Once I registered for the event as a media member and Alamo PC User Group representative, the presenters and organizers literally bombarded me with e-mails, updates, reminders and invitations to attend or participate in the events they were holding and sponsoring. There was so much e-mail, I have to admit, not read every message was read. However, I did take the time to read about the “Great Build-Your-Own-PC Race”. It occurred to me that this might be fun, so I signed up and for that, I am very grateful. The event was sponsored jointly by AMD and Systemax, Inc. and hosted by TigerDirect.com, a Sysetmax, Inc. company. Other sponsors included Canon, CyberAcoustics, MAG Innovision, Microsoft, Iolo Technologies, PowerKinetics, USA and Ricoh. More information will be provided about each of these sponsors shortly. 

Here is the heart of the whole event: Each participant builds his own PC from the parts provided by the sponsors and the first one finished wins $10,000.00 cash to be donated to the school of his or her choice. Second place finisher is awarded $5,000.00 cash for the school he or she represents and third place gets $1,000.00 donated to the school of choice. Alack and alas, I did not finish in the top three. Never fear, though, there truly were no losers competing in this event. Now this is the BEST part of the event: Every competitor gets to have the computer he or she built donated to the school of his or her choice. Each of these systems is valued at over $3,000.00!!!

This computer ensemble is an ultra-fast, high-capacity system that came with lots of peripherals. The system was powered by the AMD Athlon ONE GIGAHERTZ CPU with 3D Now technology, 128 MB of PC133 SDRAM, a 30 GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive. Included accompaniments were an ATI Xpert 128 16 MB AGP graphics card, a CD-R/RW 8x 4x 32x drive, 56KB PCI v.90 Data/Fax/Voice WinModem, and a 10/100PCI Ethernet card. The case housing this beauty was an ATX Mid-Tower with a 250-Watt power supply, and a 3.5-inch diskette drive. The keyboard was the Microsoft Natural Elite and the mouse was a Microsoft Intellimouse. The 44-Watt satellite speakers from CyberAcoustics were low-distortion and included a high-powered amplifier and subwoofer. Preloaded on the hard drive were Microsoft’s Windows ME (Millenium Edition) and Works Suite 2001. System Mechanic, a software program from Iolo Technologies was also preloaded, to make the system “run smoothly and error-free.” 

The package included a well-defined, 19-inch, .26 dot pitch screen, MAG Innovision monitor. PC BlackoutBuster from PowerKinetics, USA provides emergency battery backup for up to 35 minutes in case of power loss. Finally TWO printers were incorporated, a Canon MultiPASS C755, all-in-one printer, fax, copier and scanner. This space-saver outputs 1440 x 720 dpi resolution and faxes at a fast 33.6 K speed. The Ricoh AP 1600 Workgroup Printer has up to 1200 dpi resolution and a 133 Mhz RISC based controller with a maximum print speed of 16 pages per minute. 

If you think all of the above sounds like a lot of computer, you would get no argument from me. As for the race itself, let me say that at the three-minute mark, yours truly was in the lead. Then the problem came up, I put the wrong screw into the floppy drive and ended up having to disassemble part of the case to dislodge it. Needless to say, by that time, my goose was cooked as far as the competition was concerned. No matter, there was no way I could lose, since the computer was being donated to the school of my choice. The winner completed the task and booted up the computer in a time under 6 minutes (5 minutes 39 seconds), if memory serves me correctly. The race was enjoyable and I plan to improve on this year’s results if I attend COMDEX in November. 

San Antonio’s Fox Run Elementary School, in the Northeast Independent School District was my selection. The decision as to how the system would be utilized was left up to the school’s administration. The system was assigned to Ms. Terri Eichholz who is the Gifted and Talented teacher for Kindergarten through 5^th grade at Fox Run. Her students have big plans for this computer. They will be using it to learn about creating websites; they will be doing research on the Internet and making educational PowerPoint presentations. There are also plans to install additional software programs so that they can construct a clay animation project later this school year. Ms. Eichholz was very enthusiastic about this gift and wanted to convey her appreciation to Alamo PC Organization. She asked me to pass on her sentiments and said 

In my view, companies such as the ones who sponsored this event are giving something tangible back to our communities on a local level. They are to be commended and their contributions are meaningful, especially to those teachers and students who will benefit from their gift. This was a worthy event and a major highlight of my COMDEX encounter. Thank you for allowing me to share this experience with you.