Thread: does anyone remember computer shows?

Yep - two places where you're likely to get a bunch of deeply unstylish and/or nerdy guys - computer shows and guitar shows. I went to a few of both in the 80's and early 90's. I guess that makes me a nerd. At the computer shows all I can remember is dot matrix printers as far as the eye could see; at the guitar shows, balding denim clad middle aged men as far as the eye could see.

I don't know what was worse - seeing a bunch of nerds crowding around another nerd programming in assembly language, or seeing a bunch of nerds crowding around another nerd demonstrating his guitar chops.

Yeah we still have those here in Taiwan. Prices are typically 10-20% lower than everywhere else, if you take the time to compare prices (they are like... 100 computer stores in the same building), and prices are definitely negotiable. You can negotiate for freebies with your purchases, too. Common ones are things like keyboards, mice, speakers, extension cords, USB flash drives, bluetooth dongles, a few sticks of RAM... things that don't cost much to them, but are potentially very useful to you. They have a set of prices on the internet, and a lower set if you call them, and even lower if you go ask them in person.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant by "computer show", though. There's the COMPUTEX (the second largest annual computer show in the world, after the one in Germany) in Taiwan, where they unveil new products and technologies, but it's not open to the general public.

Before those kinds of computer shows, which rapidly turned into crapfest flea markets, there were industrial type computer shows.

Mainframes, huge plotters, fancy graphics workstations. Usually you'd get special invite from your company, or knew someone who knew someone... and if you were lucky you'd get a special collored badge saying "vendor", which means you'd get extra pushy salespeople accosting you trying to make you purchase 100s of units rather than just 10s. Mmmmmm, quantity discount!

Ahhh, remember booth bimbos? Or tradeshow trollops as I used to call them. Before you knew it you bought a Cray because she smiled at you just right. Or two. At the very least you were talked into inviting a gaggle of high-pressured sales people to your office for next week. None of whom looked as good as the sample. I don't know why that is.

The aim of the outing was to accumulate more glossy brochures than any of your cohorts. At the intial huddle, you all agreed that the first sub-goal was of course to find the vendor who handed out nice sturdy shopping bags to hold all your loot. Loot included said glossies, but could also include mugs, pens, inflatable globes, sample goodies. As the day wore on you mastered the one-gesture business-card exchange manoeuvre. Smooth!

At the close of the evening, you and your posse would compare the spoils - just like it was Halloween. Hey, you got an extra balloon. How did you manage that?? Dammit I have to go back!!!. But we're business execs, goddammit. Yeah. But I wanna ballon. I'll trade you this mug for that pen.

Ah but I miss the early 80's computer scene. My stepdad worked at a computer firm and so I'd end up there sometimes as a kid - still remember the walls of magnetic tape units, guys changing the reels constantly, the sound of 20 dot matrix printers spewing out endless yards of that computer paper with the green stripes and the holes punched in the sides...guys with combovers, sideburns and tinted spectacles hunched over green VDU's programming in C with cigarettes in their mouths....

And yes you could tell they'd been to computer shows because literally every coffee mug and ashtray in the place had some obscure computer firm's logo on it.

I resemble those coffee mugs and ashtrays! My kitchen cupboard.... well let's not go there.

Back then, the vendors made real efforts to cart their racks and racks of gear to those shows in huge trucks... cables everywhere...

Even the home-brew builders shows (S-100 bus, kit computers) were still interesting because those people actually accomplished something. Then very quickly the entire exercise turned into huge flea markets with foreign vendors and incense - phone cords and discount floppies, and commoditized hardware add-ons which were dubious at best. About the only thing still worth going for were pr0n on floppies and comparing who offered the best dial-up bulletin boards.

Paralleling that, somewhere along the line computer parts stores turned into book stores. Then computer book stores turned crap as well when the theory and real knowledge books degraded to specific-software-manuals. Try to find a decent graphics/geometry theory book and all you'd get is "click this pull-down on AutoCad".