From: Shawn_E_Switenky@engr.usask.ca (Shawn E Switenky) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.announce Path: toadflax.cs Subject: WOC Toronto: Exhibitor's Booths Reply-To: Shawn_E_Switenky@engr.usask.ca (Shawn E Switenky) Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.misc Message-Number: 295 Approved: zerkle@cs.ucdavis.edu [ This is part 2 of 3 of Shawn's report. -Dan ] World of Commodore Toronto 1992 Report of Exhibitor's Displays First let me tell you that I've never been to a Amiga show of this size. My first reaction was "Wow!" There was about 48 separate exhibitors. When I wandered into the area I was struck by the demo at the ICD booth. It was a 4.5 minute full screen clip from Star Wars with stereo. It ran at 24 frames/second on a stock 2000 with an ICD SCSI controller. A ICD spokesperson said that it was captured with a PP&S frame grabber from a video disk. I talked with the a ICD person at the booth about this demo, and he said that he could not distribute it, and they had no plans to market the software that was used to create or play the animation. This animation was apparently at WOC Toronto last year as well. The animation makes MPEG and CDXL animations look awful. The second most impressive thing on the exhibition floor was the Virtuality Concepts display. This was the Dactyl Nightmare virtual reality game that has appeared on CNN and in magazines. The line ups were too long. On Sunday, I decided to endure the hour and a half lineup. When I finally tried it, I was disappointed. The big flaw with this game is its lack of resolution. There is a monitor that sits in front of your cage which shows the public what the player is seeing. This looks to be a 640 by 200 16 color screen. What you see with the headset is what that screen would look like through a magnifying glass. You can see each distinct pixel and the black space around it. Don't get me wrong, I liked it, and once you got the hang of it, it was a playable game. But they have to work on the resolution. There were other interactive video displays in the Commodore booth. These were two Mandala systems. One a Star Trek Transporter sequence. The voice of the Enterprise's computer would prompt you to enter the transporter room. You would then stand in front of a camera and watch yourself on a large television screen. Your image is superimposed on top of a picture of a transported room. The computer would then say 'Prepare to beam out' and you would watch yourself dissolve. The scene on the TV would then change and you would dissolve back in. Computer generated rocks would then fall and as soon as they touched you they would bounce off. There was also a Commodore history display, with some of their past machines. These included adding machines, calculators, watches, the KIM-1 and the PET, the Vic-20 and the various 64's and 128's, the original Amiga 1000, and just about everything else. Along the sides of the Commodore Booth, there was a CDTV with a video upgrade, with what seemed to be a high color, 1/3 screen smooth animation. This CDTV had a hard drive and a DCTV style external graphics upgrade module. Another thing that amazed me was the great deals offered by the retailers. All the computers were going at cost. My dealer friends felt quite ripped off since people were walking away with 1200's and they had not even got firm prices for it yet. The deals on 3000's were especially good, and for a while we watched a 3000 leave the building once every ten minutes. Gold Disk probably had the best software prices, and they had a whole pile of upgrade options. ProCalc was going for $115 and the ProPage/ProDraw bundle was going for $250. Everything else that they make was going for similarly good prices. Keep in mind that these are Canadian prices. If you multiply them by .75 you get the equivalent US prices. My dealer friend bought a 20" Electrohome Multisync monitor for $1000. This monitor is regular $2300 here. It syncs down to 15KHz and has a separate horizontal and vertical centering for 6 different sync rates. If you've had a AGA machine for a while, you would find this feature to be a blessing. Video Toaster User Magazine had a booth there and was giving away free issues. The magazine answered many questions I had about video equipment, so if your looking for a magazine that concentrates on video, then is it. Another magazine caught my eye. Amiga News is a grassroots, newspaper style publication. It caries some very good articles and reviews. It is a bargin at 95 cents and issue. A magazine of a different sort is Toast and Coffee. This is a video magazine that focuses on Amiga video. This is a great way to see all those toys that you can't afford buy. Migraph was there with their new PS-400 Wand full-page scanner. It is a monochrome, 400dpi sheet-fed scanner. There are two versions, one with their Touch-Up and OCR software, and one with just the Touch-Up software. You need a accelerated Amiga with at lease 4.5 MB of memory. It retails at $899 US with OCR and $799 US without. But at these prices I thought that a person could easily get a color Epson Scanner for a few hundred more. Comspec was there with some very capable vinyl sign cutting system by Parallel Motion Graphics and Roland. Electronic Arts was showing off Deluxe Paint IV Version 4.5. Its new features are AGA support of all graphics modes, including Productivity mode. It reads 24-bit IFF files. There is smoother gradients, translucency and tinting. But it paled in comparison to Digital Creations' Brilliance! Unless Electronic Arts can pull off a major upgrade soon, I figure Deluxe Paint has been dethroned as the King of Amiga Paint Programs. Both DPaint and Brilliance start shipping in late January. I think that my favorite booth in the whole show was the Toronto Commodore User's Group. I liked it because it was strange and unusual. They were demonstrating a pile of old computers like SuperPets and 128's. These people still loved their old computers and are still having a pile of fun with them. They also served to remind everyone that Commodore makes more than just Amigas. Although Commodore does not sell their MS-DOS line in the States, they do just about everywhere else. They have a very nifty new 486 color laptop and a new 486 Tower. They did seem a little out of place surrounded by Amiga's. ADDRESSES OF COMPANIES MENTIONED ICD Incorporated 1220 Rock Street Rockford, IL 61101 (815) 968-8550 FAX (815) 968-6888 Commodore Business Machines, LTD. (Canada) 3470 Pharmacy Ave. Agincourt, Ontario (416) 499-4292 FAX (416) 494-9755 Gold Disk, Inc. 5155 Spectrum Way Unit 5 Mississauga, Ontario LW4 5A1 (416) 602-4000 FAX (416) 602-4001 Video Toaster User Magazine AVID Publications 21611 Stevens Creek Blvd. Cupertino, CA 95014 (408) 252-0508 FAX (408) 725-8035 Internet AVID@cup.portal.com Amiga News P.O. Box 51 Peterborough, NH 03458 (603) 924-9455 FAX (603) 924-9441 Toast and Coffee Videographix, Inc. 12219 Nicollet Ave. South Burnsville, MN 55337 Migraph Inc. 32700 Pacifix Highway s., Ste 12 Federal Way, WA 98003 (206) 838-4677 FAX (206) 838-4702 Comspec 74 Wingold Ave. Toronto, Ontario M6B 1P5 (416) 633-5605 FAX (416) 785-3668 Electronic Arts 1450 Fashion Island Blvd. San Mateo, CA 94404-2064 (415) 571-7171 FAX (415) 571-7993 Toronto Commodore User's Group 5334 Younge St #116 Willowdale, Ontario M2N 6M2