Today was my first visit to the Portland Retro Gaming Expo (PRGE) since the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a successful event with a good turnout. The organization seemed to be better than in previous years. For example, my wait time in the queue was under 20 minutes, even though I arrived late!

I didn’t find anything that I felt compelled to take home. Since I didn’t have a specific shopping list, and I’m more into retro-computing than retro-gaming, I just enjoyed playing pinball, especially the classic ones, and had a good time with the Polycade Team. However, I must admit that I’m not very good at it.

I had the chance to meet Gregory McHill (Arcade Shopper) in the back of the main floor exhibit and discovered a few excellent products and projects. Firstly, he is finalizing the setup of the PNW Museum, which should be located near the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum in McMinnville, Oregon (here). Secondly, he demonstrated TIPI (here) running from a P-Box. I’m definitely interested in trying for my Texas Instruments P-Box, so I’ll check it out. Lastly, I was excited when he showed me a Nabu running CP/M and informed me that servers were available online to run the original code. Indeed, a few months ago, a large number of Nabu systems were available on the market, but their use was limited. I got one, and now I know I can use it as a retro computer!

I also met rattboi and learned about the VEXTREME Vectrex Multicart (here). More interestingly, he mentioned VectreC, a Microsoft Visual Code extension for coding for Vectrex in C (and the compiler/assembler), which is like a dream come true! (here). The IDE has an emulator, and the program can be uploaded for testing to a Vectrex using the Multicart.

That’s all for today. I took a couple of hundred pictures so you can enjoy the PRGE 2024 if you can’t visit it.

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