The Retro Roadshow at the Bay Area Maker Faire 2023
The Retro Roadshow was delighted to be featured at the Bay Area Maker Faire 2023! We set up an interactive pop-up museum, in which visitors could get hands-on and experience nearly 50 years of games starring Nintendo's iconic Mario character. Our visitors had a ton of fun while learning about the evolution of video game technology, design and art, and we also shared about how we work to rescue, preserve and restore our vintage exhibits. We hope to see you at our next event!
The Retro Roadshow + Golden Gate University II: Live & In Person
On June 7th, 2023, Huxley & Sarai Dunsany partnered with Golden Gate University to present "Failure Is Just The Beginning: Exploring the most influential failures, flops and disasters from tech history." During this presentation, we explored the often-overlooked stories of four highly-influential companies and products, which have largely been dismissed as failures. Topics discussed and in-person exhibits include:
- Adam Osborne and the birth of portable computing
- The Apple III, Apple's ill-fated attempt to lure away IBM's business customers
- General Magic, the 1990's startup that predicted the rise of 'smartphones,' cloud computing, and much more
- NeXT Inc., the second computer company founded by Steve Jobs, which later became the foundation for all modern Apple products
The Retro Roadshow + Golden Gate University
On August 13 2021, Huxley Dunsany and The Retro Roadshow partnered with Golden Gate University's "Innovation In Practice" series, to explore four "failures" in tech history which were actually forgotten or misunderstood successes. During this presentation, we explored:
A charismatic CEO who couldn’t resist bragging about upcoming products and inadvertently destroyed his own company, leading to the obsession with secrecy exhibited by most modern tech companies
A scrappy early-1990’s startup which quietly invented a staggering number of the technologies we all have in our pockets today, before fading into obscurity
How Atari drove the video game revolution but squandered the trust of their customers, thereby opening the door for Nintendo to rebuild the collapsed video game industry
How after co-founding Apple, Steve Jobs’s “second act” failed in the open market, but became the technological foundation of nearly every modern Apple product
Huxley Dunsany, the founder of The Retro Roadshow, was featured in an article in the Jan. 8 2021 edition of the New York Times, titled “The Impractical but Indisputable Rise of Retrocomputing.”
The Retro Roadshow at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2020
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the EBMMF "went virtual" for 2020, and we were honored to participate. During this session we explored the "hidden history" linking Steve Jobs' NeXT Inc to modern Apple / macOS / iPhone platforms.
The Retro Roadshow at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire 2019
In October 2019, The Retro Roadshow was one of the Featured Attractions at the East Bay Mini Maker Faire. With tons of rare, remarkable and fun computers and classic gaming consoles set up for attendees to enjoy, we were delighted by the warm reception we received from hundreds of visitors. Please enjoy this “behind the scenes” footage of our exhibit the afternoon before the big show opened!
Bringing Vintage Tech Into The Modern World
Part of the fun of using vintage computers is finding ways to incorporate modern technology. Follow along as I attempt to install and configure a modern Solid State Storage device (SD Card) in our vintage Amiga 500, a powerful gaming and multimedia computer from 1987.