Microsoft was kind enough to invite x64 beta users (and others) to be "x64 Enthusiasts" at the x64 launch, part of WinHEC 2005. I was one of those folks, so after getting a last-minute deal on site59.com I hopped on a plane and took them up on it. I arrived Saturday and left Tuesday - there was a special "enthusiasts" dinner on Sunday night at the Seattle Sheraton in their main ball room (the Cirrus Room), and then reserved-seating access to the keynote and the exhibition floor. (No conference materials though, so no Longhorn 5048, although there appears to be some concern about the level of functionality in the OS.)
Anyhow, I have many many pictures from Monday (the Sunday dinner I was late arriving and was in such a hurry, I didn't grab my camera), but I'm not going to post them all, because some are from the keynote for instance, and some are not as interesting. So here is a selection of pictures:
- There was more talk about Secondary Displays, something MS has been talking about for a while as a Longhorn technology. Several working prototypes of implementations were on display at the conference. Microsoft tells me that it will be Longhorn only for the official API. However, they did not mention the fact that a clever vendor could in theory backport to XP. In any event, ASUS had a fleshed-out example that Bill used in the keynote, and there were concept drawings and other examples. One that the MS folks said was popular was a laptop bag strap concept, and another was a display visible when the main display was opened. The MS folks seemed genuinely excited about the hardware; in fact, all of the Microsoft people seemed genuinely excited. It's nice to see people happy and excited about the work they do.
- At the Intel booth, they had a race car game (F1 2003 or so) with a fake race car. They also had a demo of real-time sound editing on x64 with a Cakewalk Sonic x64 demo -- that was pretty nifty.
- The real gaming fun, though, was at the AMD Gaming Zone ("Gaming Pit" was the term unofficially used by some of the MS and AMD folks, although apparently that was frowned upon by the "serious" folks...) They had two LAN sessions of Far Cry (which I hadn't played until we got early access Sunday night), both on Alienware machines running XP Pro x64 and x64 builds of the game. They had the Black LAN and the Green LAN (based on case color). The #1 and #2 person in each game got to go back for the finals, and the final winner won an Alienware identical to the gaming systems, which was a pretty nice prize for that person, whoever they were.
- Gibson had an odd connection the conference. I'm not quite clear on how that all came to be, but in any event, they had a booth on the exhibitor floor with editing software and guitars, as well as free custom-printed picks. They also had a contest where if you answered two questions on the "speeding ticket" (see below) correctly, you were entered in a drawing for a custom one-off guitar. One of the NewTek sponsor guys won it, which caused some crowd grumbles. Later, at the launch party, they had a very nice paint job on a custom bus that came by momentarily.
- Speaking of the launch party, I have pictures from that as well. It was at the former Planet Hollywood space in downtown Seattle, about 2 blocks away from the convention center (where WinHEC was being held) and the Seattle Sheraton (where the driver conference was being held). Outside, there was a group forming before we were able to go in with our special armbands and our IDs (they were checking everyone's age!). All was not lost outside, however, because I arrived early enough to get some nice pictures of the custom painted Shelby Cobra they had out front -- it drew a lot of attention. Thankfully, it wasn't raining! Inside, there was a DJ with the Windows logos on his booth. There were also video screens with a video loop of chase scenes, police scenes, etc., with the "Speed Limit x64" theme (see cone below) occasionally coming up. I recognized scenes from Terminator 2, The French Connection, and many others in the loop, as well as some custom scenes they had shown us during the Sunday dinner as custom-made for the event. They also had a LAN gaming area with Unreal Tournament 2004; the picture looks light, but at times there was a group of people waiting to play. It seemed to go in waves.
- On the conference floor, one of the booths was for Open Systems Resources, who publishes a wonderful newsletter for free titled the NT Insider. I was sure to thank them for publishing it. The OSR booth had copies of the current issue, for those who hadn't seen it yet.
- Microsoft had a hardware showcase area, which included a history of Windows with PC hardware samples, as well as current and future technologies. The secondary displays above for instance were in that area. Also in that area were some nice Media Center Edition machines, such as one MCE machine that had a scrolling LCD display showing the current title of what was playing, making the device much more of a "consumer electronics" look. In that same area was a sample BMW X5 with multiple Windows Automotive technologies, including in-head-rest XBOX and in-dash CE for Automotive displays. The car had very large lettering and designs showing why it was there.
- One of the activities was a slot car game -- four players, best wins a T-Shirt, best times competed for better at the end of the day. The main reason for this picture isn't the game, it's the orange jumpsuits that the staff wore as part of the overall "speed" theme.
- The "speed" theme was also reflected in front of the conference, where the "police" were handing out "speeding tickets" for doing 32 in a 64 zone (these were the guitar giveaway entry forms). There were also cones all around with speed limit signs for "x64 Speed Zone".
- Last but not least, in the AMD booth, there was something that I knew about, but still had to see to believe: a Sun AMD Opteron machine running Microsoft Windows x64. Will wonders never cease?
P. S. - Special thanks for AMD for making possible a large number of gifts, including a 64-bit processor, for the attendees. (Actually, everyone got a retail AMD boxed processor, or an Intel "bare" OEM processor, which I'm told and believe was a very last minute decision.... AMD has been kind enough to offer those of us with the Intel processors a "proper" replacement! ;-) ) I'm happy to say that I already own a Mobile Athlon 64 laptop, and have sold friends and customers on AMD 64-bit solutions. It's nice to see such a powerful system available for such a value price.