Maybe this is a test of insanity or just Amiga diehards' warped priorities,
but October brought another
Amiga show and a bunch of Washingtonians joined in with friends from around
the country, continent
and globe for yet another Amiga show - the 1998 Midwest Amiga Expo in Columbus,
Ohio.
Udo Schuermann, programmer and zymologist and I left Washington Thursday
morning for a
leisurely drive that included the cultural side-bar (and personal pilgrimage)
to Frank Lloyd Wright's
Fallingwater. We finally arrived in Columbus by early evening, with a few
detours in search of a
better class of fast food and the right Hyatt hotel.
Following a trend set at past shows, Friday was dedicated to a series
of Amiga seminars.
Throughout the weekend, topics ranged from ARexx programming skills to Amiga
Linux orientations;
and from Total Quality Management by NCAUG's own Bill Borsari and State Machines
programming
by Vicky Staubly.
I sat in on an intriguing seminar given by Ted Wallingford of Pantheon
Systems on implementing
Linux on the Amiga. Some may recognize Ted and his company as the one which
hosts Amiga
Incorporated's web site and a developer in the upcoming, revamped ICOA web
site. Ted's
introduction to Linux was an eye opener on an alternate Amiga operating system.
While those used
to the Amiga's user-friendliness and responsiveness would be disappointed,
an Amiga Linux can
make for a neat exploration in modern server and networking systems. Watch
future NCAUG Active
Window newsletters and meetings for a more in-depth study of UNIX on your
Amiga.
After a full day of seminars, the Amiga fans gathered were treated to
party hosted by Amiga
Incorporated's Derreck Lisle. In addition to a live band, the scene was
animated by sumo wrestling: a
pair of wig topped suits for padded combat. Of course, once former Amiga
Inc. staffer Joe Torre got
suited up, he took off for the lobby to torment unsuspecting guests.
Ahhhhh and what guests... Friday night brought on some real decoration
for the show weekend - a
modeling convention in the hotel for the weekend. All of a sudden there
were many reasons wait in
the lobby, go to the food court and hang out in the hotel bar... :-)
As the Amiga Inc. party wound down we were back on the trail, it was dinner
time in the microbrew
restaurant across the street. What a difference from last year. Where the
Airport show was centered
in a wasteland, this year's downtown location was a walking distance of the
state capitol, across the
street from a local pub and around the corner from a few others. Where were
they all hidden while
we were eating dinners in McDonald's last year?
On the floor
Saturday was the start of the actual show. This year's show was held
in a much larger hall then
either last year's or most other recent Amiga shows. Unfortunately, the
upheaval in the Amiga world
seemed to get in the way of proportional growth in the crowds to fill that
hall. Still there were a large
number of booths full of Amiga dealers, developers and user groups.
Probably the longest distance traveller, Jens Schoenfeld of Individual
Computers came from Northern
Germany to show off some of his amazing products: the Cat Weasel and Budha
Flash Zorro
interface cards, IDE Fix A1200 interface improvement, KickFlash ROM switcher,
Kylwalda floppy
drive autoswitch and upgraded HyperCom4 IO card. The new HyperCom board
features 4 high
speed serial ports and 2 parallel ports and even better compatibility with
all machines.
Our friend, Holger Kruse, was on hand with a new version of his Amiga
networking software now
hitting the streets: Miami Deluxe. Now instead of providing for only one
network connection at a time
(either via local networks or dial-up InterNet connection), the new Miami
Deluxe can support all those
connections at one time, with built-in network routing, masquerading and
other high-end features.
Watch out for a full test and demonstration at a future NCAUG meeting.
Our friends at AsimWare were there yet again showing off their Amiga CD
software products.
AsimCDFS and MasterISO continue to receive evolutionary upgrades as the list
of supported
CD-ROM reader and writer drives continues to lengthen.
Aaron Ruscetta was there showing off his new NewTek Flyer add-on software
- Fast Fuel - for
scanning, queuing, capturing video into the Amiga non-linear video system.
Another NewTek
oriented firm, Digital Arts, was showing off the MegaTower Amiga with 3 video
slots and 4 zorro III
slots. A final Video Toaster/Flyer developer, ProWave, was on hand with
their utilities: ProMix,
JoinClips and RenderFX. In the near future, they will be releasing a new
Flyer audio tool,
WaveEditor. All sure necessities for Amiga video professional.
Virginia natives Kermit Woodall and Bob Fisher anchored the Nova Design
booth with Corinna Cohn.
In addition to ongoing demos of ImageFX, Aladdin and Wildfire, Kermit let
us know that new versions
of Aladdin are available on their web site and an upgrade is in the works.
For those with PPC cards,
new PPC rendering and effects modules are also in the works.
Another local developer also made the trip to Ohio, WeemsWare showed their
renamed speech
coordinated facial animation system, AniMouth. In the last year they have
been busy. Besides
moving to the Eastern shore, 256 color AGA and ARexx message support has
been incorporated in
their program. Now you can have your very own Max Headroom on your Amiga.
A couple other small developers were on hand: John Zacharias was showing
off the latest version of
his AEMail E-Mail client which has continued to receive ongoing evolutionary
improvement. Software
Results Enterprises was there showing off the GoldenGate Bus card for energizing
your Amiga's ISA
peecee slots. Specifically, it's like a bridge card without a Intel processor
- simply a circuit to allow
Amiga applications to directly access cheap peecee cards. Currently, the
card comes with drivers for
accessing IO and ethernet cards from standard Amiga software.
Of course, every show has it's hit product. This show's hot seller would
be unquestionably be the
laser pointer. These fascinating devices little devices were just what was
needed for harassing each
other from one end of the hotel to the other.
Finally, the day wound down with a closing keynote speech. Originally
scheduled for an address by
R.J.Mical, one of the original Amiga designers (check out your A100 covers),
word was that he got
stranded somewhere along the way to the show. So Bill McEwen, the Amiga
Incorporated Head of
Marketing stepped up to the plate.
Where we are headed
Generally, Bill's speech covered the same ground as previous Amiga Inc.
speeches in Toronto and
St. Louis - yet another person that seems to be in sync with the Amiga way
of thinking. You can hear
it for yourself online by accessing a page on the User Group Network web
site at:
http://ugn.amiga.org/events/audio.shtml
A treat for those on hand, Bill held an "off the record" question
and answer session after the prepared
statement which filled in a few of the gaps in our understanding of Amiga
Inc's plans. These people
certainly seem to be headed in the right direction.
More fun and games
As the speeches ended and show floor closed down, we were headed off for
yet another official party
with all the usual suspects. The participants ranged from yet another sizable
Washington contingent
of Amiga diehards to all of our Canadian buddies from National Amiga, AsimWare
and Wonder
Computers. They even let in "those bastards from CUCUG" (self
described) led by John Lynn... ;-)
Around the corner, a party room was rented at the Jillian's arcade and bar
complex, similar to White
Flint's Dave and Buster's.
With the room packed and service barely visible, the bunch of the NCAUG
crew headed off into the
rain to find dinner. Finally we ended up at yet another microbrew establishment
with the National
Amiga bunch, Dean Brown and Jens Schoenfeld. An eclectic bunch - at one end
you had a bunch of
hardware guys designing circuit boards on placemats and at the other laser
wielding Washingtonians
(should they remain nameless) surreptitiously harassing people across the
street.
By now we were back in the show groove. Everyone returned back to find
the hotel room with the
beer equipped bathtub. Pro forma, we depleted the 16th through 20th floor
ice machines to properly
chill the precious Canadian cargo for the night.
Yet another day
Sunday morning was typically slow starting. A few of us got to the show
floor in time to open the
NCAUG booth as the show started. Great credit for booth operations goes
to Walter Miles, Udo
Schuermann and Chris Aldi who seemed to be there all of the time.
By late morning, Udo and I decided to go in search of breakfast and we
picked up Amiga developer
extortionate and ICOA board member Dean Brown along the way. While we can't
say that Dean
violated any NDAs, he did give us some background on the destination of next
year's new Amiga
machines. Basically, he said that he was very impressed with the OS design
being implemented and
that from an Amiga user and programmer's perspective the new platform is
a true, definite and yet
revolutionary extension of the Amiga design. That was really good to hear.
The last day brought on another wave of visitors and seminars. The show
ended with a bang as one
of our Washingtonians was an unwilling truck-duct crash test dummy occurring
in the garage below
us. Weekend wrap-up culminated with a people stuffing into a pair of National
Amiga vans for a
Mexican dinner with show organizers Dave Pearce and Ronn Black - of course,
inundated with laser
dots on everyone's plates, glasses and the waiter.
* * *
After a night of rest, we were ready for the drive back home. This trip
we were spared the exploding
dump trucks and treated with what had to be the best show location in years.
The Amiga faithful have
continued to stick it out and seems to be preparing themselves for the transitional
year ahead. By
this time next year, we should be getting the first sightings of the new
Amigas, OS 3.5 will be running
on all our classic machines and the platform getting a long deserved rebirth.
Now if Dave and Ronn
can just reschedule the show at the same location during the model convention...
:-)