Princeton Packet Article About TCF in 2000

Still computing
The Trenton Computer Festival...25 years and counting

By Cynthia Snyder
Princeton Packet Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 10, 2000

This year's Trenton Computer Festival was held at the New Jersey Convention Center in Edison last weekend.

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Unseasonably hot weather was no deterrent to the more than 10,000 computer enthusiasts who descended on the New Jersey Convention Center in Edison this weekend. For many, it was a pilgrimage they had faithfully observed for 25 years, ever since they thronged to the first Trenton Computer Festival - indeed, the first computer festival anywhere in the world - originally held in the cramped hallways and along the shaded sidewalks of Trenton State College.

By the time the original venue had changed its name to The College of New Jersey (TCNJ), the Trenton Computer Festival had already moved twice, first to Mercer County Community College, then to the Raritan Center in Edison where, under the shortened monicker "TCF," it continues to attract a yearly horde of those beings affectionately - even proudly among themselves - referred to as "computer geeks."

The original TCF marked a historic first in a year that also celebrated U.S. history - 1976. While most Americans looked back with pride on the 200 years since the nation's founding, an unexpectedly huge crowd of electrical engineers and computer hobbyists looked forward to a science fiction-like future which no one could foresee, but which fired imagination and spurred innovation.

The co-founders of the fair were Allen Katz, today still a professor of electrical engineering at TCNJ, and Sol Libes, now retired, who taught electrical engineering at Union County College and Rutgers University. Together, they have overseen the event since its inception, each year recruiting the small army of speakers, vendors and volunteers that make TCF possible.

Co-founders of the Trenton Computer Festival, Allen Katz (left) and Sol Libes, have overseen TCF operations for a quarter century.

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Although it was much smaller in 1976, the first TCF boasted the same components in embryo that would characterize it for the next 25 years: the outdoor flea market, the indoor vendors and the numerous speaker sessions. Even then, it attracted a crowd of more than 1,000 amateur computer enthusiasts, far more than were expected to attend what Prof. Katz said he thought would be "a relatively limited event."

Those were true pioneering days. There were no PCs, no commercial software. If you wanted a computer to do something it hadn't previously done, you built it yourself and wrote your own program to run it. TCF, then as now, took the form of a giant flea market where hobbyists could find the parts they needed to build their unique machines.

But it was the educational aspect of the first TCF, the exchange of vibrant new ideas in a seminar setting that inspired a generation of computer programmers, Prof. Katz said. "As a professor here at the college and one who is involved in engineering and technology, I saw this as part of our responsibility as a public institution - providing service," he explained. "We said, 'Here's something that's going to have a great impact, that people are going to need to know about, and we'd like to help out.' "

The educational thrust was matched by the spirit of the area amateur computer clubs - among them the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey; the ACM/IEEE-CS, Princeton section; the Computer Education Society of Philadelphia; the New York Amateur Computer Club; and the Central Jersey Computer Club - that still benefit from the proceeds of the fair.

"Their mission was the same thing," said Prof. Katz. "They said, 'Hey, this is something great. We're really interested (as hobbyists), but it's going to be for everybody.' So the mission is primarily educational, and has been all along."

The crowded indoor vendor area of TCF 2000 at the New Jersey Convention Center.

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

With more than 90 speaker sessions and workshops, the emphasis on education continues to differentiate TCF from the hundreds of copycat computer expos that have sprung up in its wake. The most famous speaker in recent memory was Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft Corp., who gave the keynote address in 1989. "He sat in my chair here for two hours," Prof. Katz marveled. "I hid him away because there was a tremendous crush. He was already very visible, and if not the richest man in the world then, he was well on his way."

But no one knew, in 1976, where computers were going. No one envisioned the megalithic rise of Microsoft that many now believe requires antitrust legislation to rein it in. No one foresaw the onslaught of e-commerce, pixilating the business landscape with those now ubiquitous dotcoms.

Over the past 25 years, TCF has been featured in numerous publications from the front-page New York Times story that marked its opening in 1976, to the International Herald Tribune, to Playboy magazine.

Struggling to foresee the future, the Times reporter wrote: "(Computer hobbyists) foresee a time when a cheap computer linked to the television set and an electric typewriter will enable any family to make use of (games and educational) programs at home."

Vendors, circa 1976, man their booth in the hallway of the old Armstrong Hall on the campus of the former Trenton State College.

"You don't have a crystal ball, so you can't tell what's going to be in 25 years," said Prof. Katz from his TCNJ office, attempting to answer yet another reporter's questions while proctoring a final exam in a nearby lecture hall. "But we felt, here at the college, that this was something that was going to have a great impact on people." Prof. Katz remembers the questions he used to be asked: "'What can you use computers for? I can't imagine that we'd ever have something like this in our homes!'"

The usefulness of the computer soon became apparent. Only about 5,000 individuals owned a home computer in 1976, but today, more than one in four American families has at least one PC, which has changed almost everything the average American does, from filing taxes to writing term papers.

"What would be considered a very nice high school paper 25 years ago when the computer festival started probably would not be accepted today," said Prof. Katz. "Today, the kids have graphics in their papers, and all sorts of visual information. Our standards have improved. We expect a lot more today."

The expectations of the computer amateur have changed as well. TCF used to provide area computer hobbyists almost the only means of obtaining reasonably priced computer hardware and electronic components, the abundance of computer superstores and software, much of it acquired off the Internet, has caused attendance at the festival to level off after years of nearly exponential growth. "A lot of people over the years have come because there are great buys," said Prof. Katz. "There's less of that today because computers have so permeated the discount stores and places like that. I still think the computer festival is a good place to buy, and I certainly do my yearly buying when the festival comes around. But the need for it, I have to admit, is less today than it was."

A scene at the outdoor flea market of TCF 2000 (above) differs little from its counterpart of 25 years ago (below, left).

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Co-founder Sol Libes began his association with TCF through the microprocessing research he was doing with his students. He remains active in computer circles, bringing the over-60 set online through his activities at Ewing Senior Net. But the past quarter century of festival involvement has taken its toll, he said. "I'm getting a little tired of doing it," he admitted. "I've been doing it for 25 years. It starts to weigh on you after a while."

In 1976, much of his work was done at home, on computers he built himself. All of that has changed, he said. "Today, you can go out and buy a computer for very little money. I haven't built anything in many years, haven't done any software work in many years. I mean, I can go out and buy a program for anything I want to do now."

Amateur computing groups, still a strong presence at the festival, were once "like a mutual aid society, helping one another because the manufacturers were not there to help," said Prof. Libes. "If I wanted to build a computer, I couldn't go to Intel for help unless I wanted to buy 10,000 parts. So I looked around for other people who were doing the same thing I was doing." But the focus of such groups has begun to change, he noted, from mutual aid to social enjoyment among people who share the same passion for computers. "There's less of a need for the road club, and there's less of a need for the Trenton Computer Festival," he said. "I'm amazed that it's still so popular."

The outdoor flea market at the original TCF in 1976.

Does that mean that TCF, in its 25th year, has finally begun to wind down? "Well, I used to think that 15 years ago," laughed Prof. Libes. "But it hasn't happened. It just keeps going on and it's a very popular event. People are still interested in some of the older computers and software, and there are terrific buys out there in the flea market."

The scene at the festival Sunday afternoon confirmed the continued vitality of TCF.

"The sessions have been excellent," said Prof. Katz, who witnessed a standing-room-only crowd for several seminars, including "Troubleshooting Windows" and "Searching the Internet," whose general interest focus were an indication of where TCF seems to be heading in the 21st Century.

Prices were still good at the festival, claimed four-year festival veteran Michael Uhll of Lawrence, who with his friend Corey Joiner of Rutherford were looking for the best deal in a color monitor. "You can find the latest stuff at a good price," said Mr. Joiner, who was less enthused about the cost of admission. "It used to be $12 for both days," he groused. "Now it's $12 for one day. Not cool."

Many attendees made use the popular Internet Cafe, staffed by members of the ACM/IEEE Princeton Chapter, to check vendors' prices against online price lists. Association members also were demonstrating new Internet authoring tools, which allow users to build web pages without having to have an intimate knowledge of HTML.

John MacDonald of Lawrence discusses "Privacy Rights of Employees" in a speaker session at TCF 2000.

Staff photo by Frank Wojciechowski

The next generation of computer-crazy kids was represented by Jeff and Sean Crews of Staten Island, who said they were in the market for a discount on "Ultima Online," a medieval times game.

Looking somewhat alone in the universe was Paul Shuch, PhD, executive director of the SETI League, whose mission is to search out and make contact with extraterrestrial life. "Today, we have the technology to seek a definitive answer!" the SETI League literature insisted. An honored attendee at the computer festival, Dr. Shuch will be the featured speaker at an upcoming awards banquet of the ACM/IEEE.

Macintosh users were finding the best buys, according to Jim Thursby of Plainsboro, president of the Princeton Mac Group. But they weren't getting much on the sale of their old equipment. "I'm amazed at how much Mac stuff there is," he said. "I paid $2 for a keyboard that I would have paid $25 for last year." The new generation Macs, such as the top-selling IMac, have made older Macintosh equipment all but obsolete. "The old parts aren't good anymore without converters," said Mr. Thursby.

Outside in the blazing noonday sun, Mr. Thursby's alternate universe counterpart, Paul Kurivchack of the Princeton PC Users Group, was manning his group's annual fundraising stand, the parcel pick-up station. "Donations are up," he said, "but the number of parcels checked in is down." This year's outdoor flea market wasn't yielding as much "old-style junk" as in previous years, he noted. But he had already stored away five or six complete PC systems for festival goers by noon Sunday. The build-your-own crowd has tapered off, he sadly noted. "The user groups are more social now," he added.

Despite appearances, it's not the end of an era for computer hobbyists, insisted Prof. Katz. "There's a kind of parallelism in radio," he said. "There were radio hobbyists and radio hobbyists still persist. And there'll be computer hobbyists who are interested in the technology of the computers - how to have better computers, the special aspects of computers. That's not going to go away. But also, people will use computers without thinking about them."

Original source of this page is at Princeton Packet OnLine Business.