer cases which tend to yellow with age.  They all seem
like a lot of work, so I'll just allow my Apple II's to acquire a nice
patina.

We had 4 Hackfest participants.  Peter Neubauer won the prize with a
game of Life written in MacroSoft,  Martin Haye got second with a Low
Res drawing program.  Margaret Anderson got third with a HyperCard
stack that cataloged disks, and Ryan Suenaga wrote a Marinetti program
that determined lots of stuff on a GS's internet connection.

The Swap meet/Vendor fair is winding down now, but folks were happy to
part with product and money.

We'll be leaving for dinner soon, and if anything exciting happens, I
may be back to append this report.  If not, I hope to see some of you
at next years KFest!

Take care!