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By Andy King Early in April I had thought of setting up a demonstration of the puter systems. All the computer companies seemed to be prepared. I had lined up several interested three major computer platforms for people to be the “testers” and May the readers of my “One Byte at a 12 had been set as a date. Time” column. All of the companies had been Normally in my column I try not made aware they would gain some to draw comparisons between com- good exposure without having to puter systems in order that Ido not spend any cash. I was very pleased offend users of any particular at the —e positive responses. brand of computer. urtain started falling” by I decided to find a place, set a April 2. T received calls from the time and date, and try to have each IBM and Mac media reps suggest- of the brand name manufacturers ing that they may have a problem participate in a pseudo “blind taste providing people and machinery. test”. The computers would be They said I should contact a retail- tested by inexperienced users and _ er to proceed with the demo. They we would take photos of the event could have told me this two weeks and publish the reactions of the earlier. Halton Hills This Week, Saturday, June 12, 1993 — Page 13 Apple and IBM get poor marks for pub One Byte at atime Computer Express also builds and sells MS-DOS compatible comput- ers for home and business use. Both Vic and Commodore were eager to supply the machinery and people for our program. They were appropriately confident that the AMIGA would be the outstanding performer. When Vic heard of IBM’s decision not to participate he was even willing to show their own MS-DOS compatible machin- ery. I told Vic that I preferred to have IBM represented by another dealer in order not to strain one dealer’s workforce. On April 23 and 26, I called a couple of IBM dealers and outlined what we needed. Neither had enough people available to partici- lic relations their locator service (SHL Computerland and Hamilton Computers) and after being courte- ously shuffled from one person to another at each over a couple of days of calls they decided that they did not have ability to participate. After putting much time, long distance phone calls and effort into arranging this program, I was dis- appointed with the way IBM and Apple conducted themselves. They both left me with the feeling they believed Halton Hills was too small a market to be worth the effort. Conversely “I take my hat off” to Commodore Canada Inc. and, in particular, Vic Rocha of Computer Express Inc. for their willingness participants in “One Byte at a Vic Rocha of Computer Express The results of testing Inc. at the corner of Bramalea ould hopefully be of interest to, Road and Derry Road was going to the readers. I tentatively chose mid-May as ' an appropriate target to hold the i event, allowing me about five weeks to put it together. At the: outset I felt that this con- i} cept of a demonstration might not | meet with the approval of the com- puter companies but I determined —s.- to try. I contacted IBM, Apple Canada and Commodore Business Machines Canada. With each com- pany I was directed to people in o charge of such events. IBM and i “et Apple both have media representa- it tives, Commodore directed me to one of their corporate executives, to whom I outlined what we were trying to accomplish. I told each that we would like the users to briefly experience word process- ing, simple accounting, basic drawing and page layout and that we would publish the users’ impressions. Each company repre- sentative would also be given an opportunity to sell the benefits of the computer system they repre- ented, to participate without necessarily pate. I contacted two of the large denying any direct benefit. Apple/Mac dealers tupgesied by be the representative showing off the Commodore AMIGA. ” HEAR : GET YOUR MESSAGE OUT TO THE PUBLIC TODAY WITH OUR NO HASSLE FLYER SERVICE | For $475.00 + GST You Get 10,000 copies with t any colour ink on white 8 1/2" x 11" Stock. : Includes art work, comp & all 10,000 copies will be inserted into Wednesday or - Saturday edition of HHTW. Call and piace your order.today. " i se “The IBM, Apple and Commodore people all thought our approach unique and appeared very interested in participating. During the following two weeks I made many phone calls to’each company in order to keep them up to date with the progressive arrangements. IBM and Apple seemed to be switching me from person to per- son during the course of making arrangements” but my initial ‘ommodore contact remained the While I was making arrange- ments I found out that the mini- mum IBM system currently offered was a P/S-1 486-SX that was pack- aged with several software titles. I informed Apple and Commodore the IBM minimum during our many conversations in order that no one would be presenting sub- stantially more powerful equip- ment than the other. The level of equipment IBM would be showing made the Apple/Mac reps notice- ably uneasy when informed but did not bother Commodore, who would be presenting the AMIGA line. By the beginning of the third week of April, every ue, appeared to be “coming togethe . Canada Trust Realty Inc. in Brampton’ s Kingspoint Plaza had graciously agreed to donate the space needed for about 15 people and the com- Halton Hillis This Week welcomes your letters. Send them to: Letters to the Editor 232 Guelph St., Unit #9 (e-Yolge(-1(o\Wsme ACER = a Call Halton Hills This Week 873-2254 We offer competitive prices for flyers } and distribution and-can save you time and money. =