NicholasPyers.com

As many of you have been aware, AUSOM attended that Australian Connectivity Expo 2000 (ACE 2000) over the last weekend of October. ACE 2000 was conceived to promote non-Microsoft solutions and there were a large number of exhibitors promoting Amiga and various Unix/Linux solutions. AUSOM was the sole Macintosh presence.

While most of the exhibitors were on the first floor, the AUSOM stall was on the ground floor, but everyone had to walk pass us to get to the stairwell leading up stairs.

We had a huge room (about the size of the large section of G72 at Box Hill TAFE) all to ourselves. With the generous support of NextByte (www.nextbyte.com), we had a very impressive range of machines and equipment to display.

Along the far wall from the door, we had five iMac DV’s all connected to the internet via a Airport Base Station. Late Saturday afternoon and at various times throughout Sunday, a few of these machines where used to play a network game called Bolo.

In another corner we had a Dual Processor 500Mhz G4 with 17″ CRT display running MacOS X Public Beta and that generated a lot interest from the public, seeing a full blown unix operating system with a great interface running on a Mac. This machine also had a lot of QuickTime movies trailers, including the preview of Charlies Angels.

Then just as you were going to walk out the room, there is the G4 Cube with a 15″ Cinema Display (LCD flat panel) that also generated a lot of interest. The Cube with the 15″ Cinema display draws the most positive feedback – people really think they look sexy!

In the middle of the room we had a Projector showing a whole lot of QuickTime Movies including the Apple 1984 Ad, the Hal Y2K Bug ad, WinSongs 95, I Think We Are A Clone Now and the G4 Espionage ad. These were the best draw card we had, with the ticket sellers on the main Entrance telling everyone they had to see them – If we had these available for sale on CD, we would have made a fortune! On the Saturday morning we also showed the QuickTime stream of the Museum Opening on the projector. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it myself, as I was called away, so I don’t know if the “Brack’s Pie attack” was shown or not.

There was also a PowerBook G3 was roving around the building showing off wireless networking and we were quite impressed with the range and how it handles losing connectivity for a few moments and often re-establishes the connection without interruption. We had file copies and downloading from FirstClass work without a drama while doing this. We also had online chats in FirstClass happening while roving about.

AUSOM was awarded the “Most Professional Looking Stand”

One of the best things about this Expo is that people actually get to (a) see how others enjoy using their Macintoshes and (b) sit down and play with ones themselves in a relaxed environment – a great way to encourage them to learn how good the Macintosh is!

The organiser of ACE 2000 rated AUSOM’s stand as the “Most Professional Looking” and this could not have been achieved without the assistance from a number of people including Chris Donnelly of NextByte for arranging the loan of the equipment. Gary Lowen for the organisation of equipment shipping and his entire family for delivering extra supplies late Friday night and vacuuming the mess we made setting up and then helping pack up on Sunday night. Jane Lambert for co-ordinating all the volunteers and Brad Smith for printing the signs and promotional material. Geoff Wallace and Ron Webster for helping setup on Friday night. Ron’s wife for making some table cloths for us late Friday night and all those who gave up time to help staff the stand though out the weekend.

Credits

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