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Text File | 1991-10-09 | 25KB | 449 lines

WAACE ATARIFEST '91 =================== by Scott Lapham Special CIS Reporter Well, here's another article about an Atari computer show. It seems like there is one almost every weekend these days. I'll be the last per- son, though, to complain about "too many" Atari shows. The more the mer- rier. I just wish more of them were closer to the east coast so I could attend instead of just reading about them. But if you are only going to be near enough to one, it might as well be the WAACE AtariFest here in Virginia because it's always been a good one. And this year is no excep- tion. As there was so much to see (and buy), I didn't do much "reporting" until my wallet was devoid of cash and I had "charged" as much as my wife had allocated that I could. This didn't leave much time for me to "report", get home to write this, then make it back to the Sheraton in time for the banquet. So this part will deal mostly in who was there, what they had to sell and a little about some of the seminars. Atari Interface Magazine ------------------------ They had a booth which sold their magazine and represented Branch Al- ways Software and QuickST. Bill and Patti were BUSY ALL the Time! CodeHead Software ----------------- Charles and John were (as usual) very busy at their booth. John was taking care of a very long line of people that had disk(s) in hand for upgrading to the latest version. Charles was sitting at a TT showing everyone how powerful Avant Vector was. And boy, was it powerful. If you haven't downloaded the demo, do it. You've got to see it to believe it. The only show special I remember was Avant Vector for $445.00. I was so impressed with this program that I forgot to write anything else down. This thing is awesome. Charles Johnson was running through things with the program so fast, doing spectacular work, you could hardly keep up. He didn't expect to sell too many, given its price, so only brought six copies along. Well, all six sold. And who knows how many more might have sold if he had had them! A demo is available and shouldn't be missed. Charles also said they sold 100 copies of MultiDesk Deluxe (although I don't know how many of those were upgrades). Overall, he said it might turn out to be the best show they've ever done! Phil Comeau Software -------------------- Phil had both GramSlam and Grammar Expert ready to go at his booth plus a few others. Tree Saver, a program that prints text files on both sides of paper and puts two pages on one side in two columns, also looked interesting. Show specials included Grammar Expert for $55.00 and GramSlam for $35.00. The big seller was GramSlam. Phil reported a good show, about the same as Glendale. He was very happy about it and will be back next year. Current Notes, Inc. ------------------- Joe was there with his excellent magazine. He was selling new subscriptions, renewing subscriptions, selling back issues and lots of PD disks. Joe Waters' show special included extra copies of his Current Notes magazine with subscriptions; 1 extra issue for 1 year and 2 extra issues with 2 years (I renewed mine there and got the extra issue). He reported selling a lot of subscriptions but not too many of his PD disks. Joe said it was generally slower than last year. D.A. Brumleve ------------- Dorthy had all of her outstanding kid's programs to sell. Her two computers always had a smiling child trying out one of them. Dorothy's show special was $10.00 off any purchase of 2 or more of her titles. She had Kid Publisher Professional at $35.00, Kid Painter at $35.00, Super Kidgrid at $25.00 and Telegram at $25.00. For her it was a great show with sales as good as last year. And by next year, she hopes to have a new program available for kids a little older. Can't wait to see it as my kids are always getting older too. Debonair Software ----------------- As what seems to be the normal arrangement, Debonair was right next door to Dorothy (a coincidence or because they both begin with the letter "b"?). J. Andrzej Wrotniak had El Cal running on a Stacy and Star Base on an ST. Both top notch programs. Double Click Software --------------------- The DC guys had DC Data Diet for sale and it looked like they were going fast. They were also updating software at the show. DC's show spe- cial was the premiere of Data Diet, their newest program. Its cost was $59.95 and almost sold out (of 70 copies brought). Data Diet compresses your files on your disk and uncompresses them when you run them, automatically. It's almost like doubling the size of your drive for sixty bucks. I know my brother will be buying it soon (30MB hard drive, 3 bytes unused). Of course they also had their other popular programs DC Utilities, Desktop, Shower and CPXtensions all at good prices. They reported this as being the best show of the year for them. I managed to squeeze DC Utilities into my fest- budget and look forward to using it. eSTeem Inc. ----------- They were selling their PILOT software language program. FAST Technology --------------- They had their excellent line of Super High Powered Accelerators. Including the new T-20s and the 68030. Their show specials included the Turbo 20 (20Mhz) for $300.00, the Turbo 20 (25Mhz) for $350.00, Turbo 030 with cache only for $999.00 and the Turbo 030 with 4MB of RAM for $1499.00. Jim said sales were good (about the same as last year) and that the 20Mhz Turbo 20 was his best seller. Gadgets By Small ---------------- Dave had the SST 68030 board up and running demos and lots of interested people looking on. I didn't get to talk with him today but hope to tomorrow. The board sure looked fast! Dave Small wasn't selling anything at the show but was taking advance or- ders for his SST. He took enough advance orders (and usually fully loaded versions!!) to sell through to the third production run of the board!! And the first production run hasn't shipped yet!!! Better get those or- ders in fast if you want one of these! Gribnif Software ---------------- All the Gribnif stuff was there plus some. NeoDesk, CardFile, STalker 3 and STeno were being sold and advance orders were being taken for Arabesque, their new graphics program. I didn't catch their show specials but they said they did real good in their 4th year at WAACE. STalker 3 almost sold out. Their new graphics program, Arabesque, generated a good number of advance orders. They were also taking programs to upgrade but will be sending them to their customers by mail after the show. They report WAACE was as good as the Glendale show. ICD --- They had all their hard drives, tape backup units, AdSpeed and AdSpeed STe for sale. Business looked brisk. ICD reported a very good show. AD Speed sold well. This was the first show they sold AD Speed STe and it sold very well. We'll be sure to see them again next year. ISD Marketing, Inc. ------------------- There were plenty of copies of Calamus, Outline Art and DynaCADD here. All the latest versions, too. ISD had some great show specials but asked that I not write about them as they were "too low to mention"! Believe me, they were low. I ended up buying Outline Art for only (garble...line hit) dollars!! This was the first show that they were actually selling the products (they usually just demo the programs) and did quite well. Hope to see them back next year. JMG Software International, Inc. -------------------------------- HyperLink was the main draw at this booth. Joppa Computer Products ----------------------- These guys had tons of stuff to sell. I think they brought their en- tire store with them. Good prices, too. Believe it or not, Joppa sold twenty (20) Atari STe's at this show (16 on Saturday and 4 on Sunday)! They also reported selling lots of software and lots of MiGraph hand scan- ners (at $225.00!). A sort of auction was held the last two hours on Sun- day at this booth to see how much they could sell at the last minute. Guess he didn't want to carry much home with him (to the benefit of all that remained this late). L&Y Electronics --------------- Suzy didn't have as much space as she usually does, but did pack a lot of products in what she did have. L&Y is my "local" Atari dealer, so it's always good to see them here. Suzy and John reported that business was not too bad. About the same as last year, although this years Saturday was not as good as last year and this years Sunday was better, so it equa- led out. MacDonald Associates -------------------- The publishers of ST Informer, Universal Item Selector and the new Universal NETWork were there. They had a long line of people at the booth, too. MacDonald Associates, The makers of ST Informer reported an excellent show. Better than last year. They sold out of Universal NET- work (which was awesome to see work between the two MEGA STe's they had connected together). Lots of UIS-III upgrades were sold and many ST In- former subscriptions. Megatype Software ----------------- If you needed fonts or graphics, this was one booth you shouldn't miss. Not only did they have their own FontDesigner, FontDesigner+, FontVerter and MegaType Fonts, but they were also representing MS Designs Fonts, Safari Fonts, Dennis Palombo (spelling?) Fonts and Electronic Spinster Graphics! All quality stuff. These guys had too many products to list them all. They said they did OK and the show was successful. Font Designer sold out and FontVerter was a big seller, too. There seemed to be more desktop publishing types at this show than at Glendale so had better sales. Michtron, Inc. -------------- Michtron was selling their entire line of computer products for Atari. Micro Creations --------------- They had their G.I.M.E. (Graphics Interface Modem Environment) program. I'll go in more detail tomorrow but basically it's a powerful terminal program with some unique features. One being a text editor that provides features traditionally seen only in word processors and another a graphics editor that adds pictures to any ASCII bbs message. They reported making a lot of contacts but not selling as much as they wanted (making the show not profitable yet). But since their product, G.I.M.E., is not well known yet, they hope to do better soon. I think they will. G.I.M.E. is a powerful terminal program. Some of the features include X, Y and Z modem protocols, C-like script language, full GEM environment, quick keys, unique dialer, scrolling type-ahead buffer, full- featured text editor, graphics editor (to create pictures for within ASCII bbs mes- sages), multiple buffers, 40 function keys, capture buffer stores VT52 colors and disk utilities provided. The show price was $35.00 (normally $49.95). Take a look at this one if you use terminal programs. It might make you switch. Musicode software ----------------- They had Blackjack+3 for sale and were having a blackjack contest every few hours with prizes. Rimik Enterprises ----------------- MultiGEM was the star of this booth. Show specials included DTPaint at $39.95, Menu Plus at an incredible $14.95, Multi-GEM at $79.95, Multi- -GEM+ at $99.95 and Multi-GEM Utilities at $24.95. Rimik reported doing really well at this show. Multi-GEM sold out early Sunday morning. They will be back for sure next year. Step Ahead Software, Inc. ------------------------- Nevin was busy selling Tracker/ST 3.0 and demoing ReTouch Professional and Didot Professional. And if that didn't keep him busy enough, he was also handling WordFlair II as a favor. And this version had FSM GDOS included!! Nevin Shalit's show special had Tracker ST/3 selling for $49.95. He reported lots of sales and upgrades. Better than last year. He was also selling Word Flair II with FSM GDOS included but didn't report any sales figures on it. I also saw him giving PageStream pointers on his demo machine a couple of times I passed his booth. Sudden Inc. ----------- What can I say about Sudden View. It would take a whole separate ar- ticle. If you edit a lot of text files or are a programmer, you need this program. I'll go into more detail tomorrow but will say this; you won't believe this program until you see it. Download the demo. Rod Coleman had one product; Sudden View. But what a product. I told Joe Waters (Current Notes) to go see it because he wouldn't believe it unless he did. He went, he saw, he bought. It is simply an amazing program. You would think a text editor couldn't be very exciting. This one is. It has things like "Instant Access" (allows you to be at any point in any size file instantly), "Dynamic Scrolling" (allows you to directly position the text anywhere in the window simply by dragging the mouse with the left button down...the text moves as your hand moves!!), "Implied Editing Ac- tion" (no insert or replace mode...its editing action is implied by cursor position...if the cursor is over a space immediately to the left of any text, it inserts, otherwise it replaces), just to name a few. A demo version was available for $9.95 or the full program could be had for $59.95. I got a "press package" demo version but am pretty sure I'll be upgrading to the full program soon! See this one if you can. Demo is available on-line, too. Rod said that sales were very good, even better than Glendale, and hopes to be back next year. Toad Computers -------------- Another "sort of local" dealer with lots to sell. "Author of the Year" Dave Troy had lots of products at good prices. Too many specials to mention here. Business was pretty good, as expected. He reported that two days at the WAACE AtariFest equals about three weeks of business back at the store. No wonder he doesn't mind closing the place for the weekend! WizWorks! --------- Chet and Dr. Bob were busy as usual at their booth. Besides ImageCat, MugShot, MVG and all its modules, they had lots of good clip art disks. I particularly liked the "car art" and "aircraft art" disks (bought both). A steal at 20 bucks for both (close to 1000 clips). Show special included Mug Shot for $35.00, Image CAT 2.0 for $35.00 and MVG 2.0 for $40.00. They were also giving special deals for MVG modules, Mug Shot data disks and puzzle disks and had lots of clip art disks for a very good price. Chet Walters said that sales were brisk with Mug Shot selling very well and MVG almost selling out. He believes it was a better show for him than last year. WuzTECH/OMNIMON Peripherals, OPI -------------------------------- This booth generated a lot of interest. Besides the nice multisync monitors, there was a 1.44 meg floppy drive (internal). Hmmmm. Sure would cut down on the amount of disks I use to back up my 105 meg hard drive!! Show specials included their Rainbow monitor at $499.95. It was a good enough price to sell all the units they had. They say the show was very good and will be back next year. They said there were less people at this show than Glendale but more spenders here. They also took a lot of advance orders for their 1.44MB floppy drive. I'm looking seriously at that one myself. Zubair Interfaces, Inc. ----------------------- They had all their great add-ons to increase your memory (like the one inside my 4 meg 1040ST). Their show specials included the STe/ST/MEGA Z-Keys for $69.95, Z-Keys with keyboard for $119.95, STe Z-SIMMS 1MB SIMM for $51.95, Z-Ram 2.5 for $69.95, Z-Ram 2.5 with 2MB RAM for $169.95, Z-Ram 3-D/4 Meg for $89.95, $189.95 and $279.95 (empty, 2MB RAM and 4MB RAM), and the ST/STe Time Clock Calendar for $44.95. They said it was a good show and that they met a lot of new people. And in the first quarter of '92 we may be seeing a 32MB TT upgrade from Zubair! Watch for it. At 12:00 Atari Corporation held their "Tech Talk" seminar with "Ken" and "John" from the Software Engineering division. These are the guys that know TOS inside and out. They announced that the latest TOS versions were just released about a week ago: TOS 3.06 and 2.06 for the TT and STe respectively. These are completely "patch free" versions. And also have support for 1.44 meg floppies built-in. Lots of other little improvements, too. TOS 2.06 should be available as an upgrade for ANY ST, STe or Mega in the near future, although the normal ST would require a small board to plug in the new (larger) chips. A multi-tasking TOS was also said to ex- ist. The biggest problem with it, though, is its speed; it's real slow. And it only runs on a TT (or 68030 upgraded ST). UNIX (System 5 version/release 4) is shipping to developers now and will use x-windows. Although over $2,000.00 for the package, it is quite competitive with other platforms (and includes a 200+ meg hard drive). FSM GDOS is ready but only available with WordFlair II for now. Stand alone package to be available soon. Also good news for laser users. Atari is working on a SCSI laser printer. And it will still use the memory in your computer. HP and Epson emulation is being worked on for it, too. It was admitted that two new computers will be coming out of Atari soon, but not a word about them would be uttered (lest they lose their heads!). Something to look forward to, though. At 1:00, Dave Small had a "seminar". He basically talked about numerous things for an hour and had everyone in the room riveted. It was funny, serious and informative. Hope to hear him speak again soon. Oh yeah, at the beginning on his hour, he opened a box that he had his wife fed ex to him FULL of Spectre 128's and GAVE THEM ALL AWAY TO THE CROWD!! No, ROM's were not installed, but hey, free is free! He ended his hour thanking everyone for supporting him for the last 6 years and received a long (and partially standing) ovation. Well deserved. Had a real good time at the banquet. Even was lucky enough to have been sitting at the table of the new "Author of the Year", Dave Troy of Toad Computers. As this was not previously announced, Dave was quite surprised to hear that he had won. I found out later that Dave was going to go out and eat fast food for dinner instead of going to the banquet! But his parents (also there) were told he was going to be the recipient and asked to make sure he makes it to the banquet so he could receive his award. I also found out that Dave has been involved in Toad Computers for five years and is only 19 years old now!! Talk about starting young. It was also announced at the banquet that Saturday's attendance was approximately 1200. Not quite as much as last year but the fewer people seemed to be spending more. Later in this article I'll tell what each of the vendors I talked to said about sales. Guest speaker Nathan Potechin (President of ISD Marketing, Inc.) gave a humorous speech comparing people at Atari Corp and the Atari field in general, to characters from "The Lord of the Rings". It was to be given with the help of visual aids but his artist had injured herself and was unable to come through. He said the project may still be completed and made available to the public at a later date. Keep an eye out for it. There was an unscheduled seminar (announced over the hotel speaker system) at about 10:15 Sunday morning with Ken Badertscher and John Townsend coming back as they thought Saturday's hour didn't answer all the questions. Nothing new to report from this one. They talked more about the two new TOS' (3.06 and 2.06) and FSM GDOS mostly. Both look like they are going to be "must haves" when they are available. Bob Brodie did add one interesting comment about FSM GDOS. Seems when he first used it he loaded it with 155 fonts! He found out this was a bad idea after he went to lunch, came back and the computer was still loading!! There is a lesson here somewhere. The scheduled 11:00 a.m. seminar was on 68000 accelerators and was given by Dave Small of Gadgets by Small and Jim Allen of FAST Technology. In case you think this might have been a bad situation, Dave made it clear at the start of his talk that although he and Jim are competitors, they do not hate each other. He admitted they both had a different philosophy about how to build a 68030 board, but that that was OK and gave us, the customers, a choice instead of being tied to one product. He said that if you decide not to buy his board, you should then buy Jim's because it too, is a very good board. I don't think you can lose with either product. Jim Allen talked about his product at the beginning of the seminar and started with his 68000 boards for use in 520, 1040, MEGA ST and 1040STe computers; the Turbo 16, Turbo 20 (20Mhz) and Turbo 20 (25Mhz). Good, fast products for people not looking to go to the 68030 for even more blazing speed. He even mentioned that a 32Mhz version was being tested! Not bad for a chip that is only "rated" at 16Mhz! The Turbo 030, special- ly designed for MEGA ST computers, was the biggie though, with a 68030 processor running at 40Mhz! You can really zip along with this one and it comes in two versions; with cache only for $1199.00 or with 4MB of RAM for $1999.00. This may sound like a lot of money, but you'll be even faster than a TT with this upgrade. A discount is available for owners of other FAST Technology accelerator products. Options include a 68882 math co-processor (running at up to 60Mhz) and virtual memory software, for up to 128 Meg!! Dave Small talked after Jim about Gadgets SST 68030 board. It too, is very, very fast. And available in more than one version. Dave sells a bare bones board for $600.00 and lets you add the components as you can afford them, including the processor chip and up to 8 megs of memory. The upgrades can be added as: A) a 16Mhz 68030 for $200.00, B) a 16Mhz 68030 and 4 1Meg SIMMs (80ns) for $460.00, C) a 33Mhz 68030, 68882, and 4 1Meg SIMMs (80ns) for $800.00 and D) 4 additional 1Meg SIMMs (80ns) for B or C for $260.00. Daves advises that either A, B or C is required for the bare bones board to operate. A head-to-head speed test has not yet been con- ducted between Dave and Jim's boards, but for now, let's just say they are both faster than you could believe without actually seeing them in action. At the end of the accelerator seminar, Dave proposed, and Jim agreed, to provide more information to the user base on their products specifical- ly and accelerators in general, so they would have a better informed public. Look on-line and maybe in some magazine in the near future for this info. Also, in what might have been a first, Leonard Tramiel received an ovation when Dave mentioned that Leonard, against heavy protest from others at Atari, licenced TOS 2.05 to Gadgets and FAST Tech for use on their boards. No, it didn't snow inside the room, too. There was so much going on at this show that I'm afraid I missed a lot. I didn't get into many of the specialty rooms to see what was going on there (productivity and desktop publishing, games, midi, swap room, emulations, education). I missed all the users group displays (NOVATARI, WACO, MOCC, AURA, ASTMUM). And I didn't even get to talk to all of the vendors. But it was still a fun show to attend and I hope I provided some useful information to some people who weren't able to come. And I apologize in advance to anyone if I didn't include some information you would have liked to see appear in this article. After all, I'm not a professional writer (this is only the second time I've written an article for anything) and will miss things until I get more of the hang of this kind of work. But again, it was fun and I hope I get a chance to do it again next year. And hope the show is even bigger and better (and my wal- let fatter)! Cheers.