Conferences/Exhibitions (Was: DECUS PDP-11 SPACE WAR?

[Fred Cisin]

On Sat, 8 Dec 2018, Adrian Stoness via cctalk wrote:
> were the decus confrinces ever held in multi level parking garages? keep
> hearing a story of one that was so big it took over one. door prize was a
> rainbow 100 my dad won in 79 80?? tells me he got a membership when he was
> a teen i the early 70's after hanging out with the nasa guys in the 60's in
> town who used to run experiments up in northern manitoba

Congratulations.  THAT is a great prize!


I never attended any confrinces, but a lot of conferences and exhibitions.


National Computer Conference was one of the first ones, started in 1951, 
under the name Joint Computer Conference.
1968 was Engelbart's "The Mother Of All Demos"
In 1973, it became National Computer Conference.
Anaheim in 1983 was a big one.  S'posedly a couple of people died from the 
heat in the "tents" (temporary buildings, because it overflowed the 
convention facilities)


CeBIT (Hanover Germany) was the largest.  Started in 1970; ended? in 2018.
Sorry, I have little or no information about it; I never got a chance to 
go.


One of the next early ones was "The West Coast Computer Faire". 
Started by Jim Warren (also known for Silicon Gulch Gazette, and role 
in starting mumerous other publications)  Jim Warren used to roll around 
the show on roller skates.

First one of WCCF was in 1977 in Brooks Hall and Civic Auditorium in San 
Francisco.  It included intro of AppleII and Commodore PET.

(All discussion of "FIRST" between TRS80, Commodore PET, and APPLE2 is 
essentially meaningless, as they were for all practical purposes TIED, and 
"FIRST" is based on WHICH aspect you consider important.)

Second was in San Jose, (1978)
Third was in Los Angeles, (1978)
Fourth was back in SF.  (1979) (first one that I exhibited in), and intro 
of VisiCalc
Fifth (1980) included intro of Microsoft SoftCard
Sixth (1981) included Osborne 1
A spin-off was the West Coast PC Faire.
But, Apple stopped exhibiting at WCCF, and "any show [other than Comdex] 
that also has PC-based exhibits".
In 1983, Jim Warren sold out to Prentice Hall, who sold to Shelly Adelson 
(Comdex, and Las Vegas hotels).  WCCF declined.
At "SOG" ("Semi-Official Gathering" put on by Micro-Cornucopia), we 
presented Jim Warren with a pair of skates and told him that it was time 
to put them back on.
WCCF declined rapidly and ended with 16th in 1991?


Comdex started in 1979 (Las Vegas), by Shelly Adelson, and by the mid 
1980s, Comdex Las Vegas became the largest USA show.
It filled ALL of the convention halls of all of the hotels that had 
convention halls, with shuttle buses between them (Hilton, Riviera, MGM, 
Sahara, Tropicana, Caesar's Palace, Sands, etc.)
$39.95 hotel rooms bumped their rates to $140+ and sold out.
Smallest booth size was 10x10.  But, because of an ERROR in drawing the 
floorplan, a couple of years, I was able to get a 7x7!
Some, including Microsoft, set up micro-booths within their 
"pavilion" booths to rent out to many small affiliated companies.
It spun-off Spring Comdex (Atlanta?) and some international shows.
It declined, and Travel complications for international attendees were BAD 
in 2001 (post 9/11), and the show RAPIDLY declined and closed in 2003. 
I still have some miscellaneous copies of the show guide/directory from a 
number of years.