Celebrating Black History Month 2025

Performa

Member
Hello all!

It's February, and with it, another Black History Month! For those unaware, this celebration is to explore the history of often forgotten or underappreciated creators, inventors, artists, musicians, writers, leaders, and more who may have been overlooked in the past simply because they were black, and may have had their impact on history, culture, or society unfairly diminished. However you feel on it, I always look forward to it, as the stories and history that's brought up often details amazing people who have done equally impressive things that we might not otherwise learn anything about. One such person relating to the world of vintage tech, is Ed Smith.

Ed Smith is an electrical engineer who worked with a team of engineers to design and develop the MP1000 video game system for the APF company. He has a rather amazing story, and I'm very thankful that he's still around to tell it himself!

 

Performa

Member
The APF MP1000 and the "Imagination Machine" set the stage for other consoles that followed (like the Coleco ADAM) which added a "computer" module onto a video game system to expand it's capability. He and his team did it first, and that's pretty cool!

Here's a few pictures I got of these machines that were on display at Vintage Computer Festival Midwest 2024:



 
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