Hey, everyone, it's Libba Beacham, interim executive director at the Northeast Georgia History center. And today I'm speaking with computer historian and author David Grealish, who will be a special guest presenter during our May homeschool day, the information age. Now, this is going to be on May 22, that is a Wednesday from 10:00 a.m. To 01:00 p.m. And this homeschool day is open to all who wish to attend and learn about the advances of communication technologies beginning in the early 19 hundreds all the way to the modern era. Now, David Grealish is the author of classic computing, and he's written numerous articles, including those for Time magazine and Forbes. And he has produced a great documentary titled before the Apple Lisa, which explores the history, technology, people, stories, and industry influence of the lesser known personal computer. So I'm really excited for today's conversation. David, welcome to, then again, thank you, Libba.

I'm really happy to be here.

So I really want to start from the beginning. Can you share a pivotal moment from your early life that really sparked your passion for computers? Where did it all begin for you?

So, and I do have such a story, and actually, I opened my book, you know, with my kind of my story, and I talk about this. So a pivotal moment in my life was, I was in the fifth grade, 1975, you know, here in Jacksonville, Florida, where I live now, my hometown. And we took a field trip to the University of North Florida and visited their computer center. And so they took us into this big room, and they sat us all down at what looked like these big typewriters. So again, 1975, there's no screens, okay? Just these giant typewriters. And they put two of us each by each one, maybe 25 kids or whatever, and suddenly they all came alive, like, started making all this noise and typing away. This is like the. What do you think of, it's a green bar paper, you know, the continuous fed green, white, green, white bar type of computer paper. But then it started writing stuff and, like, making big, giant letters out of, you know, little alphanumeric characters. So welcome to the University of North Florida's computer center, blah, blah, blah. And then it asked our name, and Thomas was my partner's name from the class. And so I typed in David, he typed in Thomas, and then again in big letters, it goes, welcome, David and Thomas. And I'm like, oh, my God, it learned my name. And from that moment on, I mean, now this is on top of another, at least for my life, an important thing. And that important thing was Star Trek and the syndication of Star Trek. And, you know, so already I saw images of for a few years at that point. That's when Star Trek was really building after it been canceled in the sixties, you know, in the future, one day computers would just be easy to use because we just talked to them, you know, computer, blah, blah, blah, blah, and answer your question. And so I knew computers would be in the future, and this proved it, even though this is way primitive than what I saw in television. But from that point on, I just like, I want to do something with computers. So I was ten years old.

Wow, what a, what a fun experience, too, because, I mean, that must have felt just, just so magical. And there really is something, especially for a layperson like me, who is not the most technically savvy, especially compared to someone with your background and everything. But I can imagine that just being this, such an important impression on you as a kid, to think this is the beginning of the future, you know? And so since then, over the years, you've been involved in many, many projects and contributions to the preservation of computer history. And so you're going to be presenting on the history of computers as we know it during our homeschool day. Could you give us some highlights from your own work that can kind of shine a light on the overview of computer history? What would you consider the first computer, and where do we kind of go from there? And then we'll dive into some projects.

That you've worked on. I was actually just talking to someone about this other day, like, pivotal. There's lots of pivotal moments in all kinds of history, right? But some of the pivotal moments, and you've experienced them, I won't ask your age, but I'm certain you've experienced them in your lifetime. So, and I'm going to focus it on personal computing and consumer personal computing. So, generally, what is considered the very first commercially successful mass produced personal computer was called the Mits Altair, and it was in 1975. And. But really only really, engineers and computer hobbyists here called, really took advantage of this thing because it was very difficult to use. You had to use these front panel switches to do anything, and without going into too much detail, keep the story kind of short, it wouldn't be to 1977. Fast forward. Another pivotal moment was the introduction of true consumer computers. So you have the Apple II, the Commodore pet, and then the radio shack TRS 80 model one. And these were arguably the very first computers that a normal person could buy. Take it home in a box, open it up, set it up and do something productive, minimally productive, you know, from our vantage point. Right.

But what were those kinds of things that the early computers on the consumer side, what kind of tasks would they help?

Well, and so in 1977, even though these were consumer computers and then programs, pre, pre written programs started coming out for them. But those early people, all they could really do is run basic and, or buy a game and run on it. And then you had to program your own little, you know, I want to keep an inventory of my business or I want to word process or whatever, but pretty quickly, you know, games happen, right? And that's driven the industry. But then word processing, and then a little bit after that, the spreadsheet, there was a huge innovation and then that grew. But so the other big innovation, I'll tell you, is, I think is, and it fits right in with my documentary, was the graphical user interface. And that's, that's what we all take for, you know, granted nowadays with, you know, what you see is what you get using a mouse. Pull down menus, it's all graphical, right? Instead of a DOS based or, you know, green screen, if anybody can imagine that. And we're all using that right now. So 41 years later from the Lisa, 40 years from the Mac, but you know, Windows was, was a big part of that. And then whether you use Android or you use an iPhone, iOS, you're still using basically another part of graphic use interface. Just your fingers now your mouse, right? But it all traces its roots back to the Lisa. And that's a big part of the story of my documentary. So I would say that's a huge, big pinpoint computer history. The next one I would point out again, there's so many other ones you could point to. There's the hardware evolution too. So everybody had a desktop. Finally, laptops, portables came on the scene, ultimately handhelds, right? So that's another big part of the evolution. But in just using a personal computer, probably the next big one was the Internet. So late nineties, early two thousands and forward as it really got, you know, just common. You know, in 1995, you could walk into a big corporate office with 100 cubicles, hundred people using a computer, and they weren't even networked, there was no Internet, and they still got work done. Nowadays you walk in that same office, the Internet or the network goes down, game over, work stops, right? So, so that change over to that is the next big, then the other big one that's been in your lifetime and mine is especially is the smartphone, because a smartphone, and this ties in with your presentation for homeschool about communications, because the smartphone really is a handheld computer in every sense of the word, other than the obvious limitations of its size. And you don't have a keyboard or a mouse right there. So you got, you know, so maybe it's too small sometimes or not, but. But now it's kind of transformed into, it's a computer at all times, but it's a communications tool. Even though I get a phone, it's always a communications tool. But you know what I mean? Like, using the computer part of it and using social media and stuff, it kind of, now it's a hybrid computing communications tool.

It seems like such an enormous leap and such a small amount, short amount of time. I mean, it's something that I can't even really connect it to something else, that piece of technology that has leapt so far in such a short amount of time. And given your perspective, is that just because it became so useful, that innovation led to a big focus on computers? I mean, what are your thoughts on? How are we able to go from the most basic computer that you experienced when you were ten years old, even though that was very, very cool at that time, to this graphic interface that, I mean, it really does feel magical in a lot of ways. And there's just this intuitive part of it that we totally take for granted now. And we'll talk about even the future of AI being involved in a little bit. But from, from your sense, I mean, is there anything you can compare it to? Or is this something that's pretty unique in human technology evolution?

So, and I don't remember the exact quote, but there's like a saying that kind of goes along of, you know, people with their own accomplishments or innovation. You know, I stand on the shoulder of giants or whatever, right? Like, somehow, even though everybody's praising me for what I did, you know, but I built upon this other people's work, you know, without them, I couldn't have done it. And, you know, technology innovation, at least what we're talking about, it's absolutely the same thing.

Yeah.

Cause again, if you look at those primitive computers of the mid to late seventies, I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of growth and evolution that came about till we finally got to 2007 with the iPhone, which was still, like, magical, wasn't it? But that was already 20 plus years into computer technology. And then the ever downsizing, ever growing aspect of microprocessing and integrated circuits and stuff. And that in itself, in computer history was like a miraculous innovation. So you know, the, the miracle of the integrated circuit happened in the sixties, and that was taking a physical transistor, which was magical compared to the vacuum tube, and then putting a thousand of them on a little dinky chip instead of having to have, you know, a thousand of them, like all literally wired together by hand. So it's just everything just built, build, build, builds. But I think a good analogy is like the, even with the user interface and other stuff is the automobile. So think about how much, arguably, we'll start with the model T and Henry Ford, and they're being mass produced and becoming more consumer based or whatever. I mean, it innovated and it still does, but just off top of my head, by the twenties, ten years, 20 years later, things were pretty standardized about what a car should, how it should work, what it looks like, you know what I'm saying? There wasn't too much, you know, they got four wheels. There were always exceptions. Steering wheel, right gears, brake, accelerator, speedometer in front of you and so on. So.

And now we have computers in our cars.

Yeah, but if you think about the, like the smartphone, for instance. When people had ideas about a smartphone, it was meant to be a handheld computer, which it is, but even people, when they had that idea, and I know this is audio only, but I was showing you like a palm handheld I have, which is not a phone, it was a little handheld, very limited, little computer. Right. But that was the, you know, the promise of the future is that soon we can carry our computers around with us. We have the world's knowledge at our fingertips and we have that. But, you know, it happened to also just sort of merge into our telephone so we. Where we have the. Yeah, I don't know when the telephone became common. I don't know if anyone ever thought we'd be carrying him around with us at all times. Right. Remember in the thirties and the forties, maybe. I think the next big step was the tv phone. We can see each other while we talk.

Oh, no, that's funny.

That's the future. Think of like the Jetson.

Oh, right. I dealt with it when they were.

Thinking about the future. They didn't think, I don't know the people. Now, Star Trek had personal communicators.

Oh, yeah. Oh, that's so cool. Right? Star Trek seemed to have some pretty good predictions.

Yeah.

And so having studied the history of the computer and also being involved in the preservation of actual historical computing artifacts, I would imagine that, I mean, are there fairly rare artifacts that you've come across and have been able to preserve. And I'm also just curious about what the challenges are to preserve computer artifacts. I feel like it's something that folks may not immediately think of when we think about artifacts and antiques and these old tools and technologies of the past. But talk to me about what it takes to preserve these items and the rarity of any particular ones that come to mind.

So, of course, I'm going to answer from my perspective and my own history and experience, but I'm going to start off with a joke. Okay, it's a joke. But what is the difference between a collector and a hoarder?

You tell me.

Space, space, space, space.

Yeah, yeah. I can relate to that. Yeah.

Now, in all seriousness, the difference is hoarders are generally ashamed of their hoard.

Yeah, yeah.

And collectors are proud of their collections. They want to show them to you. Right.

Yeah. Right.

But in all seriousness, I think when the biggest, know, the big issues is space. Yeah. You know, because even if you're collecting just, you know, laptops or hand, you know, if you're really into it and you really, you're complete us, you really want to collect, it can take up a lot of space. Now, I started collecting in 1993, so I was kind of, you know, revolutionary, if you will. That was, you know, because old computers were absolute garbage and truck and trash. Okay. I didn't use that word, you know, back then. And people put them out on their curb and everything. They do that still sometimes. Well, now they put them, they have to take them to the e waste. Right. So I was able to acquire a bunch of stuff pretty quickly and easily, but that I ran into issues of space. And my wife at the time was very kind. And for, geez, the first 20 years or so of our marriage, I was able to have the full two car garage, and it was full of my collection. And I had ideas that so kind of more. Better answer your question, too. I tried to keep them clean and, and just do basic maintenance on them to keep them running. I'm a real big believer in, you know, artificial, try to make, have them work, you know, restore them literally.

Yeah, that's, that's an interesting piece of it, that these, most of your collection were still.

Yeah, yeah. You could play with them, too, because as a hobbyist with that, I think, like, even getting with cars, maybe people that collect.

Yeah.

Old cars, they're going to drive them around once in a while. Oh, yeah, yeah. Like Jay Leno, if you've ever watched his channel, he's taking them out and driving.

Oh, yeah.

But I built. I had ideas and dreams of starting a museum, and I have a regular job, and I have children, and they're grown now, but the realities of the world kind of made it kind of not possible for me, anyway. And ultimately, I still have a collection. I have some stuff and nice stuff to show, but nothing like them. Ultimately, I sold off some of it. I gave a lot of it away. Yeah. I tried to preserve it, though. Like, I never just trashed any of it, but, but now I don't have that anymore. But, but I'd say that's, you know, the time, the space, the, you know, and you got. I think all collectors can fall into this. You have to, you know, and I ultimately made a decision, too, that, you know, if it's spending most of its time on a shelf in the garage and I could barely even get enough time to dust it off, it's not doing me or it any good.

Right, right. And it's the kind of, they're the kind of artifacts that I can imagine that museum would appeal to many museums, and so many museums focus on technology and obsolescence.

And so, and it's starting to more and more. They're still kind of underappreciated, I think, but they have their place.

We're very lucky here in Georgia and Roswell to have the computer Museum of America here, which will also be one of our special guests at the homeschool day, too. So I am really glad to see that there is more of an intentional focus on these things. And, you know, speaking of your collection, I'm curious to know, are there any, are there any particular artifacts that are just very special to you or your favorites that you have?

So, and I think if I have to state one computer, this is my all time favorite, it won't surprise you, but it's the apple Lisa, and I have a history with that. I don't own one now, unfortunately, I can do some real basic maintenance and keep on running stuff, but the. I've had a few of them over the years, but the last one I had, it stopped working, and it probably needed new capacitors where you have to desolder and do a lot of that kind of stuff. And I didn't have the time or the means, so I sold it and let somebody else work on it. But the Apple Lisa always has a soft place in my heart, and I talk more about that. But as far as what I own right now is I don't have an original, but I have a reproduction of that very first personal computer, the mitts, all tier 8800. And I'm really fascinated by those kind of computers from that timeframe. And I have another one which I was going to show you, but I know we're not on video, but it's another reproduction, but it's kind of a hybrid in the sense of it's not old, but it works like the real thing versus my Altair looks exactly like a brand new version of the original, but inside it's all what's called emulated. So it runs and looks like the real thing, but inside it's not really the real thing.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Yeah, because we're using, you're basically saying.

Like we're using modern technology to emulate what the experience would have been like.

And just for instance, the biggest difference, one of the biggest differences, if you look inside one of these machines from the mid seventies, and I'm trying to think of the exact term is, but they had, they had power supplies that were giant in there with these giant capacitors, everything. I think they're either they're linear or they're not linear. I can't remember at the moment. But. So it just doesn't have that, you know, modern power supplies are way more efficient and smaller. But that's, you know, and they weigh like my reproduction, it's so light, but it looks authentic. But the real thing would weigh like 40 pounds.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And I know that you focused on the Apple Lisa with your documentary. Could you tell us a little bit about what the Appalisa means to you and why it's particularly special to you? And I encourage folks to check out before Macintosh, the Apple Lisa documentary. If you could let folks know where they can watch it.

Yeah, and I'll start with that. That's okay. So if you just do a search for before Macintosh Vimeo, then, then that's where you can rent it or buy it. And then of course download it or stream it if you buy it. Or if you go to my webpage, it's classiccomputing.com. There's a link there, but I'm working on getting it distributed and then other streaming server. That takes some time though, and effort. But to answer your question. So this is in my introduction of the film. Most of the time I was making the movie, I was not going to be present in it. You would not see me or hear me. And then I changed my mind kind of the last minute because I thought, and I'm happy I did. It worked out great. But I tell this a little bit longer. Version of this story. But I worked at an Apple dealer in 1989 in Gainesville, Florida, where the University of Florida is. And I really. I was convinced the Macintosh was the future. This is the future of computing. I don't want to own one of these IBM compatible DOS machines, but I had no hope of affording one, even with a discount from the Apple dealer. And one day, this guy, I'm across the store, this guy's struggling to get in the front door, and he's got this big, giant Mac, it looks like. And I'm like, what? Yeah, what is that? And then he goes over and he goes to the service department, and then he leaves. And then I go to the service department. I'm talking to the technician, and I'm looking at this thing, and, what is this? And he goes, oh, it's a Macintosh XL or an Apple Lisa. Never heard of it. What? I've never heard of this. I mean, I know about the Apple II, the Apple III, you know, at the time, Apple IIc, Apple II, you know, all the other Apple computers, the Mac models, never heard of this thing. So back then, pre Internet, you know, and I work at Apple dealer, there were two main magazines, Mac user, Mac World magazine. And I would eat them up every month, you know, read through them. And then one day, like, after this, I noticed this ad in the back. Wow, look at. Here's this company called sun remarketing in Utah. And they're selling those machines, and in fact, they're selling them where they're. They're upgraded and updated to be like the low end Macintosh at the time, the Mac plus. And so couldn't afford the Mac plus, even with a discount. But that Lisa upgraded was $1,095 in December 1989. I had one credit card. I was in college, and I had just enough on the credit card to buy it with shipping and get it. And then it was upgraded to run as a Macintosh. So I try to keep this short. It became my first Mac. So it didn't run the Lisa operating system, it ran the Mac operating system. And then from there, I learned how to do desktop publishing. And then I ultimately became a computer tech, a Mac tech, and then ultimately windows and so on. The rest is history. So. But I was so fascinated by it as well as I loved it, because it was my Mac is, I just started digging into its history, and that just kept blossoming into the history of the Macintosh, the history of apple, the history of personal computing. It just became my hobby. And then, you know, fast forward a little bit. Like, say, by 1993 or so, I started collecting them and started writing a newsletter. And fast forward a little bit more. And I do a webpage and I start doing podcasting, and then I do a book on Kickstarter, and then I participate in a little documentary where I make a short, and then I go, hey, maybe I can make a documentary. And around 2018, I had that idea. So then here we are. So I start writing, you know, doing articles and interviews and all kinds of stuff. So just a nutshell, the Lisa, it's played such an important part in my life and just all around, you know, it was just, it was a catalyst.

I love that story. And it also, I just want to commend you for all the work that you've done to preserve this history, too. I would imagine that there are many folks out there that are also very much invested in this topic and the history of it. But I mean, it also seems like something that would take a lot of work and a lot of obviously deep interest and passion to share all of this. So I so appreciate that. And of course, we'll have links to the Vimeo link for your documentary before Macintosh, the Apple Lisa, as well as your website where they can learn more about your articles and your book, classic computing as well. And I'm kind of curious, since we've talked about a lot of technology and how it's advanced. Is there any piece of technology or computer or otherwise, just from your perspective? This is a fun question that is obsolete today, but you really wish we would bring it back into popular use.

Practical standpoint, I mean, no specifically, maybe that question, but I kind of think this will be a related commentary, is. So in the documentary, I also touched on a little bit of the history of the graphic user interface that led up to consumer based, like we all use now and the Lisa, the Mac, and then Windows ultimately on the pc side of things. But these are also built on earlier developments and technology. And so a lot of this research and this stuff happened at Xerox. And most people don't know this, but in the late sixties, Xerox was very, very forward thinking and innovative. And one day their board, I guess, said, wow, you know what? Our entire company is built on paper. What if paper goes away one day? We'll be messed up, right? And so then they built the Xerox Palo Alto Research center and they started researching, you know, paper, the paperless office, it was called. So the reason I bring that up is there's a very important guy there named Alan Kay, and he came up with a concept this early seventies called the dynabook. And the dynabook was a book size computer that had all the power of a supercomputer. So finally, you could have, you know, we finally really step into the information age where we have the world's knowledge at our fingertips. And that was the promise of that. And then we have that. And it's incredible. Right? And so there's so many great things we can say about the smartphone. So not exactly answer your question, but I think the smartphone is equally one of the greatest things ever designed and one of the worst. I really think it's, like, our society, our culture, and that's the world. Yeah, the first world, I guess, because, you know, but, um. But, you know, it's got its downside. Right? Everybody's their face in it all the time and everybody. I won't go into that, but, you know, I mean, you go to a restaurant and.

Oh, yeah. No, I mean, in a way, you know, I've even noticed in my peer groups that, I mean, even on, like, when I'm on social media, what's being advertised to me sometimes are dumb phones, quote unquote. You know, because of that kind of, we're humans, we're going to be fixated to that, you know, dopamine rush of the likes and the scrolling and all of this, you know, it's too. So it's interesting to see us kind of go revert in a way back to a more simple technology that won't take our attention. And that's kind of what I was kind of. Yeah. Wanting to lead with that question is that I think that there. There is some benefit to simple technology that, because a lot of the more advanced technology, like you said, it's caused some challenges for us.

Yeah. And I, you know, and all humor aside, I honestly hope we don't end up like Wall Ez.

Exactly. Yeah, totally.

We even got Amazon. We even have, what was the name? The big. The corporation big and large or something. Yes, we have that. It seems like.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is a really important piece of this entire history. You know, is the effect and impact. Like you said, there's been amazing, seemingly like, miraculous technology, and yet there is this double edged sword.

But I think it'll balance out. I'm generally an optimist, and I believe it will balance. So hopefully.

Well, speaking of that, I mean, if we look to the future, what are your thoughts on where computer technology or communication technology might take us if we wanted to be the folks who were thinking about what the Jetsons life would be like sort of us thinking to the future. What are you excited about? And I guess, going back to the other topic, what are you concerned about with the future of communication technology?

I'm not so kind of going backwards with that real concern with AI, as far as being scared of it. I, I don't like the idea that, you know, I have a Google home device and Alexa and I have a Google phone. I mean, we're all being monitored, if you will. But I'm not, I'm not too worried about that, though, at least right now. You know, I'm not saying that at all concerned maybe a little bit, but I think AI is overhyped in the sense of what the Terminator AI and, or something that can truly, truly be. So, you know, I think, therefore I am.

Yeah.

Oh, what's the word I'm looking for? I love the Star Trek word where you're self aware. What's that word? Do you know? I'm talking.

Oh, sentient. Right, right. Yeah.

I think we're way off from any, any AI to be sentient, where it truly becomes a life form and it can think, you know, then it's going to kill all the humans and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

So the other part of the question is, I guess I think, like, I have a show shark brand automatic vacuum cleaner, and those things are great. I think we'll get more of that and utilizing AI in that way. And again, I do like the Google home and the Alexa stuff, but the future, I don't know. We're kind of at a plateau. So, like you were talking about, look how quickly, like, the smartphone evolved. So the smartphone is plateaued. It's not even 20 years, and certainly the personal computer. So I think, was it just this year the new Mac OS came out, Windows eleven is out, you know?

Right.

Sure. Everything keeps evolving, but come on, how different is it really?

Right, right.

Yeah. Your new Android phone or your new iPhone, is it really that different? You know, right now, I know that the Apple goggles are called or the Apple vision. That's kind of the new thing.

Oh, yeah.

But I think it's all plateaued. And even the graphical user interface and what we. The paperless office paradigm, the desktop. Yeah. It's running out of steam. Or you think it is. What's next there? I don't know. Be honest yet. And I don't know if talking at all times is really practical or gonna work.

Mm hmm.

Or we're long way off of it being that good.

Right.

No, it's a really that way speak on the apple vision. The big. I don't, I can't afford one, but I don't want one. And I can appreciate a little bit, but the biggest way people, it looks like, want to make fun of it is, you know, someone puts it on YouTube, they put it on, they start walking around down the street.

Right.

And then of course you look ridiculous and. But I don't think it wasn't intended to be used like that.

Right.

You know, so augment your reality. When you're in your office, your home, you're in a, you're in a room basically, or space. And I can, I can see that. I don't want to particularly do it, but I can see it.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it seems like it would take some pretty massive innovation to get go up from that plateau, but it's, especially for someone like me. I can't even imagine it. And even when I use like a, you know, AI tools just like pop up now as options, you know, even in like, you know, when I'm designing something in canva, it's like AI tools. Like what? Okay. You know, and so it seems to be sort of like the population dipping its toes into this new era of at least being a assisted with AI. And I'm really curious to see where that's going to take us. But I mean, just going 100 years ago to today, we can see just a gigantic leap. And I'm really curious to see what that next leap is going to be like for us. And so, David, we're coming near the end of our time today, but I did want to encourage folks to check out your resources. You have many awesome resources to learn about computer history. And also want to remind folks that on this is going to be Wednesday, May 22, from 10:00 a.m. To 01:00 p.m. That's when our homeschool day, all about the information age is going to take place here at the Northeast Georgia History center. Everyone is welcome. If you can attend our homeschool day, then come on down. But David, as a conclusion for this chat, do you have any resources that you could recommend? Folks, we've talked about your, your book, classic computing, which is very exciting. We talked about your documentary before, Macintosh, the Apple Lisa. And we'll have links to those in the description. But any other resources that you'd like to share with our audience, especially younger.

Audiences and maybe I think, yeah, I mean, other than my own things or whatever, which just, I'll just mention real quick by the way, at my webpage, if you go to the about me link, then I have, I have like a lot of things. Important thing. I feel that I've done my most important things that you can click on. Like for instance, that computer, the Altair. I actually interviewed Ed Roberts. He was the creator of that. It was one of the earliest interviews I ever did, 1995. And so you can listen to that. And it actually, the written, it exists at the computer history museum and their archive. So it kind of turned out to be kind of important. He didn't do a lot of interviews. Listen to that. I think it's really good. His story is really great. And, you know, my articles, you can link off to some of them. But you mentioned the computer Museum of America in Roswell, just north of Atlanta, just north of Sandy Springs, or where that's a beautiful museum. And I know Lonnie Mims, the founder and the creator. We work together to help start the first vintage computer festival, southeast. So there's, there's a kind of like a car show. There's a vintage computer festival that happens here. It's happening in July.

Oh, fantastic. Oh, I definitely want to.

Marietta area, the ballpark. So vintage computer festival Southeast. So if that's cool. And there's like a gaming convention. The museum is great. Yeah, that's, those are probably the two key things in Georgia, you know.

Yeah, no, that's fantastic. I'm really excited to learn about the computer festival, too. I mean, that sounds like an awesome opportunity, especially for any of the kiddos that get really interested in this. There's lots of resources here in Georgia, and I believe there's even a society or a club or guild in Atlanta.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I came across, I meant to mention it.

I founded that.

That's so funny.

Well, because I'm in Jacksonville, Florida.

Yeah.

But I was there for twelve years. So the Atlanta historical, so that's a local little club and everybody, they get together and help each other and fix computers and talk and do whatever. Yeah. So. Absolutely.

I feel, I think that's how I got connected to you and I went down the, you know, wormhole of trying to find, you know, who.

Can we run the finished computer festival Southeast.

Oh, fantastic. That's great. And, and I wonder if you might be familiar with Southern fried gaming Expo.

Yes. So the vintage computerville Southeast is now in conjunction with that.

Oh, that's fantastic. Because we're gonna have Preston at the homeschool day as well. Preston's going to be showing retro games and whatnot. So that's going to be great.

And that's become really popular, you know, and again, like I said earlier, you know, gaming even now, it still drives the industry in lots of ways, especially like the advancement of graphics and stuff. Of course.

That totally makes sense. Yeah. Excellent point. And, and there's so much more to learn. So I'm really looking to forward to your presentation. This will be a virtual presentation, so it's kind of fun that we get to connect over computers and over a system of communication that's familiar with us these days. And David, thank you so much for joining us again, folks. The links are going to be in the description and I really encourage you to check out David Grealish's resources and his website documentary, his book, and especially I hope that you can make it to our may at 22nd. That's going to be Wednesday, May 22, homeschool day about the information age with our special guest, David Grealish. Thank you so much, David. Appreciate you joining me.

Thank you. Thank you again. It was fun.

Then again is a production of the Northeast Georgia History center in Gainesville, Georgia. Our podcast is edited by Andrews Gilles, our digital and on site programs made possible by the AdA Mae Ioster Education center. Please join us next week for another episode of then again.