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Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

kickstarter.com

21–30 of 41 posts

Re: Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

#22
post #19

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. T…

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://www.actstudent.org/faq/calculator.html https://apstudent.collegeboard.org/apcourse/ap-calculus-ab/c...

Re: Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

#23
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

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...

Re: Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

#25
post #19

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. T…

I think a big issue with the TI graphing calculator replacement is that hacking community always tries to put in a lot of features and things, whereas the TI calculators are representative of a lot of compromise to run on AA batteries for so long.

Re: Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

#26
post #13
post #10

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, ?

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

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.

Re: Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

#27
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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...

It's slowly evolving into a very very specific niche of billing not well-handled by PayPal- collecting one lump sum from a large number of customers.

Re: Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

#28
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.

Re: Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

#29
post #5

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

Why wouldn't it?

Why not just sell tickets on something like Eventbrite? To say there's no way to sell tickets for an event except on Kickstarter (which is not really for events that are definitely going to happen) doesn't make sense.

Re: Homebrew Computer Club Reunion

#30
post #20

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.

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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