It was tough to watch, but I guess someone had to be there to witness it. There I was, on the floor of the Javits Center in Manhattan, bearing witness to the end of an era, as TechXNY (formerly PCXpo) gasped its last breath.

A shadow of its former self, it took only a few hours to stroll the aisles and, truthfully, there wasn't much new there.

Word on the street is that its major sponsor, CMP Media, will be allying with H.A. Bruno LLC, which has taken possession of another trade-show carcass --- CeBit America --- to form C3 Expo, which will be aimed at corporate and channel buyers.

C3 will take the CeBit America slot on the Javits schedule, with its premier show set for June 28-30, 2005. And I've been hearing rumblings that MediaLive International Inc., the ill-fated Comdex computer-show organizer, will also be joining the alliance.

Actually, I should have seen this coming when I discovered that everyone I usually meet with at TechX was abandoning the show in favor of a new Ziff Davis-sponsored event called DigitalLife, scheduled for the week of Oct. 13.

Organizers of "party shows" that usually piggyback on shows such as TechXNY, CeBit and Comdex were climbing aboard the Ziff Davis bandwagon, which was a clear sign that something wasn't right.

Even the folks that are usually handing out circulars outside the building decided it wasn't worth showing up. Definitely another sign that this was the end of an era.

Then I got to see it for myself.

What used to be a huge computer trade show, taking up three floors of the expansive exposition center, was now relegated to a small corner of the main floor --- maybe 10 aisles. And even they didn't stretch all the way to the back of the hall.

But among dark clouds there are usually some rays of sunshine, and I was able to discover a few geek-related goodies that are on the horizon:

• Microsoft introduced MSN TV 2, a set-top device that will allow non-computer-savvy individuals to browse the Net, send and receive e-mail and do other geek-related things on their TV sets.
• PelhamSloane Ltd., a computer manufacturer from "across the pond" --- the UK --- showed off its new all-in-one PC, where all of the hardware (except the keyboard and mouse) is built into a thin LCD monitor, which can be mounted in a kitchen, den or anywhere else you need computer access to do everything from controlling your lights to downloading e-mail.
• Pepper Computer Corp. showed off its new Pepper Pad 2, which is a Linux-based handheld computer with a built-in keyboard designed to handle everything from wireless network connectivity to playing multimedia files. Of course, it can also be used to track appointments and maintain addresses, as we've come to expect from such units.

Hopefully, this isn't the end of an era, and these old, weary bits of computer-show history can return to their former glory under another name, at another time.

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