[Coco] CoCo Fest video and chat

Mon May 1 22:31:15 EDT 2006

Alas I forget his name. If we're thinking about the same person he is
in fact from the Calgary. Again I forget if he was from Calgery itself
or the sorounding area. If it took him three days to get to the fest he
was doing some sight seeing along the way. I saw him as he was leaving
and he mentioned that he starting on a twelve hour drive home. I'm going
to have to admit my ignorance of Canadian geography and suggest that there
may be the possibility of some car pooling last year.

One of the groups that I'm a member of is a user group for HP programable
calculators. Back in it's heyday there were at times two and three conferences
a year here in the US and a couple outside of the US. ( I do think it's interesting
both were in their peak at about the same time. ) I also remember on a couple
of occasions a group of us heading out in a van for a conference in Washington
state. Four of us left Chicago and we picked up another six on the way.
The van was a business cargo van with two seat up front and a couple of planks
set on milk crates for us to sit on. I spent two days each way sitting on a
plank in the back of a van!! There was many an hour spent in a group with
calculator in hand working on different programs. Were there's a will there's a
way.

That said I think we may want to shift the tone towards encouraging people to make
the effort to travel to the fest next year and the years after that. I don't
think it's an accident that when people come for the first time they tend to
come back again and again. This year I was speaking to one of the vendors as I
was buying a book they were selling. She made the comment that we came to relive
memories. I have very found memories of programming and working with my Coco
back when it was a "modern" computer. The days at work spent programming a Coco
were so of the best days of my career and will never forget. What we need to do
is talk about the reasons to go to a coco fest and the good times had there. I
don't think the argument of "if you don't spend a lot of money and go to a cocofest
there won't be anymore" is going to get a lot of people to go. Maybe we should
use the argument "if you liked what you saw on the fest cam you'll love being there
in person so much that you'll keep coming back year after year".

Frank

PS - You were expecting flames. Remember?? :-)

On Mon, May 01, 2006 at 07:56:54PM -0500, Mark Marlette wrote:
> Glen,
> 
> There was an individual from Canada that was there for the second 
> year in a row. IIRC it took him three days to get there. Calgary area 
> I think...
> 
> Mark
> 
> At 5/1/2006 03:48 PM, you wrote:
> 
> >I, also would have loved to attend, but with work and the fact that I am up
> >in Canada, I could not have ever dreamed of coming down especially now with
> >so many restrictions on crossing the boarder. I think we need another "West
> >cost" fest. If it was more to the west cost, I would have tried more to get
> >down, The closest boarder is 13 hour south and This years feast would have
> >been a 4 or 5 day drive for me.
> >-Glen
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On
> >Behalf Of George's Coco Address
> >Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 1:14 PM
> >To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
> >Subject: Re: [Coco] CoCo Fest video and chat
> >
> >Very well said.
> >
> > I wish I could come. San Antonio is just too far away. I only make $8/hr
> >and I just simply can't manage to save a penny for ANYTHING. If I could
> >drive over there during the day and have time to visit, then I would.
> > By golly, do it next year in San Antonio or Austin, I'll be there. 
> > PROMISE!
> >
> >I could even make as far as Houston, because I have family there where I
> >could put up for a weekend. Dallas/Ft.Worth is too far and no friends or
> >family there.
> > In San Antonio, there is the River Walk. A great place to visit in the
> >evenings.
> >
> >George
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Mark Marlette" Sent: Monday, May 01, 2006 1:34 PM
> >
> >
> >> I'm sure there will be a fest report to follow. I would like to add, and 
> >I
> >
> >> know I'll get flamed for this but...it is true.
> >>
> >> More people need to attend this once of a year function. Without it we
> >> would have less if anything. Is it a cheap event to attend? No. Is it
> >> worth while? Without a doubt.
> >>
> >> There are an endless number of excuses on why one could not make it. Some
> >> indicate money, schedule conflicts, etc. All valid at some point in time
> >> but after 25yrs, people that have never attend a fest, that means it is
> >> not a priority.
> >>
> >> Money issue...Most all of being adults or seniors now :) Can plan for the
> >> once a year event. Putting a little money aside each, week month what 
> >ever
> >
> >> gets you there. Even if you can't put away enough money to attend every
> >> year then attend every other year or what ever works.
> >>
> >> Conflicts..They do happen. Glenside has done a good job scheduling these
> >> events so that they don't happen on the same weekend every year. You 
> >might
> >
> >> not be able to attend every year but should be able to get to them, if it
> >> is a priority.
> >>
> >> The web cam is OK for people overseas or the ones that don't not attend
> >> every year. It seems there is emphasis put on this technology so that
> >> people don't have to attend. Believe me the web cam is nothing like being
> >> there.
> >>
> >> Glenside..Thanks again for putting on the fest again in 2006. I'm sure it
> >> is a drain on resources. You try to recover some of the costs but as
> >> indicated this year, prices are going up. This means that more people 
> >need
> >
> >> to attend to help out the community. Another is membership. I'm not going
> >> to go over the figures that Gator announced Sunday afternoon, I'll let
> >> Glenside do that. I can say that is something to be VERY proud of! This
> >> shows that the people that are present are committed to the CoCo and the
> >> event. Hats off to all that made to Elgin and reup'd their dues.
> >>
> >> Next year? Jury is still out. I can say that it was VERY enjoyable to see
> >> new products out. Roy's VGA, Chris Hawks's S-Video and CD file manager,
> >> Carl England's Backup Magic program. I bought one of each from all of the
> >> new product vendors. Many did and on the hardware side, I believe they 
> >all
> >
> >> sold out of product.
> >>
> >> Goes to show ya, there is a CoCo market. Many indicate that there isn't.
> >> Boisy and I can tell you that there is. The vendors that sold out of 
> >their
> >
> >> products at the fest will say the same. So come on....lets see some
> >> products.
> >>
> >> Cloud-9 had little sales this year at the fest do to inventory being sold
> >> out. It was like a much needed vacation this year for me. It was great to
> >> walk around and see others booths and products. Something I hardly ever
> >> get to do there. I also indicated that hardware sales would not start 
> >back
> >
> >> up until the SuperBoard is completed. So we are in a holding pattern on
> >> hardware sales. Boisy will be updating our home page to indicate that
> >> software sales are going to resume and be handled by him. SuperBoard will
> >> continue to be developed, please don't ask, you will know, I won't be
> >> silent about... :)
> >>
> >> Closing....More people need to attend, bottom line. More planning needs 
> >to
> >
> >> go into getting people there, advertising of the event other than this
> >> list. A published event schedule prior to the fest, seminars, notable
> >> people, etc.
> >>
> >> Flame me all you want, it wouldn't be the first time. In this case action
> >> of the fest attendees do speak louder than the words.......
> >>
> >> Regards,
> >>
> >> Mark
> >> Cloud-9
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> uoting Jim Cox <jimcox at miba51.com>:
> >>
> >>> Roger, Roy, Justin, and others:
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for putting this together for those of us who couldn't make it.
> >>>
> >>> -Jim
> >>> http://www.miba51.com/
> >>> http://www.cloudymidnights.com/
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:50:58 -0500
> >>>  Roger Taylor <webmaster at coco3.com> wrote:
> >>>> Well, for the second year we've managed to pull off some last-minute
> >>>> miracles and come up with a webcam feed from the Last Annual Chicaco
> >>>> CoCo Fest.
> >>>>
> >>>> This year we missed Saturday alltogether due to connection problems but
> >>>> much to my surprise when I got up this morning (Sunday) there appeared
> >>>> to be some attempts from the fest at uploading cam pictures to the
> >>>> coco3.com server.  When I checked the last image out it was definately 
> >a
> >
> >>>> shot from the fest floor, so I went to work right away setting up the
> >>>> CoCo Cafe to display these images.  For a while they weren't updating
> >>>> for long periods of time, but all of a sudden things started coming
> >>>> together.
> >>>>
> >>>> So, before the day was wasted we managed to build up some 14+ chatters
> >>>> at a time in the CoCo Cafe complete with an updating picture from the
> >>>> fest floor.  Ofcourse, the images had to be repainted over a blank
> >>>> background due to how the chat system refreshes the web page, so the
> >>>> fest images had to "ride along" as a static image on the page and get
> >>>> updated whenever the page did.  Since the cam rate and the chat rate
> >>>> were about the same, I didn't bother putting in any fancy JavaScript to
> >>>> make the image refresh while the chat page was idle, but I could have.
> >>>> I'll save that for the next event that comes along with a cam feed.
> >>>>
> >>>> Actually, right now the cam is still going and it looks like those guys
> >>>> are cleaning up and stuff, so if you wanna catch it before they turn 
> >the
> >
> >>>> cam off, here's the link:
> >>>>
> >>>> http://chat.coco3.com
> >>>>
> >>>> Night, all.
> >>>> Cheers,
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Roger Taylor
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Coco mailing list
> >>>> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> >>>> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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