Floppyshop 2/Floppyshop - 2.zip/Floppyshop - 2.iso/diskmags/4671-5.790/dmg-4790/power_20/atarisho.pwr

Text File | 1989-12-31 | 23KB | 344 lines

 >>>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------<<<<<<
 --->>> T H E   L O N D O N   A T A R I   C O M P U T E R   S H O W <<<---
 >>>>>>-------------------------------------------------------------<<<<<<

                            BY JAMES L. MATHEWS



As  most of you ST owners out there probably know,  July 30th and July  31st
saw two days of ATARI shows, the first being in Bristol and the second being
in our lovely capital,  London.  Well, if you didn't go, you missed out on a
lot, as you will see by this article...

I got a tip-off about this show ages before it ever happened and as soon  as
I  heard about it,  I knew that I had to be there so when the  details  were
finalised and I was sure it was happening, I made sure that Sunday 31st July
was  clear  so that I could visit  the  lovely,  clean,  tropical,  peaceful
location of Hammersmith in London where,  in the Novotel,  there was quite a
good show happening for 7 whole glorious hours which was dedicated fully  to
ATARI.    No   bloody   PC's,   no  flippin'  Amiga's,   just   pure   ATARI
magnificence!

The  show was,  of course,  organised by David Encil,  Neil O'nions and  Ray
Corss   and  the  whole thing was sponsored by  Europress,  the  people  who
produce ST REVIEW and ST USER.

Appearing  at  the London show (this article is all about  the  London  show
unless  otherwise  stated) were a number of well-known  ST  users  including
myself  (James),  C.I.H.  of  Maggie,  Richard  Felice  from  Maggie,  Compo
Software,  Merlin  P.D., Gary Simmons, I.D.S., ST  Handbook, Vic Lennard  of
ST  Review  (along with his wife and  son),  Goodmans  International,  Titan
Designs, Caspian Software,  Vic Wright, Mike Herman of ATARI STAR, Riverdene
P.D.L....Need I go on?   Everyone was there (well,  everyone  worth  knowing
anyway!) and even Queen Elizabeth II made  an appearance briefly for a quick
look around in hope for a small bargain (she has to save her  pennies  since
she now has to pay tax).

The show started at 10am and from the very start,  people were pouring in at
the  same  rate as someone would vomit after a large vindaloo and  19  pints
(yes,  there were that many people going in!).   It really started to  reach
its   peak  a few hours on between 11 and 12 and as you waited  outside  the
door  to  get your ticket (selling at a fiver each,  3 quid after  2pm)  you
could  hear just how many  people were inside as  you saw the doors bursting
open and computer noises galore pouring out through the seams.   I walked in
alone,  not knowing what to expect, armed only with my sticky label stuck on
my  black jacket pointing out that my name was 'JAMES L.  MATHEWS  OF  POWER
DISK  MAGAZINE'.   I walked in and went straight to the back (there  was  no
reason for this,  it's just my legs suddenly went hyper) and started to look
around.  Within 20 minutes, I had been greeted by  4 or 5 POWER readers  and
another  few   people  who wanted to know more about  POWER  disk  magazine.
Realising how dangerous this sticker actually was,  I decided to remove  the
offending  sticky label and bin it.   I then walked around rather  aimlessly
for a further half an hour whilst not really taking much in at  all,  simply
establishing my ground and drawing up a map in my head of what was where and
where was what and so on.  I then felt strangely hungry as I walked past the
Compo stall.   Why was this?  It was only 11:20 or so.  Searching around for
a reason, I noticed that behind the Compo stall, they were all quite happily
surrounded with biscuits and sandwiches.  I had to get out of there, my head
started spinning.   I darted out of the room with the intentions of  leaving
the  hotel to kill a wild boar for munch and then returning to  the almighty
ATARI  show.   So,  I  left the premises of the hotel and walked  along  the
pavement which would take me to some sort of civilisation.   As I arrogantly
bounced down the street,  I walked past a person who,  although I had  never
seen before,  seemed strangely recognisable.   As I cruised along looking at
this  bloke,  he  too returned an examinating glare but neither of  us  said
anything.  Something told me that the person who had just passed me was Gary
Simmons but I didn't  know what.    Anyway,  I continued on looking for some
kind of chip shop or something but it was all in vain.  The best I got was a
bloody corner shop that wasn't even on a corner, where I proudly purchased a
Snickers bar accompanied by a pack of Polos and a few other pieces of random
munch...This  had to last me through the day until I got home where I  would
then line my stomach with 'real' food.

Well,  I   then  returned   towards   the   hotel,  entered,  and   strolled
past the reception area (where earlier I had struggled immensely to beat out
of  a  French  receptionist  where the ATARI show was)  and  back  into  the
bustling of  the ATARI show.

After  more cruising around the show,  basically just taking in what was  on
offer  and  what was here,   I wandered over to a little space  between  two
stalls  (the   ST HANDBOOK one and the GOODMANS one)  where  three  friendly
looking  guys were showing their bits off...Yes,  that's  right,  they  were
playing  around  with  their bits in front of everyone  and  I'll  tell  you
something; their bits were quite impressive!  Yes, I am of course    talking
about the STORM TRACKER and modules they were  showing off.    Playing  with
their tracker and showing all the bits and bobs off, they merrily chatted to
me about why it was written,  how it was written,  what it was written  for,
how to use it and then,  after telling me the meaning of life, they played a
few  "Here's  some we made earlier" modules.

The STORM TRACKER is a spanking brand new (finished a day before the  show!)
tracker  that has only just been completed which is based on PRO-TRACKER and
is sort of like a PRO-TRACKER 3.  It plays all the usual MOD. files from the
likes  of NOISETRACKER and so on and uses all the strong formats of  samples
such  as AVR.  and SPL.  but unlike the likes of  ESION,  it doesn't  use  a
textual  form  of display but a  graphical one.   Achieving things  such  as
slides,  pattern movements and  even the placement of notes is all done  via
graphics  and  the mouse which makes for much easier use and  is  much  more
user-friendly.   The tracker sells for £24.99 under the MAGIC SOFTWARE label
through  Goodmans  and  comes on two disks with a few  example  modules  and
samples.   At  the  moment it is a standard 4-channel job but  an  8-channel
version  may  well  be around (or at least under  way)  by  Christmas.   The
programmer  explained  to me that he wanted a  mate of his (who   was   also
there and was a bug-tester) to do a module for a game he was working on  but
his  mate declined on the grounds that he didn't have a decent  tracker  and
he  would  only write  a module for him if our friend  the  programmer  (who
isn't  very  musically gifted) wrote our friend the bug  tester  a  tracker.
Well, the deal was struck and STORM TRACKER was born.

We kept talking for quite a while about the tracker but after a good half-an
hour chat,  I felt a tap on my shoulder (maybe I should get a plumber in!  -
Sorry, bad joke!) so I turned around, only to be greeted by the person who I
had  recently  walked  past  outside on my quest for  a  portion  of  chips,
"JAMES?!" boomed the man.   Straight away,  we knew who we both were, he was
Gary and I was  James  and once we  had shared this secret with eachother we
were   soon rejoicing the fact that we  had met up and were  looking  around
for something to do.  All of a sudden, for no reason whatsoever  (nothing to
do with me of course!),  Gary grabbed the bloke who I had just been speaking
to  who had written STORM TRACKER and boomed (in a similar way that  he  did
with me), "VIC WRIGHT?!".  The bloke looked puzzled, gave me a look as if to
say,  "Oi  mate,  did this one come from where you came from?!" and  replied
with  a  "no".   We  then departed from that area in haste  and  looked  for
another target.

Walking around the show,  I soon met up with a few other contacts and people
and merrily,  we toured around the show another fifty times or so until four
of us (C.I.H., Richard, Gary and myself) left the show for a drink.  Sitting
down, happily sipping our drinks talking about everything and anything, Gary
jumped  up  and  walked over to someone by the bad.   "Oh  no!"  I  thought,
expecting  Gary  to  accuse this person of being Vic  Wright  but  Gary  got
talking   with him and brought him over to the table...It was  Vic  Lennard,
the  editor  of  ST  REVIEW.   Well we all got talking and  a  few  bits  of
interesting  information  came out of the conversation such  as  how  FUTURE
PUBLISHING  (the  people who make ST FORMAT) is being sold off for  quite  a
hefty sum of money and how there were plans  for ST REVIEW to go into higher
production numbers to try and gain a larger readership.  Well, after quite a
nice little chat,  we let the poor bloke return to his  family,  we finished
our drinks and then entered back into the ATARI kingdom.

The show was in a rather small room taking into account how many people were
there.   The  place really was packed to the brim but everyone seemed to  be
enjoying  themselves and just about every cubic centimetre was being put  to
good use.

At the show,  all the latest products were on show.   CASPIAN SOFTWARE  were
showing  their latest and very impressive  game,  STORM TRACKER was on  show
(as  I  said   earlier) and amongst lots of other new  products  was  a  new
football  game  called  TEAM.   It  was just a demo  version  but  it  looks
impressive.  Set to be sold for £24.95 through I.D.S. the game boasts a hell
of a lot of functions and also has just about everything taken into  account
such  as  a  'real' 3D pitch and even things such as  players  bumping  into
eachother rather than walking straight through eachother!   POWER should  be
getting a special preview version of the game pretty soon so we should  have
a preview soon or possibly even in this issue so look out for it.   The game
requires an STE and at least one megabyte but when you see the game, you can
see why what with its speed and smoothness.

Also  on  show was a new art package labelled  'APEX' which  is  from  Titan
Designs if I remember correctly.  The package is Falcon only but makes  full
use  of the Falcon enhancements unlike most other Falcon  programs.   It  is
incredibly  fast and efficient and has all the usual functions  plus  loads,
loads  more.   It  makes full use of the  D.S.P.  and  it  shows.   Everyone
(including  myself) believes that the program looks and  handles  incredibly
like CHROMA 24 although apparently,  it isn't really anything like CHROMA 24
although  it  is BASED on the famous package.   What  they   have  done,  is
spotted the problems  with CHROMA  24,  sorted them out, speeded it up a bit
and added some extra functions and come up with APEX.   The whole thing  has
been  totally  re-coded but in the words of C.I.H.,  "It's 98%  Chroma  24!"
although no matter what you thought it was like, there was no  denying  that
It was incredibly impressive stuff and an expression of how good it was, was
made by an American who wondered over and  simply exclaimed,


             NN            NN   NNNNNNNN   NN            NN  NN
              NN          NN   NN      NN   NN          NN   NN
               NN   NN   NN    NN      NN    NN   NN   NN    NN
                NN NNNN NN     NN      NN     NN NNNN NN
                 NNN  NNN       NNNNNNNN       NNN  NNN      NN


Then again, he seemed more fascinated by the way that the 3D menu boxes flew
up  rather than what the actual package did and actually got the poor  bloke
doing the demonstrations to make the same menu flip up 5 times!

The package will costs around £150 or £299 if you want a free digitiser with
it with the full set-up (apart from the camera of course!).  The package has
an  excellent  morphing function where you can simply take two  pictures  (a
before  and after picture) and the computer will then render  the  inbetween
pictures in a similar way to tweaking  in animation packages such as  ANI-ST
(obtainable  on  disk PWR 98 from POWER P.D.).   It is quite fast  with  its
rendering  and  took under 20 minutes to render a 16 frame morph  between  a
coke  can  and  a  crushed  coke  can.    The  package  also  has  brilliant
capabilities  of manipulating pictures and the speed at which it can  do  so
and the way that it does it is simply amazing and so fast.  It really is top
quality coding and if you're into graphics,  you've got a Falcon and a spare
couple  of  hundred  quid then you should try and get  your  hands  on  this
package as soon as you can!

There was a lot on offer at the show.  They  had  Falcons  selling  at  just
£450 and were even  showing off the STACEY's (portable ST's).   There was  a
large stall with all the bits and bobs such as ATARI ST computer badges, new
cursor  keys,  mouse  bits and so on.   There was enough there to  build  an
entire  ST  yourself  and  have enough pieces  over  to  build  a  spaceship
afterwards.   Obviously,  all the issues of ST HANDBOOK were  on sale  along
with  the  latest issues of ST USER and ST REVIEW plus all  the  usual  P.D.
software,  hardware, disk boxes, blank disks and so on that you usually  get
at ANY computer show.

A  stall  which was getting quite a big response was the ST  HANDBOOK  GAMES
CHALLENGE  stall where a few STE's were set up and OBSESSION (a new  pinball
game  retailing  at £24.99 for one meg STE's) was on offer to be  played  by
anyone  that felt like it.   The object of the challenge was to get as  many
points  as possible and whoever did would win an ATARI JAGUAR console so  as
you can imagine,  there were quite a few people struggling to get a  go.   I
was then offered a go,  so I sat down and began to play...Or should I say, I
began  to make a fool out of myself.   I just had no skill at all and got an
embarrassing score of just over 660,000.   That may sound a  good score  but
when  you take into account that everyone elses scores  were way  up in  the
millions,  you can see what I mean!   Well, the prizes were awarded later in
the show (there were three prizes  I believe for the three best scores)  but
sadly, everyone who had won was not present at the show.  The person who had
won  first  prize  was at the London show but left  literally  five  minutes
before  the  prize  giving which was quite a shame.   The  person  that  won
actually  got Vic Wright out of a bit of an embarrassing  predicament.   You
see,  as I said earlier,  the show was sponsored by EURORRESS (the producers
of  ST REVIEW and  ST  USER) but the person who was currently  winning   the
challenge was the editor of  ST FORMAT from FUTURE PUBLISHING.  Luckily, his
score of just over 10 million points was just beaten!

There were a number of other stalls getting a lot of attention, in fact, all
the stalls were getting a lot of attention,  however,  there seemed to be  a
stall   or two missing.   We soon realised who it was.   We  were  expecting
WARPZONE P.D.L.  and 16/32 to show up and have a stall each at the show  but
for some reason,  they weren't there.  Speaking to Vic Wright slightly later
on in the show,  it was explained to us that they weren't there because they
had been banned!   Apparently they are not wanted at all due to the way they
deal and work and they have caused too many problems so instead,  there  was
room  for a couple of other P.D.L.'s so there were a couple of  stands  that
weren't  expected there which was nice to see.   Nobody wanted  WARPZONE  or
16/32  there  anyway and the people that DID wanted them there  only  wanted
them so that they could do a bit of damage (not mentioning any names!).  For
more information on that though, have a little look elsewhere in this mag as
I'm  sure  I'll  stick a slightly fuller story somewhere such  as  the  NEWS
section or something.

As  I  think  I mentioned  earlier,  the  new  commercial  company,  CASPIAN
SOFTWARE,  who have already made a mark in the market with the likes of ROCK
'N' ROLL CLAMS were at the show showing off their new game, ZERO FIVE.  This
is  an  amazingly  good game which puts you in control  of  a  spaceship  in
a  glorious 3D environment.   It's been muttered that  this game is  set  to
beat Elite 2 even though it has only been in development for roughly 6 or  7
months.   It's  going to be a classic shoot  'em  up and it will   certainly
impress   you when you get to see it.   The aim is to save  your  world  and
blast everything to death and all the usual stuff which nobody ever  bothers
reading  about  but basically,  this game is  looking  incredibly  promising
boasting amazing graphics with equally good sound which comprises of   loads
of top quality samples and speech.   Also, STE owners will be  able  to have
their  versions  boast full texture mapping with full use of the  STE's  DMA
hardware being put to the best of its potential.   The game is set to be one
of  the  best games on the ATARI brand of computers so far  and  this  game,
providing  it continues in the way that it has been progressing so  far,  is
bound  to make CASPIAN SOFTWARE a name to really respect and I look  forward
to seeing this group of GENUINE enthusiasts produce a lot more  ST(E)\Falcon
products soon.

Something I found rather strange about the show though was that there wasn't
a Jaguar on show until the last hour or so of the show although taking  into
account the lack or room and the amount of other things on show,  I  suppose
it can be understanded but as I said,  towards the end of the show, a Jaguar
was set up with Cybermorph to be played but when Vic Wright asked who wanted
to  play on it (as it was set up on the GAMES CHALLENGE stall  although  the
challenge  had now finished) nobody wanted to.   The large crowd around  the
magnificent  64-bit machine was silent.   Finally though,  Vic Lennard's son
stepped  over and sat down in the hot seat and began to fly  the  Cybermorph
all over the place (mainly into the mountains!).

The  show  was perfect for all types of ATARI owners.   Whether  you  had  a
Falcon,  an ST or neither,  there was something of interest at the show  and
whether  you were an expert or knew nothing,  the show was still  enjoyable.
For  the experts and people more involved in the scene you could  get  fully
involved  in the show and try out the machines and the new software  or,  no
doubt if you are involved in the scene,  you probably would have met a   few
contacts  as well which you could get chatting to.   If you were more  of  a
beginner,  there  was  still   just  as much  to  enjoy.   There  were  full
demonstrations of all the software where people would sit you down, tell you
all about the package,  what it could do,  what it was all about and so  on,
you could have a go at the games challenge,  you could pick up some bargains
and basically, you could enjoy yourself!

Everything at the show were at special prices from the P.D.  at the GOODMANS
stall which had been knocked down to £1.75 to the serious hardware which had
tens  of  pounds  knocked  off.   An example of  some  special  prices  were
displayed by JCA EUROPE LIMITED who offered the following special price list
to th ATARI owners at the show:


PRODUCT             RRP.           SHOW PRICE
---------------------------------------------

Calamus 1.09n       £79.00         £59.00
Calamus SL          £249.00        £199.00

Rainbow             £29.95         £25.00

100 blank disks     £38.00         £34.00


That's  just  a few examples of the knock down prices.   As I think  I  said
earlier on in this document,  there were also Falcons selling for as  little
as  £450 which is an amazingly cheap price by any standards.   If it  was  a
bargain  you wanted then this was the place to be.   Even 100 capacity  disk
boxes were just £2.95 at the GOODMANS  stall.

If  you've  read all this and weren't at the show,  you are  probably  going
rather green with envy.   It wouldn't suprise me  because you certainly  did
miss a lot.   Everyone turned up and there were hundreds of people  enjoying
the ATARI scene.   With shows like this,  it is very hard for the ST ever to
die.  There was  so much support at the show, especially from Vic  Wright of
THE ST HANDBOOK and there was a lot of real, genuine enthusiasm which really
gave a lift to everyone there.   With more shows like this the ST scene will
stay  fresh and living.   It was a great way to meet people, to see what the
latest products are on offer and a great way of picking up a bargain  whilst
also supporting the ATARI scene.

If you weren't at the show, you missed a hell of a lot and you really should
have been there.   There should be another similar show appearing  somewhere
in  London again at Christmas which is set to be even bigger than this  one.
For those of you who don't live close enough to London to be able to pop in,
all is not lost.   It was said that if the shows did well,  there would very
likely  be more  shows elsewhere in the country and judging by how much  the
show was being praised by both the crowds and the people behind the  stalls,
I'd be very surprised if there weren't lots more of these shows appearing in
loads  more locations across Britain so if you see one,  make sure  you  get
there as it is well worth it.

It was by far the best ATARI show I've been to and providing all goes  well,
I'll  be appearing at the Christmas show too so make sure that you do to  if
it  is at all possible.   Shows like this keep the ATARI range of  computers
alive and kicking, you missed a lot if you missed this show so don't miss it
again!