| Hi Pat,
I was there on the Saturday. Now I've never reviewed such a show
before, but for what its worth my opinions are as follows.
It was good. The show seemed to be split into three main areas.
Downstairs was what I would call the games/gadgets and add-ons section
with no shortatge of cheap software. I limited myself to getting some
very comprehensive catalogs from the big PD libraries. Hey, I'm broke !
:-(. A wide variety of products were covered with many of the major
names being covered.
There was also a small stage at the back where the atari's MIDI
capabilities were being demonstrated. This exhibit I found a bit
frustrating... not so much for me personally, but more for others. It
seemed that all the stand was saying is that the Atari can control
keyboards etc. There was some quick technoblurb about the sequencer
being used and a few demonstration songs being played. Whilst I
appreciate that it was not a MIDI workshop had I been a complete MIDI
novice I would have walked away with no more than an impression that
the Atari can make great noises if you feed it lots of money. The stand
did provide a musical backdrop to the bustle of bargain hunters
scurrying around the stands, perhaps that was the main intent 8^). Nuff
said.
Upstairs there was a theatre where specialist seminars were being held
though I did not have time to attend any of these. Shame, because there
was a new products update that I would have been more than interested
in hearing.
The rest of the upstairs area was really devoted to the "more serious"
software/hardware. Much of the business end of the market was catered
for here and there was no shortage of Portfolios to play with.
I have to admit though, I went to the show with one over-riding priority
in mind, and that was to get more information about the Stacy. There
were a few of them dotted around the show (drool, drool) and...
I WANT ONE !!!!!!
I spoke to an official Atari representative who immediately pointed
me toward "KEN" (well thats what his name badge said) of Silica, mumbling
something about not knowing anything about the STACY and them (Silica)
being a major distributor of Atari products being able to help me for
sure !!
Enter KEN.
"Hi Ken, I'm looking for some info on the STacy."
"Oh, Nick will be able to tell you. He has one on the music stand."
Grumbling just slightly I wander over to Nick.
"Hi Nick, I'm looking for some info on the STa..."
"Hey Peter, what's the latest on the STacy..."
Get the picture. I left the show with no real information but wanting
one desperately. The nearest I got to an answer to when will they be
available is earliest late summer.
The show was good and I enjoyed my visit.
Who else went ?? What did you think ??
Jonathan
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Hi Jonathon and all,
I also went on Saturday!, Didnt see anyone with smoke rising from ears
though!
I was very impressed. this was the first show RUN BY ATARI, not by a
magazine. They did very well on the whole.
As -1 states, there was two floors, entertainment downstairs and
business upstairs. There was a very impressive array of systems in the
business area. They were demoing the TT, and the STW as well as the
Portfolio. and Stacey.
THe STW was priced at 5995 pounds for an entry system, Helios, (UNIX),
plus applications, 4 megs Plus video ram. 40 MByte hard disk, large colour
monitor, no ethernet tho, (its an add on). The guy was running
Xwindows, in one window he was doing a MAndlebrot plot and in the
second the bouncing balls Ray trace, SIMULTANEOUSLY IN REAL TIME. The
windows took about 3 seconds to update. !! (This is the ray trace that
takes about 27 hours on the ST!).
The TT was being demoed with lots of applications, I saw Fleet street
publisher running very nicely on a large monitor.
Signa was there with a huge stand lots and lots of high end stuff, DTP and
CAD, Calmus and DYNA CAD. loads of plotters and lasers churning away.
There were the ABC range of Atari PC's as well.
New Hardware.
There were loads of add ons, Hard disks, memory expansions, digitisers,
a tower system to put any ST in. Gen locks, etc.
I also did not attend the theatre sessions, so I missed the new product
update, however there was no sign of any new ATARI hardware on show, I
was hoping that the CD rom might have made an appearance. (in view of
the latest AMIGA CD ROM systems), but no such luck.
All in all it was a good show by ATARI, on their own, the admission was
reasonable, The car parking was easy, although a bit pricey! There was
enough to see,and there were a good number of visitors! If only Atari
had had the balls to run these shows three or four years ago!
On the GFA data media stand I had a good play with the new GFA
draft plus, they will give me an upgrade from the previous version for
50 pounds, very tempting!. Lots of new features in the program and it
is definately easier to use. When zooming I alway used to "lose" the
drawing, you can now key a command that references ordinates 0,0 to the
left bottom corner of the frame at any degree of zoom. Drawing commands
are picked off a drop down icon menu (it can be removed for full screen
viewing).
Cheers for now
Patrick K
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Hi Jurgen,
I am sorry, since I already have a hard drive, I wasnt all that
interested in looking at the numerous hard drives for the ST. However
there was a comparison test in one of the magazines recently, I will try
to drag it out and post a conclusion, although I eem to remember that
most of the comparison was regarding cooling fan noise!
I saw an advert for a new drive in the ST world that looked like it was
worth investigating, this is the Power computing Power drive, it was
quite cheap, A 3.5 in SCSI I think, and it was cheap because it only
uses 5V, which it drws from the ST itself!
Chears
Pat K.
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