World Of Amiga 1997 Show
By Kei/Carnage
After several emails about the upcoming WOA show from Amida I took the
hint and decided to come down to London for a short visit and to take a
gander at the WOA while I was there. I justified the cost to myself in
the hope that it would shed some light on the future of the Amiga
because with all this talk of it dying and every scener considering a
move to the PC, I needed cheering up.
As it happened, Middlesbrough would be playing at Wembley that weekend
and the National Express coach was full of Boro supporters. I got a
back seat so I had enough leg room and enough space to rest the laptop
on my knee. I ended up having a family of 3 sitting next to me who
insisted on talking about football all the way there. I had had the
foresight to bring a copy of FHM with me so I delved into that, usually
I just read Kenco's copy as it is a hell of a lot cheaper! The bugger
won't let me keep the pull-outs though. ;)
I looked out of the window occasionally but the only things that caught
my eye was an over-turned lorry and pretty polly covered legs every 5th
car. ;)
On arrival to London I finally got to see Buckingham Palace, did the
tourist thing with the camera (as you do) then went for a walk to
downing street, Westminster then back to Amida's via the tube. Not
being from London I kinda like the tube but I guess I haven't seen
whatever it is everyone moans about yet.
The next day we set off for Hammersmith. Upon exiting the London
Underground we encountered a guy carring a carrier bag full of Amiga
boxed software. On a hunch, I asked him if he knew where the WOA was
and he gave us directions which we later ignored when we realised that
it wasn't being held in a multistory car park.
We found the hotel where the show was being held and Amida noticed a
bus load of oriental ladies exiting a bus so trailing behind we followed
them in, up several levels of escalators untill we came to a reception
area that was way to posh for us students. After asking for directions
we started to head back down out of the hotel and into an entranceway
further down the side.
The entrance led to a few tables where people were checking/selling
tickets. the place looked small as you looked into it but as I had no
idea what to expect anyway, we ventured in.
We started looking around first to find out where everything was. It
was layed out like white market stalls with a small bar and seating area
to the left of the entrance. After wondering around and checking things
out we decided to got talk to people to get some of our questions
answered. We had also brought the Word with us so we can distribute a
few copies. We had finished it the night before and we normally require
a week between finishing it and releasing it so it gets out to our
distributors asap. However, for that issue there was a pre-release date
(PRD) and the official release date (ORD) as listed in the loading
ascii.
I can't exactly remember the order we went in to see the exhibitors but
here's what I can remember.
AMIGA FORMAT
We had to wait a while to get someones attention. They seemed to be
concentrating on promoting their special WOA subscription offers of free
CD's. I guess with the Amiga's future unsure, magazines are worried
about their readership and money. We did finally get to speak to one
guy but his interest in PD software wasn't too great but he had heard of
The Word so I guess we can't complain! I have to admit that I haven't
bought Amiga format in a while because I'm a net junkie and I can get
the info, news and software a lot faster than they can. However the guy
was ok and he gave me his email id so I could mail him The Word.
AMIGA INTERNATIONAL
This was one of the best stands for computers. Micronik were
exhibiting some neat hardware and I had a play on the Infinitiv towers.
They had these cool keyboards with those laptop type mice built-in where
you move your finger around a square to move the mouse pointer on
screen. There were 4 computers laid out with a monitor and keyboard in
the middle. It was a circular table so if you were facing a monitor and
keyboard there would be two towers either side. I was playing with a CD
eject/close program but it didn't seem to work. I looked at the tower
but nothing happened! Amida then tapped me on the shoulder to inform me
that I was looking at the wrong computer! The one on the right where a
german guy from Amiga Tech was demonstating another machine to a
customer, was just opening and closing the CDROM drive! He didn't look
to happy so we quickly walked away. ;)
Micronik also had the prototype genlock on display where you could
watch TV/satellite on your Workbench backdrop while you worked away.
Well smart! Amida noticed a guy giving a mouse mat to a woman so he
went up and asked if they were free which they were. I got one as well
then we sorta went around to find anyone else giving them away. Amida
got another two and I ran into a guy who gave me another and a mouse as
well. Of course Amida couldn't be out done so he had to go get one as
well. They were those black Amiga technology 2-button mice with the
Amiga logo on them and the mouse mats were those white and red ones with
"AM" on them. About 13quids worth of gear for nothing.. not bad.
From then on Amida went around everywhere saying "is this free?" and
about 2 seconds after the guy had managed to say "No. Would you like
to..." he was talking to thin air. Amida was by then at the next stand
asking the same question. If the answer was yes however, the guy would
have a few less of the items than he started with. Amida was carrying a
big bag at the end of the day.
BLITTERSOFT
At University I was introduced to UNIX and I took it upon myself to
familiarise myself with it completly. It's a great operating system and
I have a copy of Red Hat Linux for my PC but Linux for the Amiga caught
my eye at the end of the Blittersoft stand. It was running on a A3000
with 128mbs of RAM and a very large hard drive. The guy said it would
work with 6mbs so I guess I'll be on the look out for this piece of
software to add to my collection.
CU AMIGA
I haven't read CU Amiga lately either. Actually rephrase that to I
haven't bought a copy lately as I do tend to go into W.H.Smith's a lot
and read it there. My primary interest was in getting them to review
The Word because since NFA stopped producing it, people tend to think it
isn't around anymore and I wanted them to see that it was. I spoke to
Mat B? but he seemed more interested in getting his Mac emulator to
work than in talking to anyone. I got him to take a copy anyway and I
checked out TFX which they had on an overhead TV. I wasn't too
impressed with it to be honest but then I haven't played flight simms
since F18 Interceptor on my A500 some years ago. They just don't
compare to DESCENT on the PC. ;)
DIGITA INTERNATIONAL
They had Cloanto's Personal Paint v7.1 on display and I figured I'd ask
about it. The salesman knew virtually nothing about it. My question
was if Cloanto had payed the license fee to save GIFs using the LZW
compression algorithm as my v6.x loads GIFs but will not save them. He
went on to gave me loads of info on GIF formats and PNG to show off what
he knows about it , so I got really technical with my questions so he'd
um and ah then go ask his mate. He also tried to sell us a mouse mat
for a quid that was as thin as a McDonalds burger.
DIRECT SOFTWARE
Me and Amida got talking to the guy that seemed to be in charge at this
stand. We chatted about graphic adventure games (the only games I
really love to play) and games for the Amiga in general. He seemed
interested in promoting game development on the Amiga and as Amida was
coding a game at present, details were swapped. I had played all the
graphic adventure games I could see on display so I asked him to
recommend another I hadn't heard of . He recommended Speris Legacy so
I'll let you know if it was any good. (We should have some more games
reviews in The Word, come on guys!)
Note: At the time he said that Vulcan Software Ltd would not be making
anymore of their "Valhalla" series of games after the 3rd one but if you
check elsewhere in this issue you will see that isn't true!
EPIC
Epic took the piss out of the PC on their stand. They had a PC tower
tilted at an angle with fake burn marks on it's sides and the RESET,
TURBO and HD lights doing traffic light simulations with the speed
indicator saying "PC". The point was you had to write your name and
address on a piece of paper with whatever you thought PC stood for and
you posted it through the empty 5.25 drive bay. I wrote "Probably
Compatible" and I got mail from Epic later (advertising their goods)
with the reply that I was unsuccessful and the winner was "Public
Convienence". They did however have these cool warning signs for your
bedroom/office doors which were for AREA 51 and said "Tresspassers will
be abducted!".
HiQ
I spent some time at this stand talking to the guy about the Siamese
System he was demonstrating. Amida told me it was a PC and Amiga in one
so I just had to look. It turned out to be a PC and an Amiga connected
via serial ports and a hardware device. This device interpreted the
signals coming from each machine so it could send signals to the other.
Sort of an interpreter buffering device. It wasn't that far from my
Amiga to PC via parallel cable connection I have at home except it does
slightly more than just copy files. I wasn't that impressed because you
still need a PC and an Amiga (or at least the PC card) to get it to
work. If they ever get both architectures in one box then I'll be
impressed and not as two separate linked machines.
POWER COMPUTING
I went to this stand to check out The Big Red Adventure because it
looked like the sort of game I'll miss Xena: Warrior Princess for (I'd
still tape it!). Amida started talking to someone about something when
I realised he was talking to David Pleasance ex-Chairman of Commodore
UK. I nudged him and told him so to which he asked the guy "Are you
that guy that ran Commodore?". Luckily David found this funny. I took
this opportunity to ask him about the Amiga and how he sees it's future.
He told me that the Amiga was ahead of the rest in it's time but because
no new architecture has been created for several years, it has become
old technology. He went on to tell me about the hardware that he had
seen being developed for the Amiga which would make the PC look like the
office toy that it is but they all got scrapped. He said there is only
so much that can be done with the existing technology and if Gateway do
not bring out some new Amiga's he can't see them lasting for much
longer. He had brought along a piece of nostalgia as well in the form
of the 1 millionth Amiga off the production line complete with
certificate of authenticity. The Amiga was a gold coloured A500.
SADENESS SOFTWARE
Sadeness brougt out NFA's AGA Experience some time ago so I figured I'd
chat to these guys about the possibility of supporting Carnage. They
liked the idea and I have their email id to contact them with the latest
Carnage releases and info. My exams finished yesterday so they should
be hearing from me pretty soon!
17-BIT PD
This was at the Weird Science stand and consisted of one young guy who
said he had bought out 17-Bit. I didn't believe it at first but I gave
him a copy of The Word. Are large PD companies selling out as well?
Those are the stands I recall off the top of my head. The overall
feeling of the place was that the Amiga's near future seemed safe. I
was well impressed with the 603e at the Phase 5 stand. The guy loaded
up a rendered MPEG which he played at full speed as a backdrop while he
rendered in the foreground as well as doing other tasks. He then
clicked on a workbench window and dragged it across the screen... it
was extremely smooth with no refreshing that I could see! I want one
now!
Also met the creator of Worms. Ended up with a signed "Keep On
Worming" poster of WORMS DC from him. It was a pair of a french ladies
breasts with a superimposed tattoo of WORMS DC on it. He tried to give
away the english version saying "We can't give awawy english breasts
these days!". In case you are reading this Andy, I'm the one who ended
up with it after saing "I'll take any breasts I can get my hands on!".
;)
Half way through the day I got so nackered I paid the extortionate
price for a coke which was 90% ice, and got my monies worth by sucking
the ice. It was so hot! ;)
After walking around once more to make sure we had seen everything
there was to see and to make sure that Amida had not missed anything
else that was free or not nailed down, we set off for the tube station.
end
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