Beginning in the late 1980s, the San Diego Computer Society put on an annual San Diego Computer Show. The various SIGs (Special Interest Groups) that were part of SDCS would each host an exhibit booth with the latest and greatest of whatever topic that SIG was organized around: Apple II computers, Commodore Amigas, Ataris (both personal computers and game consoles), CAD (computer-aided design), Unix, etc.
In the early 1990s, while the CMA had a few small items on exhibit at the Coleman College campus in La Mesa, the vast majority of the collection was in storage. Folks at SDCS suggested we bring some of those items to the show so they could be seen.
By 1995, the Computer Society had partnered with the local weekly magazine, ComputorEdge (yes, that’s how it was spelled), to move the newly renamed California Computer Expo to the bayfront San Diego Convention Center. Big companies like Apple, Microsoft and Adobe brought a corporate presence, while the hobbyist SIGs continued to show off their favorite application or platform.
And year after year, right in the middle of the floor, in a vast walk-through exhibit covering thousands of square feet, was the CMA exhibit. Each year, a specific theme was selected for the CMA exhibit: “The Computer Hits the Road: A History of Portability,” “The Computer Comes Home: A History of the Personal Computer,” etc. The 1996 entry won the “Most Educational Exhibit,” while in 1997 CMA took home the “Best of Show” trophy.