Meet You at the Fair

High-tech meets an old tradition at the US Festival

Philip A. Schrodt
Department of Political Science
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL 60201

Byte Magazine

January 1983

Saturday, September 4, 1982, 8:30 a.m. Glen Helen Regional Park, San Bernardino County, California. The desert sun hangs low, the air still clear of windblown dust, the surrounding mountains starkly etched brown and stone-white in the low morning light. A campground slowly stirring to life—100,000 people camped in a sandy treeless desert wash—100,000 people who had been amazingly considerate and quiet the night before, despite media fears of mass orgies and punk-rock terror. The US (United in Song) Festival, Steve Wozniak's $12.5-million gamble on human nature, is into its second day.

To the south, a perfect amphitheater the size of 40 football fields has been created. A stage the size of an office building towers above with 500,000 digitally coordinated watts of perhaps the finest sound system ever assembled. The festival has its own interstate off-ramp and its own airport control tower, deserves its own zip code, and, with a total attendance of about 250,000, is larger than any one of the 14 smallest members of the United Nations. It is Wozniak's folly or Wozniak's gift to the "US" generation, depending on your perspective. And it is the first rock concert ever to feature a computer technology exhibit.

The music doesn't start for at least two hours, but already a steady stream of people heads into the festival grounds. Joining the cattle drive through the entrance gate, passing the innumerable booths selling soft drinks, food, and rock memorabilia, I head down to the three large circus tents that house the computer exhibits. Wozniak (cofounder of Apple Computer Inc.) thought you could mix rock music and computers. Friday was the trial run. And it's working.

The exhibitors are feeling pleased. Yesterday was good, the traffic is coming through. In fact the exhibitors are feeling smug. They are the pioneers—they bet this thing would work and risked at least $1000 on renting and running a booth. They trusted Woz's latest crazy idea and feel it paid off, and they sound a note of contempt toward those in the trade who couldn't see how the rock crowd could benefit them. The exhibitors here feel vindicated—they knew this would work, they knew you could reach out to the masses. In short, they shared Woz's dream and participated, while the bulk of the industry stayed back.

I wander about, people-watching, talking with exhibitors, checking out the displays. There's something oddly familiar about this—the heat, the tents, the music, the technology. Yet this is supposed to be a novel experience ... but wait, this déjà vu is nothing more than recollections of sultry August days in rural Johnson County, Indiana. Woz has reinvented the county fair!

Suppose an International Harvester, John Deere, or Funk Hybrid Seed dealer wanted to introduce his product to American farmers at the turn of the century. How would he do it? The county fair. He'd provide a good time, including a midway, horse races, beauty pageant, and country music. And he'd bring in his finest new tractor and combine and put them on display. The average farmer most likely couldn't afford the equipment, probably didn't even need it, but he'd look at it and admire it. So maybe he doesn't buy the combine, but he does buy the plow, and two years down the line when his neighbor is in the market for a tractor, he puts in a good word for the product he saw at the fair. And so gradually the fruits of the nineteenth-century industrial revolution reach out to the mass markets of the countryside and life changes beyond recognition.

Woz may have never been to a rural county fair, but he's got the idea down perfectly. With the county fair the fruits of the industrial revolution came to the rural masses; with the techno-rock concert the fruits of the information revolution can come to the urban and rural masses.

The industry, however, was split on the efficacy of this approach. Apple, Atari, and Mattel had large, professional exhibits. Commodore was well represented by its dealers, with VIC-20s much in evidence. The new portable computers, á la Osborne, could be found without difficulty in dealer displays. But the old-line electronics firms—Texas Instruments, Hewlett-Packard, Xerox, Tandy, and needless to say IBM—were no-shows.

Oh well, well have fun without them.

The Exhibitors

To see what Apple had accomplished, you just have to look around. Not only at the concert financed with Wozniak's millions, but also at the displays. At least 80 percent of the machines in use are Apple Ils, as impressive an advertisement as any. Apple's display is low key and confident—mostly hands-on demonstration graphics programs, no games—effectively drawing the distinction between a video game and a computer in a nonthreatening fashion. You can't walk by the display without being handed a half dozen Apple logo stickers. At night, Apple's hot-air balloon towers in the sky like a giant lantern, and the Goodyear blimp floats overhead with the message "Thanks Woz." If Apple ever has problems making it as a corporation, it might consider applying for tax-exempt status as a religion.

Atari has the largest computer exhibit, though it is concentrating on games and is pushing the Atari 400 rather than the 800. Atari provides an interesting twist by having the presidents of five of the largest Atari users' groups present, explaining software and talking about their groups. You see the human and social side of the computer revolution.

Mattel has the usual set of ultralow-resolution games. The display is just a larger version of what you'd find in a department store. Far and away the main attraction at Mattel is a new electronic drum set that consists of four pads about 3 inches in diameter, which simulates, rather impressively, a complete drum set. It is always mobbed.

An assortment of dealers features business machines—usually either $10,000 hard-disk systems or $2500 portables that resembled you-know-what with a larger screen . Yes, the Osborne 1 has clearly emerged as the small computer people love to hate, replacing the TRS-80 in that vaunted position. And speaking of the TRS-80, Tandy is conspicuously absent from the Festival.

The real fun is at the small exhibits. The small exhibitors see themselves collectively as "the industry." They have had the time to talk among themselves and have analyzed their audience. This is not the West Coast Computer Faire. The consensus is that the Festival goers are about 1 percent people in the trade, maybe 9 percent who have some acquaintance with computers, and the remaining 90 percent no exposure at all, ever. So it is fun and a challenge presenting to people for the first time a technology that they've heard about, seen in the movie Tron, but never experienced firsthand. And the industry exhibitors are encouraging the viewers to sit down, relax, and chat a while, avoiding the pressure of the trade fairs.

The fascination of it is you can't tell the programmers from the druggies (always a problem, admittedly). I talk with a Silicon Valley dealer for the lovely new Jonos Ltd. "Courier" portable (Z80A, 64K bytes of memory, 9-inch video display, 31/2-inch Sony floppy disks, state of the art): "What kind of people do we get? All kinds. This tall guy comes along, strange looking, missing a couple of teeth. Sits down and starts pounding away at the keyboard. I'm getting worried. Then he asks, 'Hey, how do you install Wordstar on this machine?' Gets into the operating system, pretty soon has everything switched around. And finally exclaims, 'What are you guys doing with Apple II Wordstar in this machine?' Turns out he's a programmer for Micropro. But he liked the machine and wants to help us upgrade the Micropro software for it ... Two other types of people are those who don't know the first thing about computing and those who stand here in front of the air conditioner."

Behind the Scenes

The Festival is organized by promoter Bill Graham's organization, and the computer people know a lot more about rock 'n' roll than Bill Graham knows about computers. When I unsuccessfully tried to get press credentials, they asked me how to spell BYTE, a somewhat discomforting inquiry. Never heard of it, and my explanation that BYTE was the Rolling Stone of microcomputing didn't seem to impress anybody. Meanwhile several exhibitors were giving detailed critiques of the US Festival, Woodstock, and the final Stones tour, all based on personal experience.

However, the organization was not flawless. Take the case of Rana Systems, the disk-drive company. Rana had a disk problem-10,000 disks to be precise. Frisbee disks. Mike Mock and I talked standing in front of a 3-foot-high pile of Rana Frisbees. "We've been planning this promo for months. Talked to Unuson [a corporation formed by Steve Wozniak to fund this Festival and future Festivals] on the phone; they said Frisbees weren't on the prohibited list. Sounded great. We sent them the design so they could approve the US logo—no problem. So we show up here and now they tell us that Frisbees are prohibited at the Festival. ..." So? "Well, we're having people fill out these little cards ... ," Mike pauses to stop some people from helping themselves to Frisbees, "and well distribute the Frisbees through local dealers. Probably work out better that way anyhow, for the dealers. And Unuson's beginning to talk about helping us pay postage."

No Frisbees? At a rock concert? That's right—no wine, no coolers, no beach balls either, no Hare Krishnas, no Moonies, security everywhere. I suppose it's necessary—being smacked in the eye with a Frisbee is no fun—but Woodstock this ain't. Twenty years of organizing concerts and Graham's people have this to a science. Los Angeles Times rock critic Robert Hilburn called it "humane," which is accurate. It works—it is smooth, it is safe, but it is not spontaneous. Can't be. The trains run on time, period—Benito Mussolini would have been proud.

More Exhibitors

You can see an assortment of standard exhibits. Maxwell Corporation has the inevitable fake robot—body by Toys-R-Us and all the intelligence that could be programmed into 50 flashlight bulbs and a CB transceiver. Ah, for the day when we will be dealing with real robots. All of the music and art exhibits are getting a lot of attention. The outer space exhibits—L-5 Society, Delta Vee, and an elaborate UFO exhibit—are not: this is definitely a low-tech crowd. Curiously, the banks of video games also attract little attention. Music is the priority here.

And with a music crowd at this exhibition, the Syntauri Corporation, which produces a sophisticated synthesizer running on an Apple II, is in paradise. At the intersection of rock music and computers, with a framed letter of appreciation from some folks making a movie called Tron, and a booth right under the air-conditioning vents, Syntauri couldn't have it better.

Lenore Wolgelenter, sales director for Syntauri, explains the response they are getting. "The musicians are unfamiliar with this technology, but they are willing to learn. Show them that computers are something they can use, and they'll take the time to learn about them. It's only beginning. Only recently have we started getting calls from musicians who say, 'I want to do the following. ... Can you tell me how to do it?' But that is the kind of thing we're hoping to encourage."

They're so right. I pass the Syntauri booth and a couple of guys looking very much at home with a keyboard are trying one of the demos. They are still there a half hour later, experimenting. Syntauri may have something: Rock music is in the absolute doldrums. Computers give composers an unparalleled creative tool. Maybe at the US Festival in 2001 the computers will be on stage, and the tents will display electric guitars and mechanical drum sets.

Outside of the music field, the response is harder to predict. For example, take the Stahler and Via Video exhibits. Stahler Company is a small San Jose firm that produces specialized drill bits for preparing printed-circuit boards without etching. It is largely a family operation, and Mary Stahler, daughter of the company president, was happy to have the opportunity to represent the firm at this fair for the same reason that her parents wanted to avoid it—the rock concert. Stahler is doing surprisingly well given the completely technical nature of the product—no Pac-Man here—and figured to about break even with the exposure as a bonus.

In contrast, one of the most impressive displays is Via Video's animation system. With the sweep of a pen across a graphics tablet, it can do the day's work of a Disney artist, in color and displayed on a 5-foot monitor. But this isn't attracting much attention. Perhaps an audience who has never tried to do computer animation doesn't appreciate the accomplishment. Magic is magic, after all.

Out to the Music

By midday, the exhibition tents are really getting crowded. Must be the heat. I'm getting tired of interviewing, and I've always wanted to hear Santana live. So, after an invigorating lunch of nachos and Tecate, I wander into the brave new world of the concert amphitheater.

Any collection of 200,000 people sitting in the desert sun is bound to be impressive. To take in the ambience of the place, one must appreciate two factors: skin and water.

Skin: the Southern California tan. These are not people who spend 12 hours a day in front of video displays, unless those monitors have real ultraviolet leakage problems. All shades of tan: tanned Nordic Caucasian blending into Sudanese African without missing a shade. Exposed skin—lots and lots of it. Unlike Woodstock, there is very little nudity here, as changes in fashion have made that rather unnecessary. With the advent of the string swimsuit, only a bit of imagination and a basic understanding of human anatomy separate fashionable dress from nudity.

Water: this site is desert—quite a beautiful bit of desert, dust-shrouded, sun-bleached mountains as fine as I've seen. But as in all deserts, the quest for water dominates. And so the "Ritual of the Spray Bottle," a new form of friendly social interaction, doubtlessly coded by the same segment of DNA that causes chimpanzees to pick lice. Everybody has spray bottles and is spraying everybody else with water. Massive fire hoses are mounted on the sound towers, soaking the audience, who loves it (as does this writer). Outdoor showers—pure genius—a half-acre of spraying water, fabulous, lowers the temperature a good 20 degrees, an ancient device, no self-respecting Persian or Islamic palace was without one.

It is, however, a rather subdued crowd for a rock concert. Very few drugs—by rock concert standards that is, meaning I have been propositioned to buy dope only about 20 times and was there a good half hour before smelling marijuana. But the crowd isn't really lively, and the performers are clearly a bit uncomfortable with this. The heat, the economy, the security, or maybe just the 1980s?

Had any of the music fans been to the tech exhibits? Just look for the promotional material. Apple decals everywhere. But then, you couldn't drive down the main streets of Cairo, Egypt, last summer without seeing Apple logos everywhere, so that isn't surprising. But Syntauri stickers are seemingly on every third person. Link Systems is making a big hit with its (prohibited) Datafax visors, which read "Tame the Data Monster." Here are thousands of people who don't know what a database manager is, much less know Link from Stoneware, but they've got those visors on.

Computer nerds? Yes, I saw one—University of Arizona Department of Computer Science T-shirt, wire-rim glasses, white cords, pale complexion, looking like he was dreaming of a 32-bit microprocessor rather than taking in the music. Classic nerd. But I saw only one.

Santana is fine, with a guest appearance by Herbie Hancock, but time to get back to work. If you want a review of the music, check Rolling Stone. Besides, by now I'm a bit leery of the dust and heat. I had stayed out most of the day Friday, and around 6:00 p.m. Friday evening, I returned to my tent with every expectation of suffering an agonizing demise via a combination of heatstroke and asthma.

By midafternoon Saturday, most people have had their fill of the heat, and there is a general movement toward the tents as the temperature rises to the daytime maximum. The exhibition tents are air-conditioned, remember? So in the afternoon, they really start getting the traffic. How, the scoffers had asked, are you going to get a bunch of rock-crazed hippies wandering through these industry tents? Air-conditioning and 105 degrees does it nicely. And the exhibitors just smile. ...

Still, not everybody was pleased with the turnout. Take the case of the new magazine for the IBM Personal Computer, PC. Its booth was abandoned Saturday morning. As I heard the story from the folks at Softalk, who were doing a brisk business in giveaway posters, PC's publisher had given up late Friday. The publisher's assessment: "Look at this crowd. Do you see anybody who can even afford an IBM PC?"

Brilliant deduction, Sherlock! See that scuzzy looking guy standing there—filthy old jeans, a stupid felt hat that's been through too many rainstorms, idiotic T-shirt with a big fat raccoon on it? Well, friend, he's made the purchasing decisions on $20,000 worth of microcomputer equipment the past two years, influenced the purchase of another $20,000, and he's got $5000 in a grant and is trying to decide between an Apple III and IBM PC. I know—he's me. Appearances don't mean much. That woman you were ogling in the bathing suit that contains slightly more material than an 8-inch floppy is president of a software consulting firm and those wizened old dudes with the gold dog tags that say "Woz Guest" in Epson expanded print aren't exactly tyros in this business. But if you'll talk only to those done up in three-piece suits, you won't find much business here.

But protective camouflage aside, it makes good business sense to talk to that 90 percent who don't know a thing about computers. There you have Jane Six-Pack, out with her boyfriend listening to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. She can actually play with the graphics tablet on an Apple II and draw pictures with it and see computers in applications more sophisticated than a Space Invaders machine. She can't afford an Apple, but that VIC-20 or Timex/ Sinclair 1000 is certainly inexpensive enough, and her child is going to be in school in a couple of years and the school board really should get a couple Apple IIs or Atari 800s. And hey, look at that, you touch this dot and the figure turns upside down; this is kind of cute. We are never going to get that audience into Computerland, and they are 80 percent of the consumer market.

Have you ever considered just how intimidating the average computer store is? "Why yes sir, you would like to touch our new Wombat 128K Supermicro? Most certainly, sir. Just show us your American Express Gold Card, permit us access to your Swiss bank account so that we may check your net worth, and I'm afraid we must surgically remove your left arm for collateral, and then you are welcome to read the manual." I've been programming for 15 years, and I get intimidated by most computer stores. Furthermore, about 90 percent of computer sales personnel fall into two categories—ignorant and arrogant—with about two months experience separating the two.

To have a truly personal computer market—as opposed to an elite computer market, or a Space Invaders market—the industry is going to have to reach the masses. Not just the computer nerds, not just the Merrill-Lynch crowd, not just the college students. The mass market. And there is no better or more natural way than the rock concert and its analogs. It worked for John Deere and International Harvester, it will work for Apple and Atari—and Syntauri and Link and Rana and Microflow and Stahler and dozens of other small firms that took the chance to exhibit here.

Monday morning. Driving back north, California highway 101, soon to penetrate the heart of Silicon Valley but now in the rich agricultural Salinas Valley, John Steinbeck's country. Dodging trucks hauling cauliflower, tuned in to KNBR, a San Francisco soft-rock station, low-class stuff, for jerks like me who don't care enough about music to install an FM radio and will listen to anything that isn't disco. 'The next hour of music is brought to you by Osborne, the personal business computer!" The Osborne 1, that aggravating microscreen turnkey system, advertising on a rock 'n' roll station! And doubtlessly laughing all the way to the bank. The personal computer revolution is only beginning.

About the Author
Philip A. Schrodt is an associate professor of political science who specializes in international relations, mathematical modeling, and applications of microcomputers to social science. He is also vice-president of Polymath Associates Software in Skokie, Illinois, a firm that develops Pascal statistical software.

Copyright 1983