SAMS¢----¢¢It didn't seem like six months since I'd made the annual pilgrimage southwards to Stafford for THE show for 8-bit Atari. Alas, this time I was making the trip on my own as my accomplices from the last visits cried off. Alias Maximus' Father made him stay to clean his bedroom and Spite had to sort out his Elvis record collection.¢*¢So, better get an early night in I thought as I settled down to watch 'Red Dwarf'. More lounging around and remote control pressing, followed by Jo Brand, Eurotrash and Beavis and Butt-Head meant I was getting to bed at about Midnight. Still I didn't go to bed as I was listening to the James Stannadge phone-in (which has featured Spite!) and so I finally set my alarm at 1 a.m and settled down to sleep. It's always the way for some reason but I can never get to sleep the night before the show! The last look at the clock before I mercilessly drifted off showed the time as 3:13. 6 o'clock came all too soon, so I promptly got up, switched off the alarm and went back to sleep. After all, there was no rush was there?¢ I dragged myself out of bed at around 7:30 and after a little moaning and the usual early morning activities I set off to catch the bus into Manchester (something I'd never previously done when going to AMS!).¢ The ticket machine on the bus then decided to have an attack and wouldn't feed out the paper correctly. Fortunately, it all worked out excellently and the driver getting his finger caught in the mechanism more than made up for the delay.¢ So, at Piccadilly Station I was and a return ticket was acquired. #10.50 wasn't too bad as I met a few people at the show who had paid a lot more!¢ It was then I realised I'd left the book I was planning to read on the train at home. This miffed me a little but the passing English countryside has a decidely therapeutic effect and I was actually feeling quite relaxed.¢ Stafford came along and off the train I popped. A sign announced there would be a bus service running to SAMS so I waited for it. And waited for it a little longer. Finally, three of us decided to pop into a taxi and split the costs. I'll take this oppurtunity to say HI! to those two other guys. I've forgotten your names but you know who you are!¢ We arrived at Bingley Hall and was greeted by... NO QUEUES! Wow! Straight in we went and that's where I left my taxi friends (although one of them tended to reappear quite a lot!) and popped off to the right.¢ The first thing I remember is being given a free copy of Micro Mart. Something for nothing is never frowned upon in my eyes and a copy was taken. I haven't even read the thing yet.¢ Everything that happened next seems a blur. I remember buying some 3.5" disks for 10p each (I purchased 200) and then I bought some old ST magazines for 20p each. Already my bag had a '10 bags of Spuds' feel to it so I thought I'd better curb my spending on heavy items!¢ The next thing I purchased was a Bug joystick. There was no guarantee that it worked but for #3 I took a chance, and was rewarded. Unfortunately, I also bought a Quickshot joystick (my fave) for #6.50 and it doesn't go up. I bought it from Goodman International though so there should be no problems in getting a replacement or refund as they're spoken of highly in the ST world.¢ ANG and KE-Soft were at the show again, selling their software. ANG were offering chats and an autograph with Frankenstein for #1.00. Wonder if anyone took them up on the offer? I did ask Frankenstein if Mega-Mag 7 was ready but he was still working on it.¢ I heard murmerings of Dork Fern throughout the day. Don't know if he was looking for me or not but I was informed that someone told him to look out for a short, fat, ugly, specky geek - it's no wonder he didn't find me! I actually saw Dork looking through some Atari 8-bit stuff on a stall near the start of the hall. Probably looking for bargains which he could re-sell at three times what he paid.¢ The main reason I'd attended the show was to get some cheap 3.5" and 5.25" disks. 5.25" disks were rather rare at AMS7 but they were in abundance at SAMS. TWAUG were selling them for #1.60 for 10 which is an absolute bargain as you'll be guaranteed of back-up with the TWAUG guys (I'm not 100% sure they'll do mail order but you can ask them!). I finally found a guy who was selling them for 10p each (but without any envelopes) so I bought 200. He even found around 120 envelopes and gave them to me for free, which was nice. Out of all the disks I bought the 5.25" have, by far, been the most reliable. Of the ST disks I'm getting about 7 out of every 10 but I've yet to get a problem with the 8-bit disks!¢ Talking of TWAUG, it was nice to see Max up and about after his recent operation. Max assured me he was fully back to fitness and even offered to prove it by doing a few backflips around Bingley Hall. I pointed out that this would be seen as a cheap publicity stunt for TWAUG and he seemed to understand, although he was a little disappointed at not being able to show off his pirouette finale.¢ The usual 8-bit stalls were there with stands from LACE, Dean Garraghty (I mean DGS!) and Page 6 adding to those already mentioned. Reading the SAMS catalogue showed that NOSAUG should have had a stand but they didn't turn up. What a shame.¢ So, 'Saint' Steve Southall lived up to his name again and gave me a lift back to the train station (Thanx Steve!). I was just in time for the 2:06 train but missed it because I was on the wrong bloody platform (I nearly got on the Birmingham Express!). I still say the TV said platform 5! Anyway, I wasn't too unhappy as I had something to read and the hour until the next train passed quickly enough.¢ To end it all I'd just like to say HI! to some of the people I met at the show: Spike, Spitfire, Tomo, Dave.E, Max, Steve.S, John.F, Richard, Dean, and my two taxi friends!¢¢John E. (TEBSF)¢
