Why hundreds flock to play with decades-old computers

is an audio and video creator at The Verge since 2015. He has produced shows like The Vergecast, Decoder with Nilay Patel, Why’d You Push That Button, and a variety of Verge video. Over a weekend in April each year, the InfoAge Science and History Museums in Wall Township, New Jersey host the Vintage Computer Festival East, which welcomes hundreds of attendees to a former army base to check out a bunch of vintage hardware — not only on display, but also currently in working order. “ 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 da ... Read full article.