Here's a small sampling of the stuff we'd brought with us up to H2k2 on Thursday night. My war jacket, an assortment of networking cables, my courier's bag of portable hardware, and my Apple Newton UMP-2000 can be seen in the foreground. Alexius' backpack, ceullular telephone, and Handspring Visor can be seen on the bed in the background.
After we'd gotten ourselves squared away, I took the chance to spend some time with Kabuki, my laptop computer and familiar. This image was taken just after Alexius and I had gotten back from dinner that evening.
Cheshire Catalyst speaking on Friday, 12 July 2002. The first presentation of the convention in track A, the name of his presentation was A Day in the Life of a Directory Assistance Operator. He was unusual in that his projected notes were written as a web page and displayed with Netscape for Windows. So far as I know, no one else used any projected notes as well, though the overhead unit was used for showing demonstrations live on the screen.
Here's a darker image of Cheshire speaking at the same presentation. I was experimenting with the flash on my camera at the time, so the image came out a bit darker than normal. An unknown audience member can be seen in the lower-right quadrant of the image as he stood at the public microphone to ask a question.
Some images from the computing museum: I think this is a Banyan CNS server brought by Telerama for the computing museum. I'm not entirely certain of the manufacturer from this image, I know that the model of the unit is a CNS, though. Any corrections are welcome. I have no idea what sort of system this is precisely, but it's an Intel 80486-based system crammed full of expansion cards which was also put on display by Telerama. This one was on a table near their public cluster down on the mezzanine floor. This is a second view of the naked box, showing a better profile of the expansion cards and the hard drives down ner the bottom of the cabinet. Somewhen around midday on Friday, 12 July, I chanced to snap a picture of an unknown hacker working on a Kaypro-II system running CP/M (Control Programme for Microcomputers). Here's a closeup of the Kaypro-II machine. What I think are application floppy disks are in the lower-left quadrant of the image; a number of old issues of what I think is a ham radio magazine are propping up the front of the system (I couldn't see the full title so I don't know what exactly it was.) The manufacturer's logo is prominently displayed on the console in the lower-right quadrant of the image.
Here is an Atari 800XL system; a crate of floppy drives for the system was under the table. I'm still kicking myself for not bringing my Ataris or Commodores with me, but that's neither here nor there. Nearby were what I think was a late model TRS-80, an Atari 800, and a second TRS-80 system. I managed to catch an action shot of another unknown hacker coding an ASCII loopscroller on another Atari 800XL system. For some reason, seeing people walk over to these old systems and keying in little things like this makes me feel good: Watching folks playing around with systems for no other reason than they're there gives me hope that there's still curiosity in the world. There were also a number of Radio Shack TRS-80 model 100's on display at HOPE-2002. These were Radio Shack's Intel-based portable systems (rather like tablet PCs) that were sold for a number of years in the 1980's. There is still a devoted following to these units; even Cheshire Catalyst had one with him that he was seen hacking on occasionally. I wish I'd picked one of these up when I had the chance, they seem like fun systems to experiment with. If you search the web you'll find some of the hacks that people have worked model 100's into. There were also a few Macintosh Classics set up in the retrocomputing museum.
This little beauty was all alone on a table; it's a Panasonic luggable system that looks like an elongated lunch box (or a truncated suitcase) made of black plastic that I call a Dade Murphy special (after the deck the character had in the movie Hackers). If memory serves this particular unit (I didn't catch the model number, sorry) used either an Intel 8088 or 80286 processor core and ould be carried around by a large fold-down handle at the back of the unit.
The retrocomputing forum was held on Friday by Sam Nitzberg, the Nightstalker, Cheshire Catalyst, and BernieS. Here, Sam Nitzberg shows off an HP calculator from the early 1970's (renowned for its good engineering). It used vacuum tubes for the display's digits and magnetic reed switches for data entry. Here are some examples of IBM's small-scale engineering, namely a font cartridge (containing the courier elite font) and the printhead from an IBM Selectric typewriter. BernieS brought along the mainboard from his first laptop computer. Sitting next to us in the retrocomputing forum were three other members of Team Virtual Adept, the.Silicon.Dragon, Elwing, and Genetik . Hi, guys. Sam Nitzberg had brought with him a Soviet microcamera from the Cold War era to show. This device could easily be palmed and used 8mm photofilm to store images. He mentioned that you could create your own microfilm for this unit by using 8mm motion picture film, which has quite a few usable frames on a single strip if memory serves.
I chanced to snap a picture of BernieS and the Cheshire Catalyst after the retrocomputing forum. BernieS (on the left) is holding the mainboard from his laptop and the HP calculator; Cheshire is holding his TRS-80 model 100 portable unit.
Here's a second image after the retrocomputing forum. BernieS and Cheshire Catalyst are there, but on the far left of the image is Sam Nitzberg holding his Russian cigarette packet/spy camera and microcam.
Siva Valdhyanathan during his keynote address.
Later that night more of the 412 contingent arrived in New York City. Here, the.Silicon.Dragon and Alexius met up with Vox Populi and Vampyra Daisy (all handles listed from left to right) on the dancefloor on the mezzanine level.
The dance floor on the mezzanine level had tables set up at the perfect height to hack on a laptop. Here, the.Silicon.Dragon, Alexius, Vox Populi, and myself gathered to take advantage of the wireless access point attached to the scaffold just a few feet overhead.
During the Databases and Privacy panel, speaker Steve Rambam demonstrated the Diogenes information retrieval service as an example of how easy it is to find sensitive information on someone. He also demonstrated the TeleGorilla information retrieval service.
The Mentor reading The Conscience of a Hacker . Once again, the lecture hall was so tightly packed with people that they had to project the Mentor onto the video screen to give everyone a fair chance of seeing what was going on. After his speech I got to meet him and talk for a few minutes. I've had a printout of The Conscience of a Hacker on the wall of my bedroom for literally years, and he autographed it for me - here's a scan of it. The paper really is that yellowed, by the way, it's over a decade old.
This is a distance shot of Emmanuel Goldstein working his butt off to make H2k2 a success. He looks harried and tired but he kept on keeping on during the con and as a result it was a blast. Emmanuel, here's to you. If I ever get the chance I'll buy you a dinner in thanks for H2k and H2k2.
The dancefloor was packed on Saturday for Thee Cult ov Thee Dead Cow concert/ presentation/seminar which, unfortunately, was a bust. The audio was so badly screwed up that we couldn't tell what the hell was going on, the performances we did see were not what we've come to expect from the cDc, and there were so many people (at least at first) that you really couldn't see what was going on due to all the people (and security made everyone get down off of the chairs lined up at the sides of the dancefloor.)
Here's something I've never really seen anywhere else: cagedancers at a nightclub. The flash on my camera wiped out the UV lights but they were dressed in mostly white and painted with UV-sensitive temprapaint (which I bought a few samples of). Highly nifty.
The elusive Seele in the public cluster.
Here's me in full cybergoth at H2k2. I'm down in the Telerama public cluster hanging out. Special thanks to Seele for taking this picture.
Here's the backstory behind these pictures: One of the vendors selling at H2k2 was selling books and hard-to-find magazines for cover price. One magazine in particular was going for $4us or $5canadian; the man on the left asked the vendor (the guy on the right) if he was serious about selling for cover price - the vendor was. The guy on the left produced a handful of Canadian currency and proceeded to try to purchase said magazine. They argued back and forth for a good ten minutes until the seller finally snatched the money with a resigned sigh and sold the magazine. At the time it was funny as all get out - I wish I'd had a video camera for it.
Front view and back view of my HOPE 2002 attendence badge.
