neil@atari.UUcp (Neil Harris) (11/18/86)
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COMDEX SHOW REPORT by Neil Harris
It was easy to visit all the stations within the Atari booth -- if you
are a fullback. The Atari booth was jam packed. One measure of the show's
success: I have the biggest stack of business cards I ever got at a show.
Why was the Atari booth so crowded? It is not so easy to answer this
question, even after so many people in other booths asked it. (True story:
three folks with shiny golden IBM badges came to the Atari information
counter and asked us to send over some people! You could park a truck in
IBM's booth.) My theory is that we were the only one with something
_different_. All alone in a sea of clones...
The award for the most unique exhibit goes to the Video Touch people.
They displayed a system using a touch-screen that replaced a cash register
for restaurants. It made nice use of ST color graphics to display the
different menu items. The final order receipt was printed on a teensy
little printer. This looks like a solid commercial application -- the local
McDonald's franchisees were reportedly _very_ interested.
Altogether there were more than 50 developers sharing 36 stations
within the booth (some folks had to share space on a morning/afternoon
basis). The theme at the booth was "Atari Means Business." We were there
to show the industry that the ST computers are powerful systems with all
sorts of professional applications. Desktop publishing was a buzzword on
the show floor and good programs for it were in abundance for the ST. CAD
was another big area, along with development tools and personal
productivity.
The major planned attraction at the booth was the center aisle, which
held 12 companies. Each setup had a 1040ST, a hard drive, and a laser
printer. The printers were loaned to the booth by QMS, Hewlett Packard,
Canon, and others. The software on display included desktop publishing,
CAD, and graphics. Two WYSIWYG publishing packages, Publishing Partner from
Softlogik and Fleet Street Editor from Mirrorsoft (a U.K. company),
attracted quite a bit of attention from industry experts. Also showing was
the new Typesetter Elite from XLent and the command-driven LaserType from
Softlab.
The folks from Progressive Computer Applications had their Graphic
Artist program working with a _huge_ Houston Instruments plotter, creating
all kinds of architectural designs, page layouts, and pictures.
In the CAD area, Foresight Resources had a very nice package called
Drafix I. This program was ported from the PC-compatibles. According to
Foresight, it runs as fast on an ST as it does on an IBM PC-AT running at 8
mHz with math coprocessor! Generic Software's First CADD was also a popular
exhibit, as was Abacus Software's PC Board Designer.
Video Digitizers also showed up in force. Digital Vision finally
unveiled their ComputerEyes color digitizer, which has software to control
the contrast, brightness, and color mix. Michtron's booth had the digitizer
from Printechnik (an Austrian company), and Hippo had their's as well.
Color graphic programs were shown by Aegis (the ST version of Aegis
Animator), Batteries Included (DEGAS Elite, shown by its author, Tom
Hudson), and Antic (with CAD 3-D using their forthcoming 3-D liquid-crystal
goggles).
The outside corner of the booth showcased MIDI applications and was
shared by 4 software vendors: Hybrid Arts, Electronic Music Publishing, Beam
Team, and MidiSoft.
The lighter side of ST computing was displayed by Activision,
Electronic Arts, Michtron, and FTL Systems. In particular, this was a first
for EA, which now has a dozen ST titles in the works for release in the next
few months. They were demonstrating Skyfox and Chessmaster 2000. England's
Eidersoft were showing another kind of 3-D with their games, using red and
blue lenses -- not as high tech as Antic's, to be sure.
Productivity applications were shown by TimeWorks (Swiftcalc and
WordWriter), Abacus (PowerPlan, TextPro, and DataTrieve), Quickview
(Zoomracks II), Maxthink, and Royal Software (EZ Calc). Royal is adding a
new desk accessory to EZ Calc which opens a separate window for graphs --
drag the numbers from the spreadsheet and they are automatically graphed in
a different window. Very slick. Infocom was also there, showing a pre-
release version of Cornerstone for the ST. They were "testing the waters"
to see if this program was wanted by dealers -- the reaction seemed very
strong.
Program development was represented by Mark Williams (MWC), Metacomco
(Lattice C, Cambridge Lisp, Macro Assembler, MCC Pascal, BCPL), Computer
Tools International (the IDRIS operating system, with the Whitesmith
compilers), and Beckemeyer Development (MT C shell).
Educational software was displayed by First Byte (four programs in the
new SmoothTalker series featuring speech synthesis), Unicorn Software, and
by Atari Corporation, which has licensed programs from Arrakis.
Speaking of Atari, we were showing the SX212 modem, Microsoft Write,
the VT100 emulator, and the 1.0 version of NEOchrome, as well as a 1040ST
with the "blitter" chip. There were many rumors of new hardware products
that had been expected at the show, and there was some speculation that some
of these were in fact shown off in the hotel suites of Atari executives.
These rumors are neither confirmed nor denied. <grin>
In all, the software shown at the booth demonstrates that programmers
are learning to make full use of the ST's speed and graphics. The
professional applications stood up well next to their more expensive cousins
running on PC clones and other systems throughout the show.
Just for fun, the folks at Xanth brought along their new game Kill a
Happy Face. At 5:00 on Thursday afternoon, they hooked up a cluster of 6
ST's with MIDI cables for an all-star shootout. This game is similar to the
Maze War game on the Mac, with smoother animation and full color. Players
see the maze from their own perspectives, with other players appearing as
brightly colored "happy faces". If you see their faces, they can see you
too; otherwise you're looking at their backs. Three hits on a face kills
it, and ten kills wins the game. A great party game. I even won once, as
did Tom Hudson and one of the DUST user group members.
No show report is complete with just a list of products. The many
personalities in the ST world are what really makes these shows special.
Gary Yost of Antic spent most of his time earning his title of "Mister
Enthusiasm" while showing the 3-D animation in the center of the booth.
Gerry Humphrey of Haba added to his legend as a flake by wearing his famous
moose-horn hat to the booth as well as the parties. Tom Hudson, when not
being a DEGAS virtuoso, managed to play Tempest in an arcade for an hour on
a single quarter. Jeremy Berger of NYACE, who was showing a 1040ST-to-
composite-video adapter, proved that a 16-year old _could_ gamble in Las
Vegas. Scorpio Systems earned the nickname of "Bimbosoft" by their
promotion of a craps-tutorial program, featuring a young lady who could
serve as a good source of shade on a sunny day.
Another great show for Atari. Next stop: the Consumer Electronics Show
(CES), just after New Years, back in Las Vegas.
--
--->Neil @ Atari
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