Kay Savetz

TLDR: Help digitize 54 episodes of The Famous Computer Cafe, a 1980s radio show about computers that featured many notable interviews. https://gofund.me/87eb1a5b

In 2020 I learned about the Famous Computer Cafe. I got a little obsessed with it. The Famous Computer Cafe was not a restaurant, but a radio program that was broadcast from 1983 through early 1986. The program aired on several radio stations in southern and central California. It included computer news, product reviews, and interviews.

The program was created by three people who were the on-air voices and did all the work to create the program: finding advertisers, buying air time, doing research and interviews. In 2020 I interviewed all three and published those interviews on the Antic podcast.

To me, the most exciting thing about the show is the interviews. The list of people that the show interviewed is a who's-who of tech luminaries of the early 1980s. Computer people, musicians, publishers, philosophers, journalists. ...

Jun 1, 2024 at 7:55pmWeb
Show threadKay SavetzJun 1, 2024

But all the episodes (except one) were lost years ago. We thought they were gone forever.

Until now — thanks to extraordinary luck, I have purchased 35 reel-to-reel tapes that should contain roughly 54 episodes.

Buying the tapes was a gamble. There was no guarantee that they weren’t blanked or recorded over. But, it appears that the recordings survived! I have hired a trusted, professional digitizer to digitize them (I can handle 7.5” reels myself but don’t have the equipment for these hefty 10.5” reels.)

According to the labels, these tapes should have interviews with Bill Gates, Timothy Leary, Douglas Adams, Bill Atkinson (creator of MacPaint), Steven Levy (journalist), Jack Tramiel (Atari), John Reese (Tronix), Joel Berez (Infocom), and many more. They aired Oct 1994 through July 1985.

Here's the inventory of tapes that I bought: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zx56qfqhKMmgaGyN6ZQ1lqaaNAohDXqgRHS1qM_vID0/edit?usp=sharing

I am raising money to pay for these tapes and for them to be professionally digitized. ...

Famous Computer Cafe tapes - Google Drive

Show threadKay SavetzJun 1, 2024

I just got word that there may be a few more tapes available, which will add to the expenses. (The fundraising goal covers purchase of the tapes, shipping, and digitization. Only if funding exceeds that will I get paid for my time managing this project.)

I am asking the computer history community to share these expenses to preserve an amazing part of computing history that was thought to be lost forever. Once digitized, the recordings will go online for free at Internet Archive, where they will be machine-transcribed and full-text searchable.

You can listen to the first two episodes that we’ve digitized right now. They probably have’t been heard since they were first broadcast. The Dec 7 1984 episode includes an interview with Steve Roberts, who was riding around the United States in a teched-out, computerized recumbent bicycle. https://archive.org/details/the-famous-computer-cafe-1984-12-07_Steve_Roberts The Jan 9 1985 episode includes an interview with Barbara Elman, publisher of Word Processing News. https://archive.org/details/the-famous-computer-cafe-1985-01-09_Barbara_Elman

The Famous Computer Cafe 1984-12-07 Steve Roberts : The Famous Computer Cafe : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The Famous Computer Cafe 1984-12-07 Steve RobertsAired on KFOX.Steven K. Roberts (born September 25, 1952) is an American journalist, writer, cyclist,...

Internet Archive
Show threadKay SavetzJun 1, 2024

In addition to the interviews, the advertisements are charming, and the computer news segments are a perfect time capsule of the excitement of the industry.

These found recordings are a fraction of Famous Computer Cafe episodes. Maybe this will prime the pump so more recordings will turn up. Or maybe this is a one-time jackpot.

I have the enthusiastic consent of the creators of the show for this project.

Risks and challenges: I have a long history of preserving computer history through interviews, digitization, and archiving. But there are risks and potential challenges with this project. The first couple of tapes that we’ve tested look and sound great! Still, this project is a bit of a gamble. Some of the tapes could be blank or unplayable. There are no guarantees.

You can contribute at https://gofund.me/87eb1a5b

As a treat for those who read this far, here’s the first tape being digitized, the moment we learned that I hadn’t spent a grand on blank media. https://youtu.be/j3nW39HKeDw

Show threadKay SavetzJun 4, 2024
The Famous Computer Cafe digitization project was fully funded after less than 24 hours. Wow, thank you! We've started digitizing! You can still throw a couple of dollars (or more 🙂) at the gofundme to get updates as the work progresses and links to the shows as they're posted to Internet Archive. https://gofund.me/87eb1a5b
Show threadyaml nitrateJun 4, 2024
@savetz Terrific news!
Show threadMichael MulhernJun 4, 2024
@savetz Great work with the fund raiser!! Always happy to help this kind of project.
Show threadMichael WolfJun 2, 2024
@savetz first of all, this is amazing. Secondly, may I ask what digitization service you're using? I found some quad tape reels (presumably shot with a portapak) of talks given by Buckminster Fuller. I had asked around on quad tape mailing lists but the only advice was get it to a professional (not where a professional was). I ended up donating the reels to the Stanford Buckminster Fuller archive but I never have learned if they digitized them.
Show threadKay SavetzJun 2, 2024
@grumpy I’m using Harbor Digitizing. Amazingly, its proprietor Steve Roberts, was interviewed on the Famous Computer Cafe show. https://microship.com/digitizing/
Harbor Digitizing - Nomadic Research Labs

Film digitizing service (8 and 16mm) in Friday Harbor, Washington - along with consumer video formats, audio tape, slides, and other retro media.

Nomadic Research Labs
Show threadMartin SeegerJun 2, 2024
@savetz Shut up and take my money 😎
Show threadKay SavetzJun 2, 2024
@masek gladly:)
Show threadMartin SeegerJun 2, 2024
@savetz You have it 😀
Show threadAmin GirasolJun 1, 2024
@savetz these are phenomenal, Kay! Thank you for taking on the cost and the work of digitising these shows. I've contributed. They're even more intimate than the Computer Chronicles. Absolutely charming!
Show threadA UiBrianJun 2, 2024
@savetz @textfiles you’ve probably already been told about this but on the off chance you haven’t….