1983 Comdex video

[SomeGuy]

I don't know if it has been mentioned here before, but along the same lines as the "IBM PC in 10 Chapters" there is an interesting video walk through of the 1983 Comdex recorded by Dan Bricklin. In this video, you can see many different kinds of vintage computers when they were new, as well as a preview demo of a particular new vaporware product called "Windows". (That is in part 3 at 7 minutes in)

I didn't happen to make a list of all the machines shown in there, but off hand I think there was a TI-Professional, AT&T 5620, PCjrs, Apple IIs, some Wang machines, HP 150 showing off touch screens, and many others.

Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VNS8TE4XhU
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrgwliaIYTQ
Part 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnDRw8-caxU

A shortened video with excerpts from above:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVCPY-BqYgo

Now, if only there were a video of the 1982 Comdex! Supposedly, much of what Microsoft was pushing was a direct response to VisiCorp's 1982 Comdex demonstration of Visi On. In the above video, they even try to get a "before" and "now" shot of the VisiCorp and MS booths alluding to this.

 

[Mr.Amiga500]

Fascinating. I watched the whole thing. Thanks for the links.

Throughout the whole video, I kept thinking it looked more like 1984 than 1983 - with the obvious (boring) influence of the IBM PC and the focus on MS-DOS compatibility. But of course, many of these products took a year or so to come out so there was a delay in reality. (and in Canada, add another year or two delay)

 

[NeXT]

Holy crap, Apricot had a booth in '83.

 

[SomeGuy]

Throughout the whole video, I kept thinking it looked more like 1984 than 1983 - with the obvious (boring) influence of the IBM PC and the focus on MS-DOS compatibility. But of course, many of these products took a year or so to come out so there was a delay in reality. (and in Canada, add another year or two delay)

Well, this was the fall Comdex. At a glance, one of the computer clocks says 29 Nov. And some of those products may not have been ready for sale yet - that one from Microsoft took several years to ship

For anyone going by magazine reviews or announcements, don't forget that back then it would easily take several months for stories to get written, printed, and delivered to your mailbox. Not like today where you just type stuff in a submit box, and there it is. 8)

 

[Chuck(G)]

I may still have ticket stubs to that one...

 

[eeguru]

It is pretty cool to see a bright eyed very young 28 year old Bill Gates [part 1 from 15:38 to 16:32] so accessible talking to people at trade shows hocking his wares - or Xenix in this case where M$ had a vested interest.

 

[Unknown_K]

Bill gates was not a billionaire back then, but Microsoft had 470+ employees and $50M in sales at the time (1983) so he was doing well.

http://www.thocp.net/companies/microsoft/microsoft_company.htm

For the most part founders of major companies seem to be more accessible then the people who take as CEO etc. after they are big. Maybe this was because they started as tech and sales people instead of MBAs.

 

[Doug G]

Watching brought back a lot of memories, I may have attended the 1983 show but it's more likely my first comdex was 1984. Our small reseller company got invites from a few vendors, I think Micropolis was usually the first invitation we'd get (we sold a lot of Micropolis disks in those days, although more to DEC-compatible systems than PC's), and I made it to all the rest of the 1980's shows. They were fun, but I learned to wear comfortable shoes after the first one

 

[framer]

framer was there, yes I got to that show.

I worked in vegas 82-83ish I remember being shocked at how big computers had come in 5 years.