bruce@ektools.UUCP (Bruce D. Nelson ) (04/27/87)
Following is a review I wrote for the ACORN KERNAL, our user group
newsletter, about the Great lakes Atari Expo held this weekend in
Buffalo.
--
It wasn't the CES, or COMDEX, or even the Allentown Atarifest,
but it was the first major Atari show to be held in
western New York State. The Great Lakes Atari Expo at Buffalo
was held April 25-26 at the Buffalo Convention center.
After my kids collected the requisite balloons, etc. and talked
with COSMO, the Robot, at the entrance, the largest thing I saw
was the Atari tent I've heard about. And the first thing I saw
in the tent was the long awaited Atari Laser Printer hooked to a
1040ST. Art Morgan of Atari was demonstrating it using 1st
Word. He said that it will work on a 520ST in Diablo 630
emulation mode, and on a 2 meg Mega-ST for full bit-image
graphics. It will cost as previously announced, and will be
available this Summer (although I heard as early as May from
other people). According to Neil Harris, this was the first
public showing of the laser printer in its final configuration.
Landon Dyer from Atari was showing two 1040 ST's, one with a
blitter chip, and one without, both showing the flying bird
demo. I thought the demo was really nice without the blitter.
But with the blitter, the demo was smoother and noticeably
faster. Landon said that the blitter will also be available
this Summer in the Mega-ST's and in the late Fall for
retro-fitting to current ST's.
He also said there will be some, but not all bug fixes in the
blitter roms. The underscore bug is fixed in ROM, but the
40-folder problem is not in ROM. It is fixed by a (pick one:
officially to be released, unofficially already released) patch
called FOLDRXXX.PRG.
One interesting thing were the PS3000 color monitors with the
built-in disk drives which were being used by the Atari people.
Evidently, they started to be produced, but never made it to
market. I heard more than one visitor ask where they could be
bought.
Also being displayed was the XEP80 adaptor for the 8-bit line.
It plugs into the joystick port and provides full 80 column text
in black and white on a color or black and white monitor. A
driver program is loaded from an AUTOEXEC file to enable the
device or without the 80 column mode being enabled.
Easily the loudest and best sounding booth was Bob Collister's
Wind Chimes Music midi demo. Bob's Bose speakers were pumping
out some of the best computer generated music ever heard. And
for those people who wanted to remember the experience, he was
selling cassettes of some of his works, including the ACORN ST
theme.
Nearby was a long table full of ST's where lines of people were
waiting to play Xanth's Midi Maze game, where several ST's are
connected via the Midi bus to interactively search out the other
players.
Microware Distributing from Albany, who are Atari's official
distributers (that means they're the guys our dealers buy from)
for our area had an assortment of various synthesizers on
display and were marketing the musical capabilities of ST
systems.
Royal Software of Eugene, Oregon was introducing their new war
strategy game, Great Battles 1789-1865. They were also showing
their other programs such as EZ Calc, EZ Data, and Payroll
Master.
John DeMar, Bob Dolan, and Clint Parker were at the QMI booth
showing the finished versions of DeskCart, the multi-function
desk accessory in a plug-in cartridge, and Do-It!, a command
line interpreter. Clint was also answering questions on the side
about ACTION!, his 8-bit language and talking about his future
projects.
Astra Systems was showing their complete line of disk drives,
such as the Double-D, two true double side double density drive
in a single case for the 8-bits, or the System HD+, which is
20.8 megabyte hard drive and a double side 3.5 inch floppy in
the same box.
Atari Explorer Magazine was there with a display of issues all
the way from the Warner Atari days to the present. The magazine
is owned by Atari Corp., with David Ahl and Betsy Staples (from
the now defunct Creative Computing) publishing it.
Charlie Bachand of ANALOG COMPUTING was selling copies of the
current ANALOG and ST-LOG magazines and the new 8-bit Extra.
Looking Glass Software of Waterloo, Ontario was showing its
ALICE Pascal, an easy-to-use, easy-to-understand version of
Pascal which makes it easy, even for a beginner, to start
programming. Among its many features, it helps the user input
programs by providing templates of Pascal statements to be
filled in, helping to eliminate syntax problems. It fully
supports GEM applications.
Desktop Publishing was represented by two of the major players,
Migraph, with Easy Draw, and Progressive Computer Applications
with Graphic Artist. Both programs were very impressive.
Alpha Systems was displaying their computer graphics products
such as ComputerEyes, Magniprint, and Power Print. They had a
huge poster of Winston Churchill produced by Power Print.
Michtron was showing its complete line of ST programs including
their newest, Match Point, Karate Kid II, and the new GFA
Basic.
Logic Ware was presenting its Prolog artificial intelligence
systems which have previously been available for mainframes and
IBM PC systems, and are now available for the ST.
ICD had a display of its 8-bit products including the US
Doubler, the P:R: Connection, Multi-I/O, the 80 Column Adaptor,
R-Time 8, and SpartaDos.
The Computer Service Group, a Buffalo based computer repair and
supply company, had a demonstration of Tom Hudson's CAD 3-D
System and Stereotek 3-D Glasses.
Several hardware and software dealers were at the show. Best
Electronics was selling hard-to-find repair parts. Cal Com, Inc.
and the Buffalo Computer Center were selling hardware and
software items.
Wizztronics was showing their Midi Max interface for the 8-bit
line.
Several user's groups were displaying their newsletters, disk
libraries, and trading discussions about common problems and
concerns. Some of the groups were exchanging the best of their
public domain libraries. Among the groups represented were the
Genesee Atari Group from Michigan, the Michigan Atari General
Information Conference, Atari Computer Owners of Rochester, NY,
Toronto Atari Federation, Spectrum Atari Group of Erie, and the
host group, the Western New York Atari User's Group.
I was disappointed that some of the big players in the Atari
world didn't show up, like David Small with the Magic Sac, or
Bill Wilkinson from OSS. But I was happy to be able to chat
with Neil Harris, Landon Dyer, and Art Morgan from Atari Corp.,
Charles Bachand and Lee Pappas of ANALOG Magazine, and Bob
Retelle, SIGOP of the Atari SIG on GEnie.
I noticed that there was almost no support for the 8-bit lines
except for ICD, Wizztronics, Best Electronics, and Astra. The
user group booths did a booming business in 8-bit public domain
software, and many 8-bit questions were being answered by user
group members.
--
Bruce D. Nelson, Sr. Appl. Analyst: Software Maint., Tech. Support Svcs.
EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY, 901 Elmgrove Rd., Rochester, NY 14650, (716)726-7890
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