VIC-20 ready to Tweet
Brantford, Ontario – February 16, 2010 – To celebrate its fifth year in business, the Personal Computer Museum has created a new program that allows the breakthrough, under $300 personal computer of the 1980s – the Commodore VIC-20 to access Twitter, one of the world’s foremost online communities. CKPC FM 92.1 personality Ed McMahon (Mayor of the Morning) will create computer history with the first VIC-20 Tweet and later museum visitors can tweet too. The first “tweet” will happen on Saturday, February 20th at 11am EST. Follow the museum on Twitter or Facebook at http://www.pcmuseum.ca/
“Many have asked ‘Why are you doing this? There’s not much demand for new VIC-20 software.’ It was the challenge of creating a bridge between the past and present. It’s amazing how far technology has progressed in the past 30 years. The software runs from a cassette tape on an unexpanded VIC-20 with only 5 KB of RAM and a processor that runs at 1 MHz,” commented Syd Bolton, Curator of the Personal Computer Museum.
To put this in perspective, an average PC today runs at 3000 MHz and contains 2,097,152 KB. That means the average computer today has 419,430 times the memory power and 3000 times the speed of a personal computer from the '80s.
The museum created a software platform for many vintage computers to be able to "tweet" (called "TweetVER" which is short for Tweeting from a Vintage ComputER). For those who would like a copy of the software program, visit the museum’s websitehttp://www.pcmuseum.ca for information.
About the Personal Computer Museum
Brantford is a short hour’s drive away from Toronto, Canada. The town is home to the Personal Computer Museum, unique to South Western Ontario, Canada. The non-profit museum houses a large vintage computer collection, plus a software and classic video game library. To truly step back in time, it has a comprehensive magazine, memorabilia and book collection plus other computer related artifacts.
The museum is expanding its collection; please visit the “most wanted” page for the vintage machine wish list. It also has a recycle and reuse program for used computers. To learn more about how the personal computer revolution started, visit http://www.pcmuseum.ca, email sbolton@bfree.on.ca or call (519) 753-8825.
Photo:
http://www.prlog.org/
