You guys remember computer shows were a thing?

Growing up I remember my dad dragging me along a couple of computer shows, tables full of books and the humongous software boxes. The most prominent thing I remember at one was watching someone run Duke3D on a setup. I was way too young at the time to note the prices of anything.

Doing some light googling, there is surprisingly little out there. It's a time that no one wants to talk about. I suppose it's obvious that computer enthusiasts would be the first ones to move over to online shopping, so maybe they were over before they began.

Do you guys have any memories of computer shows?

Oh man, back when I was a little kid, my dad used to take me to computer shows at the local community college.

The only thing we ever bought there was the collector's edition of Wing Commander III. The one that came in a film tin.

Kind of makes me miss the old computer stores. There used to be like... three large computer hardware stores on the same street when I was a teen. CompUSA, Computer City, Elek Tec, and maybe even something else. I remember lusting after the 3do Blaster.

Yep! MarketPro computer shows were wild. Like a lawless, hyper-nerdy free for all. If you knew which vendors to hit and maybe weren't above bootlegs (SO many bootlegs), you could make off like a bandit.

I went to a computer show a few years ago as a nostalgia thing, and it was just depressing. Some guy selling mall-ninja stuff, a bunch of prebuilt HP PCs everywhere, and some other guy selling a bunch of emulators he downloaded and burned to CD. That was basically it, and this was in the exact same venue that the huge shows used to take place in, so you can imagine all of the empty floorspace.

We, as a community, need to put our foot down and say "Hey, there must once more be a place one can go for homebrew collections of Windows 98 wallpapers, FTP dumps on CD-ROM that likely have a bunch of low-res photos of corpses and/or copies of the Anarchist's Cookbook in one of the folders, Doom WAD collections, boxed copies of MDK and Wolfenstein 3D that have been shrinkwrapped together for some reason, and unlabeled parts in plastic tubs as far as the eye can see! Also, hot dogs!". Make Computer Shows Extant Again.

I think I went to a computer show in 1976 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. So, it was likely more primitive that what NotSoSneakyGuy experienced. My father friend Biff was into computers in teh 1970s when he worked at Raytheon. Later on in the mid-1980s my science teacher who was a bit of a "nut" was into homebrew. When he heard I owned and Apple IIc, he slid over a package of homebrew discs for me to copy. The old saying was "Don't Copy That Floppy", but we all did...sheepishly.

I do remember computer shopping in 1984! I remember shopping with my dad, the bill made him "sweat". I think my Apple IIc, a RGB monitor, and an Apple Scribe printer cost the equivalent of $5,000 in today's dollars. Tha monitor and computers were good, but the Apple Scribe printer was trash! I recall in 1991 trying to buy the last six "generic" printer cartridges within 60 miles of me because I needed to print papers for college...each cartridge was only good for 40 pages.....FORTY PAGES!!! To save ink the thermal ink I could re-wind the USED cartridges and then print in draft "double-strike" mode so that I could get a decent copy of my college papers to my professors.