Computerfest Report
by Ron Schwartz, AmiTech-Dayton Gazette, September 2005
This is being written the weekend before our meeting. This weekend was Computerfest Weekend. How many of you went to Computerfest this year? If you did, you were apparently part of a relatively small group. Eric and Mike went on Saturday and I went on Sunday. I have to admit, I was rather surprised when I arrived. All the cars were parked along the front of the building. There were none in the side or back lots. Inside, where all the rooms used to contain vendors and displays, only two rooms were being used. The one room in the front that used to be considered the fancy room was limited to the Lanfest gaming program. The large room adjacent to it was Computerfest. Unfortunately, even with the whole show in the one room, there were still open spaces. I talked to some of the DMA people that I know and found there were a number of things going on. The major reason we didn't participate this year was due to the increased booth cost, since we have not gained any members in recent years by participating. That was obviously not unique since, other than DMA, itself, there were no other computer clubs participating this year. I'm sure the cost was also a deterrent to some small vendors.
They were apparently having problems recruiting volunteers this year. Many of the older members who have been involved for years are getting burned out, but the younger members are not getting involved. I was told that they had not gotten what was considered to be the minimum number of vendors needed to break even. It was equally obvious that paid attendance was also not going to be what they had hoped. I also heard that the attendance at Lanfest was only 250, also well below what was anticipated.
Having said all that, most of that information is what I was told by various people, so I cannot vouch for its validity. As far as the show itself, it was definitely small, but there was still a lot of stuff there for sale. I will admit, after saying that, I spent about two hours there and didn't buy anything. There wasn't anything that I particularly wanted, although I have thought a lot about getting a laptop. There was quite a selection of laptops. I checked them all out. Eric told me he had seen a new Dell laptop for $400, but I couldn't find it, so I assume it was sold before I got there. Otherwise, the cheap ones were old with older, slower processors and the newer ones with faster processors were too expensive for me. Most of the other items and gadgets I saw that were interesting wouldn't work on my Amiga without modifying it. It seems most new gadgets these days are USB items and, at least for the moment, the Algor boards that would provide that capability for my 3000 are unavailable. This has an additional disadvantage, since Eric and I have been talking about converting to one of the broadband ISPs, I need the Algor to be able to network my system.
About the only Amiga stuff I saw at Computerfest were a few things that Frank Davis of FWD had, but even his selection of Amiga items is getting smaller as time goes on. One interesting thing, Frank had set aside space for Bryant Pedigo, of the Indianapolis Amiga group, to demonstrate his Amiga One. If you recall, Bryant is the guy who demoed his Amiga One at our booth last year. I talked to him for a while and he indicated there have been a number of updates in OS-4 in the last year. He had talked to Mike on Saturday and they discussed the possibility of him bringing his system over to one of our meetings. If we could get him to bring it to one of the meetings where we are doing the Morph vs. Amiga comparisons it would be great.