Comdex Fall 1994 Report by Ben Bowers (Sysop OS/2 Source BBS)

I arrived in Las Vegas and registered on Wednesday to find a large separate building near the registration tent focused entirely on PowerPC related vendors and products.  Apple, Motorola and IBM had set it up to showcase the future of the PowerPC architecture and the numerous vendors developing for the platform.  I saw lots of PowerMac applications blazing along on 604 boxes, 603 PowerBooks and much talk about the 620 chip.

One of the things I wanted to find out about was OS/2 on the PowerPC.  Sure enough they had OS/2 running on some PPC boxes (yeah).  They even had several applications running.  I spoke with one vendor  (Relish PIM I think) and they had been able to port over to the PPC in less than two weeks and it fundamentally involved only 12 lines of code.  There were many vendors showing PPC OS/2 ports including IBMWorks.

I then stopped into the Team OS/2 trailer and checked things out.  They had a very smooth operation in place and things were purring right along.... pink shirts and all <grin>.

IBM had Paula Poundstone (comedian) doing a show at their main booth.  She comes out into the crowd and interviews people and she was VERY funny.  They had a second stage showcasing WARP and a separate room with a 30 minute WARP  showcase (so popular that I could not even get in to see it).  WARP was everywhere.  IBM IS clearly pushing it now.  They had the name plastered everywhere in many different ways.  EVERYBODY that was there has to know the name unless they had a bag over their head.

As many of you may know IBM usually has a party for OS/2 Teamers at Comdex and I had preregistered for it.  They had it in Bally's Event hall.  I arrived a little late to find a large room about 4+ times larger than the room from last year.  Open bar and LOTS of food.  There were ice sculptures and a large stage for multimedia presenatations.  I sat at a table with a couple from Europe, a fellow from FedEX, James Fallows (author and general OS/2 enthusiast) and Dave Whittle (OS/2 evangelist).

Initially the room was only partially full and I was a little disappointed but boy that did not last for long.  By 8:30 the room was packed.  IBM had completed some Team OS/2 related recognition awards and then turned David Barnes loose.  He was great (Phillip Kahn also spoke briefly) and he shortly introduced the rest of the evenings entertainment.  I was expecting things to starting ramping down
about 9:30 ...... WRONG!

Barnes introduced a band called Christine and the Sting(I think).  They consisted of Christine and 2 backup singers/dancers (all in slinky miniskirts) and they just rocked the whole room.  Great great band........... they were a "peddle to the metal" rock 'n roll band.  To say I was surprised is to put it lightly.  Now the whole room was rocking.  AT&T had a party next door and they started to come into this room which was now packed with thousands of people.  The guy from FedEx leaned over to me and said he had been coming to IBM events for 25 years and he had never seen anything that could top it.  IBM is clearly showing it is 100 % behind OS/2 WARP.

After about an hour+ of Christine, Barnes introduced another act.  Danny Gans, a new name for me but he was also just great.  He was a vocal impressionist and he did his impressions of about every singer you could imagine from kermit the frog to George Burns.  He was so good that he did three encores and had a standing ovation. 

It was now close to 11:00 and the bar was still open and Christine and her band came back onstage for another hour of rock and roll.  By the end folks had pushed back the tables and started to dance near the stage (even on the stage).  I really don't know when it ended but IBM kept the bar open to the very end and I had a great time......... getting back to my room sometime after 2:00am.  This party was off the scale.  Thank you IBM!

Morning came and I was feeling a little personally WARPED until well into the afternoon<grin>.  I roamed the main floor for most of the morning looking for hints as to future technology.  Internet is on the way.  IBM was showcasing Advantis in a large way and NETSCAPE (the Mosaic folks) had a packed booth as well.  ATT spent a lot on Personal-LINK.  They were grabbing just about everyone who left the booth and surveying them about Magic Cap and Personal-Link.  

Voice recognition and 3D graphics were talked up a lot with many vendors showing it in some form.  I think IBM is changing the name of their dictation product.  IDE drive controllers will soon be putting major heat on SCSI with the offering of _bus mastering_ and > 16 megs/sec transfer rates.  This is going to have some impact on SCSI related profits in some companies.

A company named Virtual IO has a great VR headset at about $600.  It is lightweight and works with existing hardware/SW .......good sound and video and not too heavy.

I saw a true personal PC.  A 486 that you can where on your belt.  It has a headset with an eyepiece and boom mike and runs via verbal commands...... total hands free operation.  It comes with 16 megs of ram and a 540 meg HD and standard IO including PCMCIA.  Only problem is it costs over $9,000.

I saw many MPEG compression cards displayed.  This looks like it is going to be meaningful in some way.  Multimedia was pervasive.

Multi-Tech has a modem coming out that will do 28.8 data AND voice on one line.  Now you will be able to do basic whiteboard work and have voice over a single phone line.  This will be important for Intels Proshare and IBMs Person to Person products.  I speculate that you will even be able to do some video frame grabs with this as well.  This may be popular for the SOHO crowd but their major push was focused on telecommuting workers.

On Friday it actually snowed in Las Vegas and It was quite an event if you spent much time in a cab<grin>.  It also brought to mind some comments made by certain detractors of OS/2 related to OS/2 not succeeding until hell freezes over.  Low temperature for the last day of Comdex was 31 degrees ......... hummmm.