The Trenton Computer Festival (TCF) is one of the oldest grass-roots computer shows around (Fig. 1). It was started in 1976 by Sol Libes of the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey and Allen Katz, professor of engineering science at the Trenton State College, now The College of New Jersey. Both are still part of TCF. Sol also ran a number of technical computer publications, including Microsystems magazine. Sol got me to write some articles for him, which is how I eventually wound up here at Electronic Design.
1. The Trenton Computer Festival started in 1976 and is still going.
The latest TCF is coming up this March 23. It has changed a bit since its heyday, when the swap meet was massive and lasted multiple days. Apple II’s and S100 boards morphed into PCs as nascent ventures eventually turned into commercial vendors. Building hardware from scratch has moved into the Maker movement.
TCF is still up and running, but its focus is on education and presentations are the name of the game. I’ve spoken at TCF a number of times. This time around, I have the Explicit Embedded Programming session that addresses embedded SPARK and Ada programming (Fig. 2). My presentation PDF file is linked here for those that cannot attend.
2. My presentation at TCF 2019 introduces SPARK and Ada programming.
TCF is still well-attended and covers a range of topics from cybersecurity to technology and robotics (Fig. 3). There’s even a tour of the Sarnoff Museum. For those who don’t know David Sarnoff, he started RCA and NBC. The Sarnoff Corporation runs the David Sarnoff Research Center where I worked at one time for RCA.
3. TCF 2019 delivers a wide range of technical topics (click image for larger version).
The keynote speaker this year is Tony Sager, Senior Vice President and Chief Evangelist at the Center for Internet Security. His talk is entitled “Never Say Anything: The Education of a Cybergeek.” Whether you are into Wordpress, Arduinos, or object-oriented computing, there’s something for you at this year’s TCF. I hope to see some of you at the Festival.
