Recall those Computer Show & Sale shows back in 90's?

[PC Engine Fan X!]

This question is aimed at our USA based shmuppers, do you remember those old travelling "Computer Show & Sale" venues that would setup at a convention center or Scottish Rite Temple in major cities across the USA back in the mid 1990's for the weekend or on a major national holiday (like back in early winter of 1996)? They would advertise on local area TV stations about making an local appearance at said city location. Show up and pay a paltry $5 to get admitted in. Bring extra $$$ if anything caught your eye and wanted to buy, chat up with a particular booth dealer as to the price and method of payment. The thing was going to these "Computer Show & Sales" was that, "Sales were final", you were fucked if you bought some crappy & defective PC software or hardware from a booth vendor unless you had a business card from them regarding warranty, etc. Sounds like a scam waiting to happen -- or better yet, it's buyer beware. (This would pre-date the existence of the original ShmupsMk2.com site from Malc/Akira/Felix, of course, which be up & running in May of 1997.)

Anyways, I attended a few of them -- one of them had this guy with a bunch of new Win95 based PC Japanese CD-Rom shmup titles coded in pure DOS. He was asking about $5 to $10 USD for a single Japanese PC shmup title. So I bought one, and couldn't get it to work. Took it down to my cousin's place and he finally got it to work.

It was this "Yoko" based shmup title that was fucking hard-as-nails and presented in 320 x 240 resolution for that horizontal screen oriented arcade shmup appearance. It had beautiful hand-drawn sprites and looked to be a professionally developed PC shmup title. Unfortunately, I forgot the name of this particular PC shmup title and no longer have it in my possession. I do remember that one could change the game parameters within the game's "Notebook" settings and fiddle around with the enemy order-of-appearance placement in the game (aside from the game's default enemy order-of-appearance). The end-stage bosses would just release a relentless barrage of firepower at the poor player who was underpowered to take them down + one only had a number of countinues to use up as well (for that arcade game feel, of course). IIRC, between stages, a dialogue screen would come up and tell a story between a naked long-haired gal and a guy but was presented entirely in Japanese. The artwork was done very well...damn, I wished i could have talked to the booth guy into buying some more of his Japanese PC shmup titles at a bundled discount...oh well, missed opportunity there. The guy had at least five to ten different Win95 CD-Rom based Japanese PC shmup titles to choose from easily. ^_~

I remember picking up a new copy of Win95 Panzer Dragoon from one of these old "Computer Show & Sales" venues for a mere $20.00 USD back in the day. Still have it to this very day. ^_~

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~