Show report for the first day of Amiga30 in California:

I am happy to report that I was able to register my Dual 2.7GHz G5 PowerMac tower and received the key file before the show began this morning (thank you Frank for expediting the sending of this key file and dealing with the problem of having to use the Reg Tool twice because Earthlink.net does strange things with emails sent from certain servers).

This allowed me to use the G5 tower all day at the dedicated MorphOS display table, without needing to reboot it every 30 minutes. The G5 is connected to a 37" LCD TV monitor, to grab the attention of anyone walking by the table, and it has worked well. I also had my 17" 1.67GHz G4 PowerBook on that table, plus my 1.5GHz G4 MacMini and over-clocked 1.6GHz G4 PowerMac tower at the History Tables positioned in the correct order with all the rest of the Classic Amiga's and a few NG AmigaOS4.x and AROS systems.

The attendance at the show has been greater than expected, with sales of tickets in excess of 400, and possibly up to as many as 450. This is not a free show, where we can't be sure how many people have attended, as they wander into and out of the show space. Each person attending the show had to buy a ticket prior to arriving at the Computer History Museum, or they could buy a ticket at the door if they did not find out about the show until some time over the last few days. It took a great effort of over two dozen volunteers, working days and nights for over two months, to finally get everything set up and ready for the show to begin, with many of those people working until 4am the night before the show started.

I have to tip my hat to Trevor Dickinson, not only for his generous support of the event with sponsorship dollars, but also for his hard work packing and moving and unpacking and moving again into the museum, hundreds of boxes and monitors and computer cases. He is definitely not your typical company owner and did not hesitate to get his hands dirty and help out with all of the work that needed to be completed.

The banquet dinner was good food for all, but as usual when you get hundreds of Amiga users, developers, engineers and former users, developers, and engineers of the Amiga in the same room together, it was very entertaining. Specially the group of original Amiga employee's, who had so many great stories to share with all of us.

My day started at 6am, getting up early, so I could get into the museum around 7am to finish setting up the many computers of mine that were used to display the history of the Amiga, and to display on the dedicated MorphOS table. I did not leave until all the stories were finished after dinner around 10:20pm. I also want to thank Bill Bosari, the show's main organizer, who gave me a free table dedicated just for MorphOS.

It was a great day, and I think that the computer show was a huge success! The display of so many proto-type Amiga systems and parts, as well as the first A1000 ever produced (serial number 1), and many other unique items and artwork, really made the show something that will likely never be duplicated again.

One great surprise for me was the attendance to the show of Moya Jackie, aka Cammy, who traveled with one or two friends all the way from Australia, to attend this event. Any of you MorphOS users within the USA and Canada, or Mexico who did not attend this event should be somewhat ashamed that you did not make more of an effort to make it to this show, when you realize that "Cammy", who has a very limited income, made the effort to be here. It was a pleasure to meet her in person, after knowing her for so long through the many Amiga forums, as well as some IRC chats. She is a great supporter of all things related to the Amiga.

Hopefully some of you were able to watch many of the speakers who did presentations throughout the day on stage. I hope also that a few people here at the show were video taping each presentation, so they can be posted to YouTube, or some other pl
ace, where MorphOS, AROS and AmigaOS users can watch them later, if they were not able to watch them streamed live (I missed most of the presentations, while I was working at setting up, or adjusting the several computer systems of mine that were used for the show).

I expect tomorrow to be just as good and have possibly even higher attendance numbers than we had today, but I will be glad when it is over, so I can get some rest and more sleep than I have had these last several nights.

To my knowledge, there has not been anything new announced by A-Eon, or Hyperion, than what has already been announced previously over the last few weeks. I will report more after the show ends tomorrow evening.