It was the largest tech event in the Santa Cruz area and made a multi-million dollar impact on the local economy.

Attendees from outside SCO included value-added resellers (VARs), channel distributors, application developers, and computer manufacturers.

[14][15] On the other hand, failed initiatives announced at previous events, such as SCO's involvement in the Advanced Computing Environment (ACE), were explained away as quickly as possible.

[2] SCO was looking for a place to hold an event that would bring together developers to exchange ideas, and the university said that it could provide such a spot in late August, before students returned to campus for the fall quarter.

[23][24] With the company showing some profitable quarters, anticipating going public, and holding a roughly 75 percent share in the small-to-medium-sized businesses market, SCO Forum92 saw 2500 people in attendance, a big jump of about twice the previous year's total.

[24] But the tenor of the week was set by SCO chief executive Lars Turndal's opening keynote address, where he attempted to soothe anxieties related to the company's past year of management shakeups and poor stock performance.

[6] That year's conference also witnessed what is said to have been the first-ever scheduled live music concert to be broadcast across the Internet, in an August 23 performance by local band Deth Specula on the Mbone.

[34] One such group was of developers and resellers in the United States who qualified for the SCO Advanced Product Center (APC) designation.

Set amidst the verdant redwood trees at the ... (UCSC) campus, it was a Unix feast that lasted for five Californian summer days.

[42] In one year a dean at UC Santa Cruz sent a memorandum to the campus community stating: "I know that this conference occupies numerous UCSC facilities and may create confusion about where to park and eat.

"[1] Due to the sharp diurnal temperature fluctuations characteristic of the Santa Cruz Mountains, the quarry was often fog-enshrouded and chilly in the morning, but attendees were advised to dress in layers that could be shed later as the fog burned off and the sun shone over Monterey Bay.

[6] (For Forum 1999 only, which had a decline in attendance from the peak,[13] keynotes were moved to a location on the campus's East Field, where a stage and seating area were constructed.

[35] Technology observers would also debate such matters as, in SCO Forum 95, the nature of the much-ballyhooed "information superhighway", with writer Clifford Stoll and Electronic Frontier Foundation founder and Grateful Dead lyricist John Perry Barlow reaching divergent conclusions.

"[45] Even business rivals were sometimes represented, with Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy – who was also in the Unix-on-Intel space – speaking at Forum in 1996.

[46] McNealy pointed out some areas of common interest in the process of giving what ZDNet recalled several years later as "an extremely entertaining speech".

[35] The general public was invited to attend the keynote addresses and visit the exhibits and pavilions, after paying a relatively small entrance fee.

[49] Some attendees were put up in campus rooms and apartments,[3] a tradition dating back to the early years of Forum when typical SCO developers could not afford anything more.

[4] In addition, more women were present at Forum than were typically seen at technology conferences, which one writer partly attributed to the more mature nature of the SCO reseller base.

It was called the SCO Forum and by the fourth day ... you've finally remembered, which giant redwood to go left at and which sandy cliff you should climb to make it back to your dorm.

"[50] Side activities at Forum often included a golf tournament, a soccer tournament with international teams, a fun run, beach volleyball, wine tastings in the nearby mountains, and rides on the Santa Cruz, Big Trees and Pacific Railway or Roaring Camp & Big Trees Narrow Gauge Railroad to a barbecue and the spectacular Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.

[6] Typically SCO hosted a Barbecue and Anniversary Celebration on the Tuesday night of Forum, with a band that played until 11 pm, after which some attendees carried on in what, as the conference guide said, was "a social event that has become legendary in the computer industry.

[3][44] Name musical acts featured at SCO Forum, for the Tuesday night party and in other time slots, included Tower of Power, The Kingsmen, The Surfaris, Jan and Dean, Jefferson Starship, and appearances over three consecutive years from folk-rock legend Roger McGuinn.

[3][35] Local bands that performed for the Tuesday night party included Big Bang Beat and Dick Bright's SRO.

[51][52] On August 2, 2000, following several months of negotiations, Santa Cruz Operation announced that it would sell its Server Software and Services Divisions to Caldera Systems.

[57] As a cost-saving measure, in May 2002 the company indicated that the world-wide Forum conference in Santa Cruz would be dropped; instead, there would be smaller events around the world, including one at a different location in the United States.

[58][59] In July 2002 the annual Forum conference was renamed for that year to Caldera GeoFORUM, and its location was moved to an environment that could not have been more different from the redwoods of Santa Cruz – the Las Vegas Strip, at the MGM Grand.

eWeek magazine reported that in response to pressure from the open source community and Linux vendors, Intel withdrew its sponsorship of Forum 2003 and HP decided not to give a partner keynote address.

[68] During the opening keynote, held on August 17, 2003, and accompanied by James Bond music (Vegas Forums tended to use Hollywood or Vegas motifs in their opening sessions[69]), McBride, vice president Chris Sontag, and a representative from law firm Boies Schiller showed what they said were clear examples of SCOs protected Unix code being found in Linux.

[70] SCO continued to be the subject of intensely hostile feelings from the open source and Linux community, with the Groklaw website leading the way.

[79] One such new product, HipCheck, which allowed the remote monitoring of business-critical servers on Palm Treo smartphones, was given its debut announcement and demonstration at Forum.