Mike and I will be running the sales operation for NESFA and NESFA Press at Boskone 45 next weekend. Over the years, NESFA has amassed a lot of inventory because of the press operation and various related sorts of ventures. Part of our goal is to liquidate some of that inventory.

So Mike came up with a plan to get some of the Noreascon I record albums out of the clubhouse permanently: put the Banquet Speeches for the 29th Worldcon on a flash drive and sell the recording that way...with a twist. To get the best price, you have to take one of the sets of record albums, too.

We call it:

Noreascon I on a Stick.

This USB flash drive contains the Noreascon I (1971) Banquet speeches, led by Toastmaster Robert Silverberg. Others speaking that night include Noreascon I Guests of Honor Clifford Simak and Harry Warner, Jr., as well as Isaac Asimov, Lester Del Rey, Gordon R. Dickson, and Forrest J Ackerman.

The Noreascon I On A Stick Flash Drive uses technology unknown at the time of Noreascon I. We do note, however, that memory in the form of IBM punch cards was in common use, so we have provided a conversion comparison below:

Total Size of MP3 files: 83,329,024 bytes = 405 foot stack of IBM cards.

Formatted Capacity of stick: 1,016,791,040 bytes = 0.93 mile stack of IBM cards.

Assuming IBM cards were formatted to include sequence numbers (because if you didn’t number your deck and you dropped it, you were so hosed), the actual comparison is 1GB stick to a 1 mile stack of IBM cards.

Don’t you love living in the future?

$10 for USB flash drive and original 2-record Noreascon I Awards Banquet set.
$15 for USB flash drive version alone.