Vintage Computer Fest 2025 was a Success

We exhibited at the 2nd annual Vintage Computer Festival SoCal that took place on February 15th and 16th, 2025, in Orange, CA. Our booth featured two vintage computer MIDI workstations, one using a classic Apple Macintosh SE with Opcode’s MIDI Translator II serial port MIDI interface and the other being a Pocket 386 PC with the Roland MPU-IPC-T ISA MIDI interface.

Each workstation featured hardware synths, drum machines and samplers ranging from the 1983 to 1991, such as the Yamaha DX7, RX5, TX802 and TG77, Casio CZ-101, Korg DW800, Emu Emax and Proteus, Roland Juno 106, Oberheim DPX-1, Ensoniq Mirage, Sequential Circuits TOM, Alesis HR16B and a Moog Rogue with a Kenton Pro Solo MKII.

Festival attendees were encouraged to take mini crash-courses in using the sequencing programs EZVision on the Mac and Magnetic Music’s Texture on the Pocket 386 PC to compose short loops or songs, which a few attendees did participate in, which were recorded. The audio recordings were shared with the attendees that composed them. Many attendees were enlightened to learn that the same MIDI protocol that is used to power these vintage era workstation is the same protocol that is compatible with MIDI instruments still being manufactured today, and that all MIDI devices from any area are compatible with each other as far as basic functions such as sending and receiving note messages which s a testament to the open and collaborative nature of the development of the original MIDI specification. We let attendees know that very similar MIDI sequencing workstations were used to compose and produce many albums from the late 80s such as Beastie Boy's Paul’s Boutique (Textures and Emax) and Nine Inch Nails’ Pretty Hate Machine (Mac Plus, MOTU Performer, a MIDI'ed Moog, Emu Emax, and synths by Sequential Circuits and Oberheim). We will be planning an even more immersive and interactive exhibit for next year's festival that will highlight the compatibility between these early computers’ MIDI capabilities and current MIDI instruments and DAWs.

A few people interviewed me on camera, I'll post those videos when I find them.

Here are some pictures of the booth and our little afterparty.