Amiga Collections: MegaDisc/MegaDisc 29 (1992-07)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)(Disk 1 of 2)[WB].zip/MegaDisc 29 (1992-07)(MegaDisc Digital Publishing)(AU)(Disk 1 of 2)[WB].adf/Articles_II/WoC_Show_1

Text File | 1992-08-01 | 13KB | 233 lines

               ›33m      World of Commodore Show..›m
                    -------------------------
                     Darling Harbour, Sydney 1992.

                              ›32m              Overview by Peter Furey.›m


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   ›33m B›meing a dedicated Amiga enthusiast and determined not to miss out
  on the one big Amiga event of 1992, I made the 4,000 kilometre journey from
  my home in Western Australia to the World of Commodore Show in Sydney.

   I stepped off the plane into glorious Sydney sunshine and after booking
  into a hotel near the show I rented a rusty old hire car, joined the city
  traffic and travelled north over the Harbour Bridge.

   I found my way to the offices of a small public relations company called
  ›33mTHE OTHERS›m and introduced myself to Wendy Giles, the manager.
  Wendy's firm handles Commodore's PR business and when I got there she was
  flat out answering the phones, giving away free show tickets to lucky
  television contest winners.  Wendy and her partner, Howard Needleman had
  been sending me Media releases for 2 years and I thought they would be
  handling the WOC show from a distance.  But they both spent the week at and
  around the show, working tirelessly for Commodore, organising events and
  people with professional ease.

   Leaving THE OTHERS, I drove further away from the city and after stopping
  for directions, parked the car outside the Commodore office and warehouse
  in Mars road.  The people at Commodore were very friendly and I was taken
  on a tour of the premises by a couple of staff members.  I was shown their
  Education offices, Software and Hardware support areas, Spare Parts
  Division and a huge warehouse with a Run In area where computer technicians
  were testing all the equipment prior to shipping it out.

   A very large pile of computers and monitors were stacked up on a loading
  bay, awaiting delivery to the show.  Commodore supplied all the exhibitors
  at the show with Amiga 3000s and monitors to run their demonstrations on.
  I was pleased to see the amount of support Commodore was giving to the
  local schools, both in material and manpower.  Commodore really put in a
  tremendous effort to make the event successful, with staff from as far away
  as Canada, New Zealand and Fiji helping at the show.  Most of the staff
  were down at the showground getting everything ready so I took my hire car
  back and walked to Darling Harbour to see what was happening.

   Chaos reigned, and I walked amidst boxes of computer equipment and lots of
  hard working exhibitors and electricians, all busily preparing the building
  for the coming event.  Finding the Show office I met Karen Jewell, the lady
  who organises and runs all the World of Commodore shows around the globe.
  Karen comes from Canada and I must say that she knows her job, because the
  show ran flawlessly for the 3 days it was held.  Moving around the
  exhibition hall I found it easy to talk to people and get the inside story
  before the crowds arrived, which made my task of gathering information a
  lot easier.

   I said earlier that I moved unnoticed around the show - well that wasn't
  entirely correct.  My every move in the hall was being monitored by hidden
  video cameras set up to cover the whole event.  I only found out about this
  after I was invited to use an upstairs room to rest my weary bones.  There
  I met Ian Twaddle, the manager of ›33mSIDAT SECURITY›m, the firm handling
  the security at the show.  Ian gave me a full explanation and demonstration
  of the show's video setup and high tech database system.

   Ian had 15 video cameras sending black and white signals to a central
  computer, which in turn sent the signals down a phone line to their city
  office for storage in a video database.  The video footage from any camera
  could be recalled at any time by a second computer which would then be
  played forward or back to reveal any shady goings on.  The recorded time
  was displayed at all times on the left side of the video tape.  If a person
  was behaving mysteriously, their picture would be cut out by the computer
  and printed out and sent to the police for referral.

   Complementing this sophisticated security network was a small army of
  security officers, all equipped with walkie talkies and in constant contact
  with the main centre.  I believe there was only one minor incident at the
  show and the culprits were apprehended.

  ›33mAt 10AM, Friday the 3rd of July the show was thrown open to the public
  ›33mand the fun began. ›m

   Never before have I seen such a huge gathering of Amiga enthusiasts and
  hardware suppliers.  Over 30,000 people attended the World of Commodore
  Show which resulted in sales of more than a million dollars worth of
  computer equipment.  Traders were selling everything from cheap public
  domain software to full blown video systems and all at a discounted price.
  The World of Commodore Show was the place to be if you wanted a new
  computer and lucky buyers were able to pick up genuine bargains from some
  of Sydneys' major retailers who were selling computers hundreds of dollars
  below normal retail price. An example of this was the the CDTV, $625.!!

   But it was not all sales.  Commodore had a large area where staff were
  demonstrating machines and products, with little or no sales pitch.  The
  newest addition to the Amiga range, the A600 was displayed and demonstrated
  by two Victorian guys, Tim and lee who were employed by Commodore for the
  duration of the show.  The compact Amiga 600 has several new features,
  including provision for a smart card; a removable 4 Megabyte storage or
  data card which can even be used as a RAM drive.  Commodore also displayed
  the A570 Rom Drive, which is due for release in the near future [Ed: See
  the review this issue].

   A special corner of the exhibition was reserved for education, with the
  area set up as a typical primary school situation.  Children from schools
  in and around Sydney took turns at using the computers which were mostly
  fitted with the new Australian produced RUSH educational software.  The
  RUSH software came in all shapes and forms and is aimed at the primary
  school market. The software writers were there supporting their products
  which the school children adapted to very quickly.

   RUSH software is made with the CAN DO program and the authors are
  currently producing 2 new titles every month.  Commodores' Education
  Manager, Debbie Logan was there to give support and supply information
  regarding the role Commodore is playing in education.  Debbie was both
  helpful and informative and we got on famously.

   Software distributors were there in large numbers but surprisingly
  Computer Games played a minor role at the show, with more than 80 per cent
  of the exhibits devoted to serious computing.  Two German visitors remarked
  that "Although the German show is four times as large, it is almost 80%
  games, and it is pleasing to see that the Sydney show is the reverse, with
  80% business."

   An interesting exhibitor at the show was Anthony Temple, who was
  demonstrating the West Australian Distance Education Consortiums' Japanese
  language teaching system.  The language program has 46 hours of Japanese
  stored on the system's laserdisk, along with vast amounts of video footage
  and text.  Using the new authoring system, the student is able to interact
  with the program and choose from a variety of questions and answers stored
  on the laserdisk.  The program reacts by showing video footage of a
  Japanese girl answering all the questions, accompanied by written text.

   We have all experienced frustrating problems when operating our Amigas and
  often wished we knew someone who knew the answer.  Commodore have
  recognized this need and encouraged a new company to set up an Amiga
  Support Team.  Called ›33mHOTSHOTS›m, this team will handle any problems or
  queries the user may have.  You can join by paying a yearly subscription of
  $69 which then entitles you to use a 008 phone number and get help or
  advice on any aspect of computing.  User Groups have been doing this for
  years, but not everybody likes to join User groups and this is one way of
  staying independent yet enjoying the benefits provided by a professional
  firm.

   To show off the Amiga's graphic capabilities, an Australia wide Art
  Competition was held prior to the show and winning entries were displayed
  on a large red wall at the hall.  ›33mGraham Whittle›m [Ed: Who does our
  cover art each issue], of Glebe NSW took off first prize with his work
  titled OTHER WORLD.  There were over 80 entries submitted and the quality
  of the artwork was very high.  The work varied from simple cartoon
  characters to 3 dimensional scenes full of clever objects.

   By far the most popular exhibit at the show was OpalVision, where crowds
  in front of the stand were often 6 deep and very attentive.  Head of the
  OpalVision project is Gary Rayner, a young Australian who designed hardware
  and software which allows the Amiga to use up to 16 million colours.  The
  Opalvision stand was closed on the Saturday which disappointed a lot of
  Amiga users who came to the show. It was a pity religion got in the way of
  what was undoubtedly a popular exhibit.

   Phoenix Microtechnologies were at the show in force and their stand was
  always busy.  Phoenix released a new product called ›33mALLADIN›m, a
  computer controlled lighting system which is designed to replace older hand
  controlled lighting systems in theatres or stages around the world.  Priced
  at only $3,500 including the Amiga 500 computer, the system is ideal for
  universities, schools and companies with a limited budget.  Of all the
  stands at the show, the Phoenix display had the happiest team of workers
  and presented the widest range of Amiga hardware products.

   Video displays were also around in large numbers and provided the public
  with a variety of mind boggling demonstrations.  Video titling took on new
  dimensions when some of the software was shown. The Color Computer Systems
  stand ran a continuous REAL 3D display on huge Phillips monitors which had
  nearly every passer-by stopping to look.

   To provide the public with a more formal presentation, demonstrations were
  held in two of the seminar rooms at the side of the exhibition.  These were
  well attended and ranged from novice user advice to detailed instructions
  on software programs.

   The show was a place where the public could meet many of Australia's well
  known software programmers and public figures, who were there giving advice
  and help to all and sundry.  Amongst the throng was Jonathon Potter author
  of Dir Opus, Dennis Nicholson the editor of Graphics Palette, Mike Hansell
  author of the KDVIII virus killer, Steve Wemyss author of Audio Engineer
  and of course, Tim Strachan whom I met for the first time.( You look a lot
  younger than you sound TIM ! Ed: You can write for us anytime, Peter. )

   A number of User Groups were at the show and they were either flogging
  their wares or giving friendly advice.  They filled the need for cheap
  software and I saw many young children going away clutching pd disks in
  their hands, thankful for the chance of purchasing something that fell
  within their budget.

   The ACAR magazine had a stand and was showing one of the latest Schwartz
  animations and selling Prime Artifax pd software, as well as their own
  magazines.  The magazine had a show guide in the centre pages and proved
  very popular with showgoers.  Andrew Farrell was always around but I didn't
  manage to track him down, probably because I was so busy myself.

   Unfortunately the new OZAMIGA magazine didn't make it to the show until
  nearly midday on Saturday and sadly most of the public missed out on a good
  magazine.

   On a brighter note, GVP had an enormous stand with a number of
  professional demonstrators around promoting the new GVP products.  There
  seemed no end to the amount of new hardware products released at the show.

   SCALA had a big colourful stand and dazzled the public with their constant
  displays. Their huge blonde haired Sales Manager from Norway was on the
  stand promoting the product and added something special to the display.

   The show ended at 6PM Sunday night and from then on all the exhibitors
  worked frantically to repack all the computers and remove their goods from
  the exhibition hall.

   I am grateful to all the people who put up with my probing questions and
  intruding video camera during the three days of the show and I think that
  overall, Commodore are to be congratulated on holding a very successful
  show and bringing together thousands of Amiga enthusiasts and professionals
  in a common forum.



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