Three Approaches to a Commodore Computer Show by Robert Bernardo By the time this is read, two yearly events will have happened. The Chicago Commodore Expo in Lansing, Illinois, and the Vintage Computer Festival 3.0 in Santa Clara, California. The Chicago Expo is a Commodore-only celebration at the Day's Inn (formerly, Holiday Inn) on September 25. The Vintage Computer Festival is a celebration of all vintage computers, held at the Santa Clara Convention Center on October 2-3. These two autumn shows, along with the Lansing Area Commodore Club Expo (Okemos, Michigan) in May, comprise the best-known events which we Commodorians can attend here in the states. All three shows have a different flavor, a different style, and each complements the other. The LACC Expo seems very local, like a big club activity. The Chicago Expo gathers more people from afar, due to its more central location. VCF is very California, Silicon Valley-based, and caters to archivists, historians, and collectors interested in the computer industry. There is something in each which would please a Commodore fan. Need to feel a closeness and a personal touch in all the C= activities going on at a show? The LACC Expo I attended last year had about 50 people show up. Though the number was small in comparison to other computer shows (or large in comparison to other C= meetings), the attendees could really focus on the demonstrations and luminaries who appeared, such as Dale Sidebottom (president of Louisville Users of Commodore, Kentucky club) and Maurice Randall, GEOS programmer extrordinaire. Dale showed what could be done with a Commodore and a Postscript printer, and Maurice officially introduced Wheels 64, the replacement/updated operating system for GEOS 64. At this year's LACC Expo, Maurice introduced the beta version of GeoShell 3.0. Size doesn't matter; the LACC Expo makes up for it by having big C= releases. Need a bigger C= Expo? The Chicago Expo I attended last year had about double the number of attendees with even more C= stars, Jason Compton (writer for CU Amiga magazine and Commodore World), Steve Judd, Mark Seelye, Nate Dannenberg, Todd Elliott, and Robin Harbron (programmers), Fender Tucker (LOADSTAR disk magazine and newsletter), Jim Butterfield (programmer/writer), Roger Lawhorn (GEOS programmer), Scott Parker (Centsible Software) and Dale Sidebottom and Maurice Randall again. At that Chicago show, Maurice introduced Wheels 128, the replacement/updated operating system for GEOS 128. Nate Dannenberg showed off his C128 Tower and Quickcam interface/program. Roger Lawhorn and Dale Sidebottom promoted their GEOS applications. Jim Butterfield reminisced about Commodore programming in the 1980's. Three Commodore C65's were shown; less than 200 of these prototypes were ever made by CBM. Like the LACC Expo, these are the two shows to go to if you want your fill of Commodore. Need a show that's more general in nature? The Vintage Computer Festival may be the ticket. At last year's VCF 2.0, many computer platforms from the 1980's and earlier were represented there, anything from parts for 1950's behemoths to IMSAI 8080's to Commodore PET's to Timex/Sinclair's to Apple II's to Tandy Color Computers to obscure, unknown computers. The Computer Museum History Center had a large exhibit of historical computers, including many different Commodores. These were usually hands-on displays; you actually got to work the computers. Larry Anderson, one of the exhibit docents and also SYSOP to the Silicon Realms BBS (209 754-1363), was showing his collection of PET computers. Larry's 15 minutes of fame came when Desmond Crisis, TV reporter for the Sci-Fi cable show, CNet Central, interviewed him in front of the cameras. In fact, Desmond's entire report was on how people still used their vintage computers and attended a show such as VCF. (Unfortunately, I did not ever videotape the report from the program. Desmond can be contacted at: CNet, 150 Chestnut St., San Francisco, CA 94111. Phone: 415 395-7805 ext. 1554. FAX: 415 395-9205. E-mail: desmondc@cnet.com) The VCF flea market had a wide variety of items for a wide variety of computers. Commodore items were there for sale; from various vendors I was able to buy some Warpspeed and FastLoad cartridges, a Commodore Magic Voice cartridge; the programs, World Cup Soccer, Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Totl.Infomaster 3.6; an Animation Station drawing pad, a carrying bag for SX-64 cables (the bag in mint condition!), and a few 1541 and 1571 disk drives (given for free, though I did make a donation). The featured speakers gave their talks in conference rooms, separate from the large flea market room. At VCF 2.0 a lot of their talk went over my head as they spoke about the computing industry and programming in the 1960's or the 1970's. Their insiders' jokes drew appreciative laughter from the programmers in the crowd, but because it was before my time in computers, I could only wonder. As you can see from the above, there is a type of show for most any Commodore fan. To find out information about next year's shows, contact the following people: LACC Expo - Tim Lewis, president of LACC (lewist@arq.net), LACC, P.O. Box 1065, East Lansing, MI 48826, U.S.A. Chicago Commodore Expo - Randy Harris, president of the SouthWest Regional Association of Programmers (rgharris@aol.com), SWRAP User Group, Inc., P.O. Box 528232, Chicago, IL 60652-8232, U.S.A.. Phone: 773 375-9017 Vintage Computer Festival - Sam "Sellam" Ismail, organizer of VCF (siconic@jasmine.psyber.com), Vintage Computer Festival, 4275 Rosewood Dr. #29-161, Pleasanton, CA 94588, U.S.A. Phone: 888 SICONIC ext. 823. Without these people and their partners, we wouldn't have these fine shows in which we could celebrate Commodore. From The Interface, newsletter of Fresno Commodore User Group, via the Commodore Information Center, http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html