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by doctor_radium 472 days ago
Good luck with the swapfest!

Back in the day I loved to visit these kinds of shows in the Timmonium, Maryland area. Went to Gaithersburg once, too. If you were motivated to dig through cardboard boxes of cables and miscellaneous stuff, you could spend the entire day there. But as the internet grew they got smaller every year, to the degree that there wasn't much of a point anymore.

While I never got to one, I recall Columbus, Ohio having the biggest show in the mid-Atlantic. Wonder if they're still a thing?

1 comments

Edit: Dayton, not Columbus.

And as it's slightly on topic, a brief humorous story. At least one of the two annual Timonium shows was sponsored by the local Ham Radio (amateur radio) club. This was common because (I suppose) the radio clubs were typically bigger and more organized than the computer clubs. When I was in my 20's it was a rite of passage for some of my friends to get their Ham Radio license.

Fast forward to around 2007 and my sister and I are driving to Phoenixville in eastern Pennsylvania for Blobfest. Getting off topic, but it's an annual celebration of the classic 1958 sci-fi/horror film The Blob.

On the way back I notice a sign on the side of the road that reads "Ham Fest Today". I go a little crazy, telling my sister, "Turn there! Turn there!! I have to see this!!!" We turn and it's a bust. The show was the previous weekend and somebody forgot to take down the sign.

We get back on the road. About a minute later she turns to me, completely innocently and wide-eyed, saying, "I had NO IDEA how much you liked ham!"