From the late 90's to the mid-2000's I was heavily into building/modding/rebuilding PC's. Every couple months there would be a huge Computer Show at a local convention center where you could buy anything under the sun related to computer parts, peripherals, assesories and tools always at really good prices.

I haven't been to one in years now and don't even know in this day and age of dirt cheap computing if they are even going anymore?

Anyone?

Back in the day, First Saturday in Dallas was something to behold. And there was Comdex in Las Vegas. Again, it had to be experienced. Today computers are nothing more than commodities with very little difference among brands. Used pieces and parts have little residual value and are scrapped for precious metal content. Of course, the inter-web and eBay have made available all sorts of stuff to everyone anywhere in the world. There is little if any need for physical computer shows in today's world.

I recall computer shows at Scottish Rite temple in San Diego. I had just passed the bar in 1975. They may have had them earlier but I had my attention elsewhere. San Diego Computer Society, IIRC.

The shows were fascinating. Software was sparse. Hard drives didn't exist. Floppies 8" for DEC minis et al were out of the question, as were "real computers." No monitors, no printers. Chips, power supplies, what came to be known as motherboards, doohickies to allow paper tape readers and punches to talk to Altairs, IMSAIs and other 8080 based chipsets. It wasn't commercial much, just a bunch of nerds looking for ideas, help getting your machine working. Some guy touting his loader program which reduced the size to 28 bytes from 37 or whatever, a big deal when you had to hand assemble, then load your loader by flipping switches, and one bad flip meant do it over.

Some of the participants wrote and sold "software", some opened or worked at Computer stores, which began to flourish. I had a plan to start one. All this was pre IBM PC, mostly nerdy guys playing around in their garages and basements, until Apple II came along, then Visicalc. I remember seeing BYTE Magazine's second issue, being mesmerized by the ads. I had a one board, 1k memory, 4 hex nixie display, to play with at first, dreaming of an Altair kit, then bought an early Apple II. Hot diggity! Now we're rolling!

They went the way of Computer Shopper Magazine. No longer needed with online shopping being a better way to go.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers buying software that came on a floppy disk in a ziplock bag with a mimeographed page of documentation!

And still have a closet full of that old stuff.

they've gone the way of the dodo I used to go all the time in that era. I went to one put on by the same company who did them when I was a kid with my F-I-L a few years ago, it was all over priced 2nd tier korean monitors and junk.

We had two companies run them back in my former jurisdiction in NJ. One guy was a nut job. He would have people posting his idiot roadside signs by the hundreds on public and private property. Then leave them for the town to remove

Then we would get numerous complains. His vendors were at times less than honest. Buyers would get their new pc home only to find a brick inside. We would then have to listen to their complaint. No receipt, no idea who sold it to them. .

The other operation, MarketPro is still around and holding shows on the east coast.

It's been a while for me, but I don't think there's much 'wildcatting' in computers anymore. That used to be the 'thing'. You'd go to a show to see what novel idea someone had when they built their machine. Water cooling? Bunches of folks are doing it. Exotic video or sound boards are all over the place. In short it's like all the unique tricks have become too easy to do and no one shows up.

On the software side, the commercial guys aren't spending their advertising dollars that way anymore and the little guys have found social media a better way to go. So you wrote 1500 lines of assembly to create a screen saver like video show. No one cares anymore because they can get the same thing built into an OS.

I used to go all the time. Oem processors were cheap back in the day!

Haven't been in years.