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Computax days Tuesday and Wednesday



Hi, everyone.
This is Shay Rojansky, and I'd like to give a summary for the last
two days of Computax.

Things have worked well, in fact far beyond what I expected. Except for
minor problems (and the fact that Gavrie's computer crashed in the middle
of the show once), the hardware and software are functioning perfectly.
The things which impressed people most, where the emulators (especially
xdos), xanim (running on Ilan's starbuster Pentium with five movies at
the same time, making the computer itch every once in a while), and,
of course, xdoom (don't expect to have that Pentium back, Ilan!).

The interested people were basically devided into three groups - people
who never heard of Linux, UNIX, and use only MS-DOS&&Win-doze, to
which we demonstrated Linux's networking prowess, multi-tasking (the
Pentium blew them off guard), games and emulation.

The second type of people were those that use UNIX, but had no idea it
could run at your home PC (and for free...). To these people we
mainly demonstrated that it's a 100% UNIX compatible system, and they
bought it (metaphorically). Almost all of these people were interested,
got our fliers, and were very happy in general.

The last type were those who use Linux (or used it in the past), but
didn't know WE existed. It was pretty entertaining to see their expressions
(facial ones, that is...) when they saw a Linux booth and found out
that there's a whole users' group out there.

As suggested, 300-400 fliers were brought today. They were VERY valuable,
and were swiped off very quickly (we'll need a pack more for tomorrow!).
Most people had Internet, so they could FTP it. For those that couldn't,
I told about the BBS. I had trouble with those without a modem at all... ;-)

A lot of people wouldn't believe me that the system was free. Totally free.
Many thought this was some kind of joke, or that they'd have to pay
later... A lot also didn't understand we weren't a commercial company,
but a volunteering users' group. It was fun to explain our philosophical
goals.

In general, I think the money invested in Computax was well worth it. Expect
a LOT of interested people in the near future, and expect to see Linux
running in the most unexpected places...

Thanks for all of your support, both for the money, and for
all of the people who volunteered in some way - either to
print a manual, or to spend an entire three days in a 2 by 2 booth.
I'm proud of seeing our group having a stand a couple of meters away
from giants like IBM and Microsoft. We deserve it.

Shay

The chance of an event happening is inversly
proportional to the general desire of it
doing so.    
             -Murphy