Ancient Web: A 2002 Computer-Show Report Remembered Actual Booth Prices

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.

A computer show in 2002 could justify a day trip if you needed one missing video cable and did not fancy ordering it online. Debra Smith's report tells us exactly what that kind of outing felt like.

Read the June 30, 2002 Great Midwest Computer Show report.

Smith traveled with members of the Champaign-Urbana Computer Users Group, including Rich Rollins, Emil Cobb, Dave Witt, Mark Lenigan and photographer Jim Lewis, to the College of DuPage show near Chicago. They arrived shortly before the doors opened, joined the queue, and entered a gymnasium filled with vendors.

The prices make the account exceptionally vivid. Smith saw a 19-inch Gateway monitor for $175 and flat-panel monitors advertised at $340. She found a cable for her ATI All-In-Wonder video card for only seven dollars after searching unsuccessfully for a replacement for two years. She also bought a 64-megabyte GeForce2 card for sixty dollars for her daughter's dual-boot Windows 98 and Windows 2000 computer.

Before the shopping cart lived on the screen

The accompanying editor's notes explain that vendors often kept the same booth locations from show to show, so regular attendees knew where to find their favorites before supplies ran out. Used printers, complete systems, hard drives, scanners and assorted cables were available alongside newer monitors and graphics cards.

Smith also noticed novelty stalls selling blinking body lights. The observation is small but telling: these shows were social excursions as well as practical marketplaces, and not every booth had to offer useful computer hardware.

The page includes fifteen linked show photographs credited to Jim Lewis and a notice that the gallery was created with IrfanView. That image-generator credit is not evidence the photographs were examined individually here, but it preserves the software and publishing habits of the time.

The wider CUCUG website belongs to a user group founded in 1983. Its archived Amiga coverage reaches back to the 1990s, placing the excursion within a longer history of local computer clubs sharing reports and resources online.

This is a firsthand attendee's report, not a census of 2002 retail prices. It is valuable precisely because the writer remembers the inexpensive cable, the waiting crowd and the people riding along in the car.

Read the original report and its photo gallery.

Part of the Ancient Web Collection.