

Homebrew Computer Club Reunion - Icer5k
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jpf/homebrew-computer-club-reunion

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eksith
If anything this really is the time for the club to reunite (and for some new
fresh blood to join in). If you think about it, homebrew has really exploded
without the benefit of meets like this; all thanks to the internet (YouTube et
al in particular) showing what can be done with a bit of DIY hacking of
purpose built and _definitely not purpose built_ devices.

Forget IBM, Dell, HP and such. Those guys are dinosaurs. There are so many new
companies now Arduino, SparkFun, RaspberryPi, BeagleBoard(TI, but still
worthy) etc... all catering primarily toward the tinkerer. If anything this
should receive support from these companies, groups and products as well as
individuals since it's their products that are going to form the backbone for
a lot of homebrew projects.

How come there still isn't a proper standard (open source) replacement for the
TI series graphing calculator? I can't imagine a group more qualified to build
one and share among each other.

~~~
cmgreen
There are plenty of open source replacements for graphing data that involve
computers. The calculator is a form-factor challenge and marketing challenge.
Calculator markets are driven very early by what is acceptable for a High
School Student to use.

Current US influential standards:

[http://sat.collegeboard.org/register/calculator-
policy](http://sat.collegeboard.org/register/calculator-policy)
[http://www.actstudent.org/faq/calculator.html](http://www.actstudent.org/faq/calculator.html)
[https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-calculus-
ab/c...](https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-calculus-
ab/calculator-policy)

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batbomb
Fun note:

The conference room in the picture from the video is the Panofsky Auditorium
at SLAC national lab.

It was just shut down last month as they are preparing to demolish it.

~~~
Stratoscope
Aw man. That is _not_ a fun note. I spent quite a few fun hours there.

It's being demolished? That makes me sad.

Don't worry, I'm not shooting the messenger!

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thebiglebrewski
I don't really understand why this is a Kickstarter?

~~~
coloneltcb
One of the organizers here.

We needed funding to pay for the substantial costs of the event, and we needed
a mechanism to sell tickets.

The Kickstarter model gave us both.

~~~
rsync
I still don't get it.

I am increasingly struck by how many recent kickstarters are either
indistinguishable from evites or deal with projects that any reasonable person
could bootstrap on their own...

~~~
brymaster
It seems there's a lot of "free money" and easy attention flowing through
kickstarters that I also find troubling.

Especially with anything video game related that kind of comes off as just
"online begging." You have companies like "River West Brands" that "acquires,
redevelops, and monetizes iconic brand intellectual property" and has put out
a kickstarter to remake the Colecovision
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rantmediagames/colecovis...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rantmediagames/colecovision)

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skcin7
Does a ticket to the event mean you get to participate with the original
members of the Homebrew Computer Club?

~~~
jf
Yes. A big part of why we are doing this is to give people a chance to
experience what the original Homebrew meetings were like.

~~~
skcin7
Awesome. I'm glad that the answer is "yes", though I backed it regardless
before I saw your answer. I hope I can make the event.

~~~
jf
I hope you can make it too!

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rexreed
This is cool, but why is this on Kickstarter? Are they going to do it or not
if they don't reach their goal (which of course they are)? Why isn't it just
on Eventbrite or something like with different ticket levels? The use of
Kickstarter seems irrelevant / gratuitous here. I'm not taking issue with the
desire to charge (by all means, you should!) but the use of Kickstarter as a
platform for that, which is fairly high cost and needless for events that are
pretty much guaranteed to happen, but just need to sell tickets. I don't get
it.

~~~
jf
My original plan was to use Eventbrite, but we decided to go with Kickstarter
mainly because they transfer funds sooner - I wasn't looking forward to
floating a catering bill on my credit card.

A Kickstarter also makes it easier for us to scale the event to match the
funding. The more money that we get for this event, the more that we'll be
able to do. That's something that people who are familiar with Kickstarter
understand, but would take some explaining on Eventbrite.

Including sponsors would have also been more complicated with Eventbrite.
People just aren't used to paying for a sponsorship with Eventbrite, but it
totally fits in the Kickstarter model.

A more subtle benefit is the community aspect. Kickstarter gives me the tools
to communicate with backers, give them updates and make them part of what is
happening. It's easier to do things like ask people for their address (to mail
out post cards) and ultimately, I think that people feel more invested in a
project when they use Kickstarter. Which is important, since we want this
event to be one where people can meet the original members of the Homebrew
Computer Club and carry on their traditions and stories.

~~~
rexreed
Makes sense. Although if you use Eventbrite with any payment source except the
Eventbrite one, you get your funds right away, FYI. As much as we dislike
Paypal, we get our funds right away on Paypal when we use Eventbrite. I'm
hoping they add Stripe one of these days.

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vezzy-fnord
Will Bill Gates return to reimprovise his famous _Open Letter to Hobbyists_?

~~~
skcin7
Let's hope not.

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zivins
I was really hoping this was a club for hackers who like to brew beer. I'll
keep dreaming.

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exo_duz
To be in the midst of pioneers which brought the personal computing age to the
world. Wow! Wozniak too!

Too bad I'm not able to go because I'm on the other side of the world
(Australia).

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aresant
I would love to attend but geographically can't make it.

I bet a lot of HN'ers are in the same boat.

How 'bout a couple of rewards catered towards remote beyond postcard?

EG - $50 limited edition t-shirt, $20 live stream attendance, $30 for a DVD, ?

~~~
jf
I would love to add a live stream option, I just have no idea how much doing a
live stream would cost.

~~~
baddox
I'm not sure how giving "tickets" to people would work, but you could probably
just stream it on a free service like Justin.tv. Google Hangouts might work as
well.

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speeder
This link is.crashing my dolphin mini browser on android 2.3. I wonder why...

