rjung@nunki.usc.edu (Robert allen Jung) (09/19/88)
Well, it's now Sunday, 9/18/88, and the Glendale Atari Faire v.3 is over.
Here's a report, for those who are interested.
(If you're not interested, I suggest you hit "n" now:)
The Glendale Faire may have been a local event, but there were a few things
that net.people would be interested in:
* SPECTRE 128. It's _here_. NOW. David Small brought 200 copies out to
Glendale, and were they selling! The price is around $180 -- Make your
checks out to "Gadgest By Small". David (a very funny and fun guy) was
accompanied by his wife Sandy, his infant son, and a few friends.
And yes, I did see Hypercard running on an ST with my own eyes. David
also gave a humorous talk on the development of the Spectre, and
denies any plans to do an Amiga emulator for the ST or a Mac emulator on
the Amiga.
* 8-bit GEM. You want to revitalize your 8-bit Atari? Then take your picks:
Obviously, the biggest expectation in the 8-bit community is GOE
(Graphics Operating Enviroment). Yes, it was at the Faire, and yes,
Total Control Systems is selling them. They're not _shipping_ until
October, but you can order it now and get a discount. It looks like a
TOTAL clone of the ST's GEM (You can even hook up an ST mouse and run
GOE through it), and ran solid for the entire show. The author says it
will run 95% of all 8-bit programs. It comes on a ICD "piggyback"
cartridge, and takes up only 8K of RAM. There's supposed to be a library
of GOE routes, so other developers can easily make GOE calls and write
GOE products. Looks really terrific.
From the makers of _Celebrity Cookbook_ comes DIAMOND OS (aka ST jr,
depending on what time of the day you were at the booth). For $30, it's a
graphics interface that offers drop-down menus, windows, and other good
stuff (it doesn't _look_ like GEM, however). Reeve Software is promising
to release DIAMOND Paint, Write, Publish, and Programmer's Kits, for $30
each as well. It looks like it's disk based (I can't be sure),
but that's okay -- it can support up to 16 megabytes(!) of RAM.
* Genlock for the ST was demonstrated, in an open-board "final" version. JRI
says they're only waiting for the FCC, and then they'll ship. It's very
impressive -- An ST Cyberpain animation was being superimposed over a
music video, and the Genlocked result was being shown on both a standard
TV _and_ the SC1224 (how do they do that?). Ready to tackle the Amiga?
* Neocept, makers of FONTZ! and WORDUP (a great word processor -- an
unsolicited endorsement) were present. Nothing major was presented,
although the new version of WordUp, with numerous minor bug fixes,
is expected to ship in two weeks. Registered owners will recieve a card
in the mail about the upgrade procedure. Neocept also says they'll gladly
take user input for improvements for their products -- Just drop them a
line.
* Animation buffs like myself will be happy to hear that FILM DIRECTOR is
finally being released. Epyx has gotten the rights to this two-year-old
cel-based animation program, and it has been SUBSTANTIALLY improved
(16 screens for cels, runs in 512K, better user interface, etc.).
It should be out in October, and the $50 price tag gets you both FILM
DIRECTOR and ART DIRECTOR -- A bargain! Maurice Molyneaux (a fun guy to
chat with, a real professional artist) had a lot of input into the final
user interface, and it shows. I can't wait.
* Megamax was also showing their soon-to-be-released Laser DB. It's a source
level debugger for Laser C, and offers lots of features -- Source-code
trace viewing, register value displays, breakpoints, multiple windows.
If you liked Laser C, you'll want this.
* Codehead software was also demonstrating G+PLUS (I won't say anything about
this, everybody and his cousin knows about it by now) and a new product
called MULTIDESK. MDesk allows you to have 16 accessories of your
choice in ONE menu slot. Even better, you can clear out and load NEW
accessories at any time! You can also change the name MultiDesk registers
itself on the menu, so you can have six copies of Multidesk -- each one
with 16 different accessories -- for a mind-numbing total of 96 accessories
avaliable simultaneously. Future products promised include FatBack ("A
unique hard disk backup system") and CodeHead Utilities (A collection of
programs and accessories).
* ICD was present and selling their cartridge-based SPARTADOS X. My friend
bought a copy ($80, on a piggyback cartridge), and it appears to work
just fine. Improvements include 1000+ files per directory, faster disk
access, and built-in ARC/ALFCRUNCH support. The manual is still a
preliminary copy, however, but ICD promises to send out the finals
to registed owners when they become available. They also showed their
FA-ST hard drive, available for 8-bit or ST hookup.
* Regent Software was selling copies of REGENT WORD II for the jaw-dropping
price of $15 each -- Not $15 off, $15 EACH.
* Broderbund, surprisingly, was present. They were showing their new _Typhoon
Thompson_ game for the ST (known on the Apple // as _Airheart_), as well
as _Star Wars_ (imported from Europe; Broderbund is distributing). A
version of _Karateka_ for the ST is promised, and "maybe" _Print Shop_,
but little else. (The dealer was frank in why there was less Atari
support -- "Our biggest market is the //gs"). No word on 8-bit support.
* And now, the word from Atari. Conspicuous by their absence, none of the
Tramiel family showed up. Instead, we were treated to Sig Hartman, who
promised us that "[1989] will be a critical point for Atari in the US
market". He also apologized for the lack of more ST's in America ("We
had a limited number of Ataris, and we decided to put them in West
Germany -- If we didn't, there would have been a hole for the Amiga or
the Macintosh to get in"), and pledged closed attention to the end users,
through user groups and public information services. Sig refused to
"officially" confirm/deny the existence of the Atari Transputer, the
68020/68030 workstation/machines, or anything else -- except by saying
"We're working on 7 or 8 products right now, and I can't say what they
are." He did promise that 520/1040 owners will be able to get TOS and
blitter upgrades, and that he will personally try to get more companies
to produce 8-bit titles.
In a related vein, Federated promised the increased development of
"compu-centers" in all their stores, and the possibility of offering
in-store servicing for Atari products. They are also supposedly toying
with the idea of carrying hardware accessories (boards, wiring, etc.)
in the centers.
* Pledged to appear -- but never did -- were Data Pacific and Antic. Dealers
who did appear, but didn't produce anything major, included Astra systems,
Michtron, Migraph, and Seymour-Radix. Bill Skurski Enterprises was
present, peddling copies of his "New User's Guide to the Atari ST" (book
and videotape), as well as Best Electronics, Logical Choice for Computing,
Mid-Cities Comp/Soft, and Comsoft.
Special thanks to John King Tarpinian, the local user groups, ACENET, and
everybody else for makign the whole thing possible.
--R.J.
B-)
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