Vintage Tech's Bells and Whistles

Rumbling wrecks from the age of tech recall the days when men were boys and computers were all about flashing lights. Leander Kahney reports from the Vintage Computer Festival in Santa Clara, California.

SANTA CLARA, California -- Aging DEC minicomputers from the early 1970s were Paul Zachary's first computing love. Refrigerator-size behemoths that shake the ground when their hard drives spin up, they bring back a physical dimension to computing that personal computers of today have lost.

"You turn it on and all the lights in the house dim," Zachary said. "It's a nice effect."