Moreover, with the exception of a big buzz surrounding digital videodisk, which seems poised to hit the market in force this summer, most of the real action wasn't on the show floor. The highlights were well off the beaten path, requiring an industry insider--yours truly--to ferret them out. Accordingly, "Wintel Watch" presents the first annual incarnation of my personal best-of-Comdex selections, which I hereby christen "The 'Commie' Awards":

• "Show me the money" Award
  This goes to Ted Turner, the mush-mouthed founder of CNN and vice chairman of Time-Warner, who joined Oracle chief executive Larry Ellison on stage in a knee-slapping, jive-talking Comdex keynote speech. The two billionaires unveiled CNN Custom News, a joint-venture that will use Oracle technology and CNN content to allow consumers to get finely tuned selections of news and sports delivered to their desktops. Okay, so it's not exactly on the cutting edge. Still, respinning hours-old television content for retransmission over the Web is nothing if not cost-effective. Maybe that's why I spotted Turner the day before his speech dining on the $10 soup-and-salad buffet lunch with his entourage in the Omni Hotel restaurant.

• "How many people can you fit in a Volkswagen?" Award
  Awarded to multimedia-silicon vendor Sigma Designs Inc., which packed hundreds of Comdex attendees into its tiny booth to watch digital video disks playing on PCs equipped with its hot new DVD decoder card. The crowd waiting to get in was so thick I thought I was at a screening for the the new Spielberg flick, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park."

• "If it's a terminally boring technology, it must be the Windows terminal" Award
  Surprisingly, this one goes not to Microsoft, which didn't talk much about its Windows Terminal initiative--a re sponse to Sun's low-cost network computer. (Microsoft is apparently saving up its ammo for PC Expo in New York, beginning June 16th.) Nor does the award go to Intel, which was conspicuously absent from Spring Comdex. Rather, it goes to Tektronix and IBM for their respective spins on low-cost terminals that run Windows and other applications.

  Tektronix showcased its downsized Netstations --dumb, graphical terminals that can act as clients for Windows or Unix applications running on a server. IBM displayed a cool-looking PowerPC-based device, called the Network Station, which performs similar functions. It sure looks like the Java network computers are going to be getting a run for their money.

• "Ring of truth" Award
  The winner here is computer consultant Steve Liszewski, who hosted a Comdex session about Java. "If you think Java--or any programming language-- is sexy, try spending a week writing some code," he said. "You won't think it's so sexy anymore."

• "All dressed up and no place to go" Award
  The winner in this category is enterprise-computing guru Cheryl Currid, president of Currid & Company (Houston), who chaired a session on new digital-video products. Three panelists were scheduled to join her. None showed. Plus, the Comdex technicians couldn't get her laptop and its Powerpoint slide show hooked up and running. "No one ever cancels out of these things," she lamented, despite ample evidence to the contrary. Then she whipped out her Casio QV-10 digital camera, snapped a picture of the audience, and proceeded to wing it.

• "Too old to rock and roll" Award
  For most journalists, there's not much point in going on the road unless t here's free food and drink involved. (Now we know why Americans rate reporters below used car salesman.) By that measure, this year's Spring Comdex was a disaster. Even the annual shindig at Atlanta's famed Fox Theatre--the landmark venue where Gone With The Wind premiered back in 1939--was canceled. One passable event was a party at Atlanta's Hard Rock Cafe. But, like a poor southern relation, the restaurant boasted far too many "Marshall Tucker Band" (find your own link!) gold records and far too little Beatles memorabilia. And when the host, software vendor Metacreations Inc., trotted out its 15-year-old product manager (a refugee from "The Lost World" perhaps?) to demo the company's latest graphics program, I realized that maybe I'm getting too old for this business.

Have you been around so long you remember when Bill Gates was only a millionaire? Tell us about it in our "Wintel Watch" Forum.

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