Howdy Fellow Commodore Users!

Coming up in August in Dayton Ohio is the annual Computerfest. Every year I hear questions of when our club will attend another computer show. My own personal history with our club started at the Computerfest at Hara Arena nearly a decade or so ago. Back then the show was something to see. It usually took all day to walk thru the aisles of dealers and participate in demos that were provided, maybe even two days to take it all in.

This July a smaller computer show was scheduled in Sharonville, promoted by MarketPro. I popped in to check out the show and see how it faired over the years since the last time I checked out this production, which seemed like maybe 3 or so years ago. For those that have been in the Sharonville Convention Center and know the size of the exhibit hall (16,500 Square Feet of Column Free Floor Space), this show took up maybe 1/2 of that hall. In attendance were a few dealers and I even spotted our fellow PC users group from Cincinnati. Total time spent at the show was 25 minutes which included standing in line to buy the ticket, and a quick stop in the restroom before shopping.

The last show at Hara Arena I attended, along with two other sidekicks that tagged along, the show was completely walked thru in 3 hours. This included the walk thru of the Amiga portion of the festival, which was smaller than I had anticipated.

User groups seemed to have vanished from the computer shows over the years. It's a shame that this has happened. Comradery and guidance that have long been associated with the groups have been given a boot. Why could this be? Maybe it's because the cost involved in attending the shows. User groups, in most cases, are not a profit venture making buying a table for these high cost shows prohibitive. These days, the number of platforms have minimized to a handful of operating systems, so the need for specialized instruction is being needed less and less. Does that mean comradery is also not needed anymore?

Attending the Commodore Expos like the recent one in Louisville, and the Fall expo in Chicago give a breathe of hope that comradery has not died, and will not die soon. Maybe that's why the Commodore brand of computers will not die?

Keep on Commodoring!!