Over the past couple of months I've been building a bunch of exhibits for the Library's contribution to this year's Ideafest, "Retro Computing in the Library." It's been a fun series of projects, delving into the past of a technology that tends to focus more often on the future.
And not to sound immodest or anything, but I think we've got some good stuff to show.
We've tried to strike a balance between exhibits with a more serious, scholarly focus, and those with a more lighthearted bent. In the first category we have digital artifacts like the first hypertext novel, Michael Joyce's afternoon, a story, recovered from a floppy disk in the stacks, and William Gibson's Agrippa, a poem released as a self-destructing computer file. In the latter category we've got a Nintendo Entertainment System and a Retro Arcade Emulator.
There's a big focus on some early digital artworks by a local artist named Glenn Howarth, but that was given a great writeup by Robert Amos in the Times Colonist this weekend, so I'll just link to that here.
And of course I'm not doing this all myself. There are all kinds of people I need to thank, but I'll single out Jerry Trofimchuk, Rich McCue, Jennifer McClintick, all of whom are contributing exhibits, and Brent Hilpert, for his amazing and invaluable help with a certain Telidon terminal.
The show happens this Thursday from 1:00-4:00pm. There are talks scheduled but feel free to drop in anytime, stay as long as you like, and get hands on with the retro tech of yesteryear. Hope to see you there!