Apple Expo West Deja Vu All Over Again

Remember the movie, "The Sting"?  After Redford and Newman
pull off the Big Con, Robert Redford turns to Paul Newman to
say, "You're right!  It WASN'T enough...   But it was
close!!!"  That's the way I felt when riding BART back to Daly
City after spending last Saturday at Brooks Hall helping to
celebrate Apple Expo West.  It was a good show, and I received
full value on the dollars I spent to attend.  And then some.

First the disappointment.  No Beagle Brothers!  Yes, I know,
there is no Beagle Brothers, but that didn't stop me from
missing them.  Beagle's absence will leave a big hole in any
trade show that carries the Apple name in its title, at least
for old timers.

This show was well attended during the hours I pushed my way
through the crowds.  There wasn't a line outside Brooks Hall
waiting to buy tickets, but the underground exhibit hall was
filled with row upon row of enthusiastic attendees.

I had pleasant visits with Roger Wagner, Tom Weishaar and
about a dozen other persons whose names are legend in Apple's
Annals.  There was time to talk with friends without being
jostled by the crowd.   That was a fun part of the show.

This show combined Apple 2GS dynamite with Mac razzle dazzle. 
 There wasn't a feeling of "My computer can lick your
computer..." that I've noticed at earlier trade shows.  (The
Apple 2GS, with GS/OS 6.0 now so closely resembles a MAC that
the distinctions seemed blurred.)

As I reflect on the day's amazements I'll have to say that I
was most impressed by the Turbo-Rez demo that displayed
absolutely amazing color pictures from an Apple 2GS.  They
have found a way to break the 2GS's 16 colors-per-line
barrier.   You could almost hear gasps as each person passed
by their exhibit for the first time.

In the MAC department, La Cie showed their Silverscanner II
with Adobe Photoshop, a flat-bed color scanner in conjunction
with one of the bigger, better MAC monitors.  They had a scan
of a $50 bill onscreen that was so sharp you could see the
little blue threads in the paper.  Even the colors looked
exactly right.  (I asked, "Does the Treasury Department know
about this booth?  The exhibitor replied "We never print
these!"

A data-recovery group called DriveSavers had a PowerBook 100
on display that had been aboard a cruise ship that sunk in the
Amazon River.  The laptop computer was a mess of green
corrosion and other things that looked as if they could live
again.  The data had been completely recovered from the hard
drive, they assured me.  I came away from that booth with a
resolution never to drop my computer into the Amazon River.

Another exhibitor showed a MAC program that could be used to
change the dimensions of facial features so deftly that the
distortions were very plausible.  In real time the operators
made noses bigger and made noses smaller, weakened and
strengthened chins, etc.  Plastic surgeons, no doubt, will
really pick up on that program.  The process was, I suspect, a
close relative to the morphing that has been so popular in tv
ads and movies lately.

There were hardware and software bargains galore to be had at
show prices.  Every software title imaginable (except the one
I had hoped to buy) was offered at a healthy price reduction. 
There were hardware gems that were almost impossible to
resist.  An Applied Engineering Parallel Pro card for $39 was
a good example.  I almost bought one for a spare until I
realized that the one I have seems to be perfectly reliable.

I didn't attend any of the technical conferences, although I'd
intended to spend most of my showtime in that manner.  There
was too much to see on the exhibit floor and too many people
to talk with.

Apple Expo West was the kind of Apple show I thought I'd never
see again.  It was fun and informative and what more could you
ask of a trade show?  (Beagle Brothers II to be there as an
exhibitor?)