[Coco] Slightly OT: Midwest Gaming Classic

[Sean]

Just got back today from this weekend's Midwest Gaming Classic in
Milwaukee.  Again I had my trusty CoCo display in the 'museum' area,
which featured computers and consoles from the 70's and 80's.  And yet
again, Sock Master's Donkey Kong was a huge hit, there was almost
always someone playing it.

This year I was finally able to get Nick Marentes' Space Intruders to
load successfully, and it impressed a lot of the 8-bit guys that were
not familiar with the CoCo.  I heard a lot of "What's this port?  Who
did that?  Those graphics are great!"

My ~22 year old CoCo ran 10 hours straight Saturday, and another 7
hours Sunday flawlessly.  That makes three years in a row for this
event.  What a workhorse, considering how much mileage it has on it
from the first 10+ years of it's life!

A big hat tip to the Hawksoft S-Video adapter, which provided video to
the 23" LCD TV.   I had the only HD display in the room, all the other
guys just bring their old monitors or tube TV's. I'm willing to ignore
a little authenticity in exchange for weight and ease of fitting in
the car.  Plus, the CoCo looks great on that display!

Near closing time on Sunday I did a demo of using both Roger's
wireless and SD card paks in tandem in an MPI, copying a disk image
from a Windows 7 netbook to the SD card drive over the wireless.  One
of the Commodore fan in the room said "WHY?.................Don't we
have that kind of cool stuff?"  Followed by much laughter.

A bunch of guys there were from the Vintage Computer Festival, after
chatting with them, they said several of the IL CoCo guys showed up at
their event last September.  Would that have been anyone on this list?
 Their setup was excellent, I've never actually seen a Commodore PET
or Apple 3 in person, and they had those both up and running.

Anyway, a great weekend overall.  Hopefully some more CoCo people can
try to make it next year.