delaneyg@wnre.aecl.ca (Grant Delaney) (06/27/90)
The 1990 Arizona AppleFiesta was held June 15-17, 1990 at the Sheraton Mission
Palms in Tempe, and the following is a slightly edited compilation of live
reports filed online on the MAUG Apple II Forums on the CompuServe Information
Service. MAUGers Ray Merlin and Dave Gair were present for much of the report's
writing, and contributed various things here and there.
The Fiesta is an annual event sponsored by the AzApple/Mac User Group in
Phoenix, a highly active combined Apple II and Macintosh user group. Jerry
Cline (now the publisher of ProTerm) is AzApple's motivating force for
organizing and putting on the show, and he was evident throughout the Fiesta,
generally rushing about trying to take care the latest minor emergency.
Billed as a "regional user group symposium," the Fiesta is nonetheless a
national-class show for all Apple computer users. Where the larger trade shows
like AppleFest, MacWorld and the like tend to focus on products and dealers,
the Fiesta concentrates on users. That's an oversimplification, but that's the
general feeling of this show.
Permission is freely granted for unlimited distribution of this report on
BBS's, commercial online services, user group newsletters, or what have you. I
request you give appropriate credit (you DON'T have to repeat all of this stuff
in print), and if you newsletter editors have to edit it down for space (and
you'll probably have to!) that you please mark your article "Edited from..."
Also, I'd be grateful for a copy of the newsletter when it comes out. Send to:
Joe Walters
118 Calle Olas Altos NE
Albuquerque, NM 87109
Thanks! Enjoy the report. We start with the first day of the Fiesta.
-Joe Walters
************************************************************************
DAY ONE - FRIDAY, 15 JUN 1990
Greetings from beautiful-- but HOT-- Phoenix, Arizona! Well, actually, we're in
Tempe, but that's pretty much the same thing.
The first day of the 1990 AppleFiesta was an eye-opener, and a great time was
had by all!
Keep in mind as you read this that items in quotes are taken mostly from
memory, and are NOT to be considered verbatim or authoritative.
Before actually entering the show area, MAUG members Dave Gair, Ray Merlin and
I met in the hotel lobby and engaged in general conversation. Interestingly, a
few passersby of note came by to join in the conversation.
A high point of this get-together was the arrival of Paul Statt, who talked
with Dave about APA, the AppleWorks Programmers Association, which Dave
coordinates. In the course of the discussion, the subject of online services
came up. Paul allowed as to how he particularly liked America Online, as he
found it easiest to use. Dave had to respond! With the fire in him, he rose up
as in a mighty wrath and proceeded to expound upon the virtues of
archivability, automated sessions, offline message processing, and the like. It
was positively evangelical, something to see!
Dennis Doms stopped by and talked a while. He said that Tom Weishaar was not at
the show as he is attending an international computer conference in Moscow.
Dennis talked about a project involving trying to develop some drivers for H-P
laser printers, laserdiscs, and the like. He has some interesting ideas and
insight into the state of Apple marketing, particularly concerning the Apple
II. As he put it, how many schools do you think went out and bought full-blown
$10,000 Mac IIcx systems after seeing that ad about kindergarten kids using one
to manipulate the Mona Lisa scans?
He talked about the hopeful atmosphere developing around the Apple II
community, specifically the advent of Apple II people in high places at Apple
and Claris and the like, as well as the good words we've been hearing. However,
he added, "we've heard it before."
Dave Gair, who had stepped into the dealer area the day before to look around,
remarked that "It looks just like an AppleFest: Claris isn't there!"
Eventually we headed over to the registration area, where we were pleasantly
surprised to find our name tags ready and waiting. The tags are colorful,
professionally printed, and they look great - as opposed to last year's, which
looked really ratty and were poorly made.
This year they even added AppleFest-type ribbons for speakers, exhibitors and
the like. Couldn't get one - they have better security than the AppleFest!
The first booth we saw upon entering the show floor was the Hewlett-Packard
booth. They are showing several models of their laser printers along with a
really nice, quiet color PaintJet printer. I asked if these machines would work
with my Apple II, and got scornful looks dripping with contempt. "No, they
don't, but we hear that somebody is working on one." Apparently, I wasn't the
only one to ask that question, as I heard late in the day that they were
answering the question with an exasperated "We're looking into it." Great!
At Barney Stone's booth, DB Master was being shown, as well as some items for
sale. He has four of the new 20-meg CDrives from Ingenuity Inc, for about $475
each.
This drive was also being shown at Ingenuity's own booth. In addition, they
were talking about a high-readability LCD screen under development for the //c.
They see a desire for a portable Apple II, and with an internal hard disk and
usable LCD screen, they'll basically be there.
They were also showing (but not operating) a prototype of a Fax modem for the
Apple II line under development (new project, no projected date or price yet).
It was attached to a Fax machine, so maybe they are planning some demos. They
were also showing there pre-release VCR tape backup system.
There's no booth for Checkmate here, even though they are listed in the
pre-show literature as exhibitors. There is a general impression that Checkmate
is dead; I haven't got any direct confirmation of this, but am looking for the
answer. Jerry Cline, who along with Greg Schaefer is now handling former
Checkmate product ProTerm under their InSync label, even said no more than that
they were "apparently" no longer with us.
The Big Red Computer Club booth has been empty so far, but they may be here for
the latter part of the show.
Learning Services and Educational Resources have their usual large dealer
booths here, and are doing fairly brisk business. Computers Plus is also moving
some product, but have a general look of not being completely set up yet. A
local dealer called AzTech Computer is also set up and moving merchandise.
Beagle Bros has a booth here, and Marc deJong along with a few others are
showing some of their products. They brought two Macs to show off their Flash
product, but had trouble getting one of them to work, which of course renders
the product completely useless! Fortunately, they got a replacement Mac around
midday so they were able to demo the package.
Applied Engineering has a booth here with two reps. David Hardaway and Jeff
Costello were busily answering questions and demonstrating various AE items.
Interestingly, they brought two GSs along, and NOT ONE MAC.
The AE 3.5" drive is available at some of the dealer booths, and AE was
demonstrating it. David Hardaway showed me how it works; it has an LED that
flashes green during Read operations and red during Writes. Very pretty. David
also told me that it's a 1.44 meg FDHD drive mechanism functioning as an 800K
drive; with an apparently user-installable chip change and GS driver software
(expected in about a month), it becomes a full FDHD drive. Looks like a winner.
Across from AE is a local dealer's booth with the nifty name of AzTech
Computers. They were selling a no-name oriental-produced DMA-compatible GS
memory board. This board is expandable to 4 megs with 1 meg DRAMS, and they're
selling it (empty) for $49. I bought one, and will check it out when I get home
and acquire some chips. I tried to get away with the thing before the AE guys
saw me buy it, but I got caught. David Hardaway asked what was in the box, so I
showed him. Jeff Costello asked David, "Is that one of ours?" "No, it's an
X-brand." "I mean, is it a knockoff of one of ours?" "No, it's a knockoff of
the AI board." Good recognition capability!
Okay, ready? Here it comes.
Zip Technology is here. More specifically, Tony Vece is manning a booth. There
is a //e set up with an 8-MHz Zip Chip in it, and he has Zips for sale at the
booth (they are also available at some of the dealers). He also has a GS set up
with the cover off so you can actually see the prototype Zip GS plainly.
I quietly observed a demo he was giving to a lady who was at the booth when I
arrived. The thing seemed to be working well, insofar as I could tell. He
loaded a complex AppleWorks spreadsheet file and did a recalculate at "normal"
GS speed. It took about 15 seconds. He turned the Zip GS up to full speed and
recalculated again, taking about three seconds. Now I don't know anything about
the particular spreadsheet he loaded up there, but don't most spreadsheets
recalculate faster immediately after a previous recalculation? Well, it would
take a pretty unscrupulous company to carry on such a misleading demo.
The CDA he used to reset the speed on the Zip GS looked pretty sharp, with a
slider thing to set the percentage of the Zip's full speed. Vece said there's
also a CDEV, and NDA and a runable program that can do the same, so you have
your choice of access methods.
The Zip is a board in a slot with a ribbon cable leading to a connector that
replaces the GS's 65816, just like the TransWarp GS. The board being shown is
an obvious prototype, with lots of wrapped wire particularly on the back of the
card. Vece told the lady that "since this is a prototype, it only runs at 6.4
MHz, but the final version will run at 8." She asked, "When will you ship it?"
All together now: "Within a month." That's verbatim.
That's right, they're going to go from a wire-wrapped prototype at 6.4 MHz to
an 8 MHz production card moving out the door in thirty days. Place your bets!
California Freeware is here, offering a lot of public domain disks. These range
from old Apple II DOS 3.3 disks to 3.5" Apple IIgs disks to Mac disks.
Don and Bee Lancaster are here, actively conversing with attendees and selling
his various books and related products. He's one of the big attractions of this
show, as it's the only show he goes to and he's very accessible here. He's
doing no less than four seminars at this show, and we attended one today. More
about that later!
The Bitstream folks are here, showing their Macintosh postscript fonts.
Broderbund has a booth with a GS and a Mac. This is a fairly active booth, with
lots of attendees stopping by to check out the latest games.
The WordPerfect booth contains only Macs, and is generating some interest among
the Mac users.
There's a booth labeled "Youth in Motion," and they're showing the motorized
computer-controlled logo setup we've seen at other shows.
Chinook is here, showing various of their drives. They are running some decent
show specials.
Vitesse has a booth, and is running continuous demos of their Quickie hand
scanner. There were enough people around it that I haven't taken a close look
yet, but the images they're showing look much better than some of the earlier
scans we've seen sampled. Gray scaling instead of line art.
Dave saw a demo of a full-page scanner they're developing, and was real
impressed with its speed and function. They're aiming for it to cost around
$800.
Right in the middle of the exhibit floor is the Apple booth. Barney Stone said
that on Thursday he had seen it and was angered that the booth contained a
Macintosh IIci with a LaserWriter attached, a Macintosh Portable, two stacks of
Macintosh literature, and not one item related in any way to the Apple II. He
went over to ask one of the Apple reps where their Apple II items were, and got
only a contemptful glare in response. He then got on the phone to Nancy Stark
at Apple, who was surprised at the news. Barney suggested that she at least
Fedex some Apple II literature out there so that there would be something for
the II users. Somehow, around noon Friday, a IIgs mysteriously appeared in the
Apple booth, where it still remains and commands more attendee attention and
interest than the Macs at the booth.
Not far from the Apple booth is the green kiosk thing we've seen at previous
AppleFests. This is from Roger Wagner, and contains a GS running HyperStudio
with a special stack that not only demos the program but also gives info and
guidance concerning the show.
But wait! What light through yonder text window breaks? It is the east, and
Roger's wearing a tie! Must be time for...
THE ROGER WAGNER TIE REPORT!
Today's tie would inspire Bart Simpson to say, "Don't have a cow, man!"
For Roger has cows. This is the famous Cow Tie, seen once before. Similar to,
but not as disgusting as, the dreaded Pig Tie, this tie is a pleasant reddish
color with several large black and white cows adorning the garment, contentedly
looking outward at the observer.
Ray Merlin commented, "That tie's a lot of bull."
I presume that it was this tie that inspired Jerry Cline, when introducing
Roger at an evening event, to say, "...and I don't care what anyone says, I
like Roger's ties!"
Out in front of the show floor were the registration tables. They were selling
club memberships and some terrific looking AppleFiesta T-shirts.
The AzApple public domain libraries were on display and selling disks. Separate
tables housed the Mac and Apple II selections. They have a pretty sizable set
of libraries, and seemed to be moving a few disks, especially in the Apple II
area.
We attended two seminars today. These are actually held in separate rooms, and
ice water is supplied in all the rooms for attendees as well as speakers.
The first session we attended was Don Lancaster's presentation on The
Incredible Secret Money Machine, his book on running your own small business.
Strangely, this was in a fairly small room that wasn't set up for a lecture but
was instead furnished with a long table with chairs around it. Fortunately it
worked out, as only about 15 people came to this session. This made for a more
intimate than usual atmosphere, and people in the session found it easy to talk
to the host.
Lancaster is a personable and interesting speaker. He tends to involve his
audiences a lot, and there was a lot of group participation in this one. It
turned into more of a discussion than a seminar or lecture. Lancaster managed
to involve everyone in the room in the discussions this time around, and
everyone had a good time. Dave Gair really got into it, as his APA operation
closely parallels many of the concepts in the book.
Some of the questions and comments brought up involved self-publishing and
publishing on demand, and Lancaster touched on these subjects briefly,
mentioning that some of his later seminars will cover those topics
specifically.
Roger Wagner had a two-hour session devoted to demonstrating HyperStudio. He
had everything set up and discovered that his large-screen projector system
wasn't working due to a burned-out bulb. So it goes! He ended up doing the
entire demo from the GS screen, but as it happened, most folks had a good
enough vantage point that they could keep up with what was going on.
He had a new stack specially designed to facilitate his presentation;
previously, he had loaded different stacks to show certain features or
capabilities. Now the stack leads him from point to point, covering desired
items in a somewhat structured order. This of course does not interfere with
the "sidebars" that come up now and then during Roger's presentations!
Many people present had never seen HyperStudio really unleashed, operating
videodiscs, compact audiodiscs, and the like. Roger is one of the more
fascinating speakers to be found at one of these shows, and is well at ease in
front of a crowd.
During the question/answer period at the end, a lady said she uses HyperStudio
in her work, educating handicapped students. She made a plea for designers of
stacks that might be used by handicapped users to design larger buttons than
she's been seeing to date; the smaller buttons are harder to actuate for some
individuals. An interesting and reasonable request.
Roger at one point said that he expects that the VCR will become a major
peripheral for home computers as Hypermedia becomes more pervasive. As a
printer is used to record the results of a word processor or page layout
program, a videotape can record the results of a HyperStudio stack. A session
can be thus recorded and mailed to anyone who wants to see it, regardless of
whether he or she has a computer. A VCR will display the tape and show what the
stack does, how it works, and what it sounds like. As he put it, "you can
record your stack in operation on a videotape, and mail it to Grandma."
Roger described HyperStudio as, among other things, a "catalyst" that brings
together other existing peripherals and uses them in ways their designers did
not necessarily expect. Where else do you see touch screens and videodiscs
working together? And so on.
While attempting to describe the relationship of memory requirements to the
size of sounds and video graphics involved in a stack, Roger described what he
called "Wagner's Paradox:"
1) Everything complex can be broken down into simple elements;
2) Nothing is as simple as it seems.
The presentation was well received despite the lack of the large display. Roger
said he'll be basically repeating the session Sunday, with an intervening
"advanced" HyperStudio session Saturday.
Wandering about the show, Ray, Dave and I ran into a woman who looks incredibly
like MAUG member Merry Perry. Every time we see her we do double takes. It's
uncanny! Strangely, shortly after we saw her, we saw someone who looked like
Michael Fischer. At that signpost up ahead, your next stop: The MAUG Zone!
At the end of the day, I was accosted by a couple on the elevator. They saw the
word MAUG on my name tag, and jumped all over me. "We are disappointed in your
group's lack of participation here!" "We contacted you and tried to get some
support, and got nothing!" "We're sure let down by your lack of interest in our
show." I asked if they had the right group in mind, and the lady said, "Oh,
yes. The Macintosh Apple Users Group." I straightened her out as politely as I
could. Turned out they were thinking of some outfit called AMUG, which
apparently annoyed them somehow. AMUG does have a booth here.
During the day, some signs appeared touting a previously-unscheduled event: An
impromptu evening keynote address by Jim Merritt, an Apple II Product Manager
in their engineering division, to be held at 6:30.
Well, at 6:50, Jerry Cline stepped up and said he didn't know what happened to
Merritt, but he wasn't present. For a time it seemed as though the show would
be completely without Merritt, but that changed later. But not quickly enough
to save you from that cheap pun, I'm sorry to say.
Turns out there was a misunderstanding concerning Merritt's arrival time at
Phoenix, and he did make it about an hour later, arriving to find to his
surprise he was scheduled for an appearance an hour before...
Meanwhile, thinking fast, Cline organized a no-notice seminar featuring, at
first, the present members of the Apple II Developers Association.
With no time to prepare, these people nonetheless created an interesting and
enjoyable talk. At least, no one left!
Barney Stone stepped up to the mike first, and talked about the formation of
the Association and discussed how they mainly served as a lobby group intended
to keep Apple informed of the needs and wants (and gripes!) of Apple II
developers.
He talked about the meetings the Association has had with Apple officials, and
discussed the different feelings that came from them. At one point, he was
given to feel that with the appearance of the mythical low-end Macintosh, the
end of the Apple II would be nigh. "After all, why would anyone want to buy an
Apple II at that point?" At a later meeting, he said, the "winds of change"
were readily apparent, with Apple management clearly taking a new look at the
Apple II and their situation with respect to the low end. The recent
appointment of Ralph Russo as head of the entire Apple II operation is a major
development, with Russo in charge of hardware, software and marketing for the
line. His job, as Barney put it, is to "re-invigorate the Apple II." He
reiterated the point he made in his II at Work article, that Russo has
repeatedly stated that he didn't take the job to "sit around and do nothing."
Where his feeling had been very negative before, Barney said his current
feeling about the Apple II is "strong cautious optimism."
He also said he has been informed that advertising and marketing the Apple II
is a "top priority" for the 4th quarter of the fiscal year.
Barney also mentioned that he had called Russo when he began hearing rumors a
few weeks back that Steve Wozniak was back at work on the Apple II at Apple.
Russo, being still new to the job, answered the question, "Gee, I don't know!"
Roger Wagner got up next and talked about the stories we've been hearing about
the "low cost Mac." He asked us to use some common sense and try to find a way
that a color Macintosh that runs Apple II software could conceivably be sold
for under $1000 when the current color Macs all run well over $5000 now. He
mentioned that one concept he had heard discussed involved a third party
company (such as maybe Laser) that might build an Apple II emulator card for
the existing Macs, and speculated that this might result in an interesting
headline at product announcement time: "Apple Computers Now Run Apple
Software."
Roger and Barney both mentioned that they were tired of hearing that the Apple
II is ten-year-old technology; it's not, it's just the name that's ten years
old. By that reckoning, the IBM is using 100-year-old technology. Roger pointed
out that the GS is still doing things the Mac does not.
Ray Heizer of Heizer software got up next, and said it was a little difficult
for a Mac software developer to follow 45 minutes of Apple II discussion. Then
he asked how many present had heard of Heizer Software. When only a few hands
were raised, he said, "Good. Then there's still some marketing to be done."
Heizer talked about how his company keeps production and distribution costs
down so that they can deliver packages to retail for about $20, and still pay
the programmer 45-50% of that amount.
He said he was with us on the Apple II situation, that he had started out on an
Apple //e himself, so his roots were in the Apple II as well as in the User
Group.
He said his first piece of software appeared on a user group Disk of the Month
in 1983 or so, and he's still waiting for the first shareware check to come in.
Sometime later, the Mac appeared, and he managed to get a little space at the
User Group table at the first MacWorld, where he sold about forty software
packages at $40 each. Returning home $1600 richer, he found himself in
business.
After Heizer sat down, Jerry Cline got back up and started looking for some
more folks to speak. Imagine my surprise when he asked me to go up to the mike
and talk about CompuServe!
Well, okay, actually, it didn't quite happen that way. He looked in my general
direction, and out of the blue said, "Anything new happening on CompuServe?" By
the time I realized he was talking to me and started to open my mouth, he had
moved to Dennis Doms to ask about GEnie. Roger, Dave & Ray had a few moments to
give me a hard time about that, and they were thorough, let me tell you!
Then he came back to me to ask if I'd like to come up and say a few words. So I
did!
I babbled randomly about what MAUG and similar online groups are all about, and
how convenient and useful it is to have a user group available at a moment's
notice all day every day. Asked about news, I mentioned the recent influx of
European users and the new viewpoints they are bringing, as well as the
resultant presence of some of the programmers of the particularly exciting IIgs
software we've been seeing coming out of France and Spain of late.
After a little more of this, I sat down, and Dennis Doms talked a bit about the
upcoming A2-Central Summerfest. He said they've been told to expect some folks
from Apple, but they don't know exactly who yet. Apparently, several Developer
folks want to attend, and they haven't yet decided who will and who won't. He
also said they expect to see some growth over last year's conference, and
reminded everyone that the discount price offer has expired, and that the cost
of the show effectively went up $50 on the first of June. There was some
speculation that they might get Ralph Russo himself to attend.
It was about at this point that Jim Merritt walked in!
Merritt introduced himself, and discussed the "new committed Apple II
organization at Apple." He mentioned that he primarily works with
"Applications, utilities, and developer environments- The Finder, Control
Panel, Installer, and Human Interface elements of the GS."
He started off by reminding us that he can't comment on unannounced products or
give any details about "what's coming down the line," but said he could and
would talk about the directions they're moving the Apple II.
As an example, Merritt acknowledged Roger Wagner's expertise in multimedia, and
said that was a direction they wanted to take the Apple II.
As for development environments, he said he wants the user "to be able to
create great Apple II software," citing planned (but not specific) improvements
to APW and MPW cross-development systems.
He did tend to speak of nonspecifics, often in uninformative terms. For
example, he waxed enthusiastic over "Universal Access - a thing which enhances
interaction with the environment." Okay...
He also mentioned some ongoing development of special tools to assist the
handicapped users, and gave some details of some things we've already seen in
this regard.
Merritt did state that "we are looking into new Apple II systems and hardware."
Mentioning recent releases such as the Video Overlay Card and the DMA SCSI
card, he said, "we're not stopping there."
Pressed specifically for clarification as to whether "new systems" referred to
CPUs, he answered, "we're always looking into new CPUs." But he would not get
more specific than that.
Jerry Cline asked what could be done to try to bring back some of the major
developers who have abandoned the Apple II. Merritt went on for quite a while
on marketing concepts ("What products to seek and develop, that will interest
the end users") and did admit that "Apple has a lot to learn" about marketing
its products.
Barney Stone suggested that one thing that would be helpful in luring some old
and new developers to the Apple II would be to drop the $700+ Apple Partner
fee. This generated a lot of applause, and Merritt was sympathetic. He said
this point had been raised from inside many times. He said he felt the "big
guns" aren't the ones who will be coming out with the hot, new exciting
packages; it's the two guys in a garage who will produce many of the
innovations, and recognized that the high cost of becoming a developer will
discourage many if not most of these.
Dave Gair pointed out that using the fee as a qualifier for developer status
results in many people simply sending the $700 fee in for the purpose of
getting the low developer prices, effectively "pirating hardware," purchasing
enough to more than offset the $700. Perhaps other criteria than money could be
used to define developers? Merritt responded with general agreement, but
pointed out that there are now so many developers that it's hard to do more
than administrate the fee, that Apple can't realistically go out and visit all
the developers to ensure that they are all developing and shipping their
claimed products.
Asked about a good breakdown of the growth of developers, Mac vs. Apple II, he
said that in general the number Apple II developers is going down, while the
number of Macintosh developers is going up. No surprise there. He did say that
he believed about 20% of all the developers were Apple II developers.
He felt this was primarily due to the fee structure, but pointed out that was
strictly his own uninformed opinion. He did say he'd like to change that
structure.
Merritt also mentioned a desire to eliminate the schism between the Apple II
and the Mac, because it won't always be "Apple II and Macintosh." As he sees
it, it will eventually be "Apple II and Macintosh and Product X and Product
Y..."
Throughout his talk, Merritt indicated the extent of the recent changes in
Apple II management by repeatedly referring to "the new Ralph Russo
organization..."
There was laughter when someone, alluding to a rumor mentioned earlier, asked,
"Is Woz back?" Merritt answered, "Honestly! I haven't seen him." He said he
didn't believe in the rumor, that Woz's interests were elsewhere these days,
and that this was just a rumor that had gotten "way out of control."
He closed mentioning that he felt that the Apple II needs more advertising and
needs to be mentioned more in company appearances at trade shows, in press
releases, and so on. "And from things I see, coming down the pike, you'll see
that."
Clearly, more was unsaid than said here. Realize that Merritt works in an area
that almost exclusively deals with items and events about which he is bound to
silence.
But his presence here represents something we haven't seen from Apple in a long
time-- they sent an actual Apple II representative to talk officially to us.
His overall tone was enthusiastic and optimistic, and little remarks here and
there hinted of good things to come. Dave and Ray didn't think much of his
speech, but I did. He'll be around for the rest of the show, and may be slated
as the formal keynote speaker for Sunday. We'll see.
DAY TWO - SATURDAY, 16 JUN 90
Today got started horribly early, as Dave and I dragged ourselves out of deep
sleep to attend the 7:00am User Group Breakfast. During the breakfast, we were
actually expected to think! We were to discuss a particular users group-related
problem amongst ourselves at each table and come up with a consensus concerting
the given subject. At the end of the breakfast, an elected spokesscapegoat
would step up and speak before everyone about the decisions made at their
table.
Our table, consisting mostly of SNAFUg (Southern Nevada Apple Family Users
group, or something like that-- they pronounced it "snafu, gee") members, was
given the question of how we can better communicate between user groups. Ideas
raised involved newsletter exchanges, networking in various forms, and
particularly BBS use. Dave Gair was "elected" to speak for our table, and spoke
of his pro-APA BBS system.
Others answered such questions as how to prevent infighting between Apple II
and Mac members over whose machine is best (I had the idea of turning them
against a common enemy-- like IBM-- but they opted for more New Age type
solutions), moneymaking ideas, and more. Roger Wagner's table got the question
of how to keep long-time members in a club (Dave Gair wondered about how to get
long-time members to leave, but that's another question entirely). Anyway,
Roger's first answer to this was to point out that long-time members ARE
members, so the task by definition is already done. He then read off a "Top
Ten" list of ideas to retain the old heads. These were not all serious, and
included: occasionally meeting at new locations to generate new interest,
profit sharing in the newsletter/dues proceeds, limousines to take the older
members to and from the meetings, a dynamic and well-maintained library, "babes
& booze," and observing what techniques work for other well-established
organizations in the local area. The #1 suggestion was "give out free tasteful
ties at every meeting."
After all that was over, Jim Merritt was introduced and pointed out that he had
a 300-page notebook that he had been ordered to bring back full of ideas and
suggestions, and that he had only filled 278 pages so far, so we had a ways to
go.
Then Paul Statt got up and praised user groups and requested that all such
groups send their newsletters to him, care of inCider. He said they planned to
start showcasing some of the user group efforts by printing a sample page from
newsletters from various groups. He was most interested in getting onto
everyone's mailing list.
As we were leaving the breakfast, Dave and I cornered AE's Dave Hardaway to ask
him a few questions. He mentioned a new update to the AppleWorks 3.0 expander
under development ("late beta!"), and confirmed that the TransWarp III
accelerator for the 8-bit Apple II is a dead project and that AE would be
re-introducing the original 3.6 MHz TransWarp card shortly. He said the TW
would list for $119, and would be available from the usual discounters for
under $100.
Once away from breakfast, it was time to head for Don Lancaster's "Publishing
Books on Demand" seminar. This started in the same room as his session
yesterday, but moved to a different room about halfway through as a result of
some sort of mixup on the part of the hotel; seems they gave that room to two
groups at the same time.
Lancaster again was terrific, and again for some unknown reason drew a fairly
small crowd. Still, this allowed more give-and-take than would a larger group.
He discussed various theories behind successfully publishing your own books. He
showed various binding methods and went into detail about keeping printing
costs down by using a PostScript-speaking laser printer and refilling your own
cartridges.
Lancaster was especially enthusiastic about a new printer he had picked up from
Hewlett-Packard, the LaserJet IID, a "duplex printer" that prints on both sides
of the page without the pages having to be fed twice. This, he said, was a
major gain for mass production, as it reduces the human involvement, thus
reducing human error as well as labor intensity.
He described the printer's operation as printing on one side, ejecting the page
as usual, then grabbing the paper just before it falls out, feeding it thru a
passage on the underside of the printer, rolling it over and feeding it back
through a second time with the other side up. Or something like that. Anyway,
it can also use a "pipelining" trick so that the next page is printing while
the first one is moving through the reverse track. Lancaster said that when
this was running, you get printing at a rate of about 7.4 pages per minute,
compared to 8 per minute on the faster simplex printers. Not bad.
He closed with a conceptual discussion of a change in the way published matter
is being created. In the "old way," you first edited and then typeset. That is,
you created the text, edited it, proofed galleys in many cases, and an editor
somewhere finally typeset it once everything was finalized. The reason for this
was that typesetting used to be a lot more expensive than simple typing &
editing.
Now, with the capability of doing full typesetting and layout on the screen,
the would-be publisher can typeset first and edit later; that is, lay out the
page as you visualize its final form, and then add the text. This way you can
create not only the words you want to convey but the overall image as well.
In this way, you can control the look and flow of your text. Spotting large
white spaces between words that often appear in justified text (Lancaster
postulates that one out of every twelve lines has this effect), you can adjust
hyphenation or change a word or two to make the line more readable. This is not
possible the "old way," and allows your text to be much more readable,
resulting in better and wider communication.
Lancaster considers this exceedingly important.
An interesting concept, and one that disturbs traditional editors greatly. In
this process they lose not only power but their very reason for existence!
Lancaster calls this "post-justification editing."
Lancaster puts on a good show, and is one of the best speakers available for
this type of show. He is well worth traveling to see.
Down on the show floor, things were going on about as they were yesterday.
The Zip GS was again being demo'ed at the Zip booth, and still promoted as a
wire-wrapped 6.4 MHz prototype of an 8 MHz device to ship within a month.
Over at Roger Wagner's booth, Garland Buckingham was running thru numerous
video demos. He talked about the resurgence of videodisc players in the home,
anticipating that we'll be seeing more and more, particularly in the hands of
the type of people who will find themselves using HyperStudio. Roger appeared,
having found a replacement bulb for his screen projector thing, and was getting
all his stuff ready for the "Advanced HyperStudio" session scheduled for the
afternoon.
And of course, where there's Roger Wagner, there must be...
THE ROGER WAGNER TIE REPORT!
Rerun City USA again. But it's a worthy tie to, well, re-tie. This is the
famous bright-colored "tickets" tie, with zillions of multicolored little
theatre tickets represented floating above a black background, somehow creating
almost a 3-D effect. It really needs a black light for the full effect of its
power!
Next I went over to the Chinook booth to see what's new from them. Mostly they
were showing their existing units, but Chris Adams mentioned that they were
planning a redesign of their drive cases so that they'd be basically the size
of Apple's current 5.25" disk drive, if a little shorter. No time frame for the
repackaging yet.
He showed me their new GS memory card and pointed out its four-layer design,
saying that having a couple of layers of copper inside it (conveying power and
ground throughout the card) resulted in a tremendous reduction in "noise" from
the card. We discussed the relative merits of such designs for a while.
I appear to be getting known around these parts. Yesterday, when I said hello
to Fiesta organizer Jerry Cline, he heard my name and said, "Oh, yeah, the
writer." Turns out he was referring to the report I did last year at the '89
Fiesta, which apparently is still posted on their BBS.
Today I stopped by the Apple II public domain library (to donate a copy of the
Hitchhiker's Guide to MAUG), and when I introduced myself to the GS librarian,
he said, "Oh, yeah, the writer." The price of fame!
The Big Red Computer Club booth is still empty, implying a no-show.
TimeWorks is here, showing PublishIt packages for Apple II and Macintosh
machines.
AMUG, the Arizona Macintosh Users Group, has a booth here selling disks from
their library. They cover a large area in Arizona, and a rep told me they
typically have 250 people show up at their meetings!
At the AE booth, Dave Hardaway and Jeff Costello were busy again today,
demonstrating the Audio Animator, Vulcan hard disks, their new 3.5" disk drive,
the TransWarp GS, various RAM cards, and more. Literature on the table was all
Apple II related except for a one-sheet advertising the DataLinker modem for
the Macintosh.
Bee Lancaster, Don's wife, grabbed me out of the blue and asked if I would
appear and speak at her seminar Sunday, as she wanted some of the arts & crafts
folks she deals with to get an idea about nationwide networking online. Natch,
I agreed; now, if I can only get one of those speaker ribbons, I can start my
collection at last!
After lunch, Roger Wagner ran his "Advanced HyperStudio" session.
Unfortunately, this conflicted with Dennis Doms' "Ask Uncle DOS" session, which
would also have been interesting to attend.
Roger's was a packed session, with about 100 people crowding into the room.
Many had to stand in the back of the room.
Roger's overhead projector thing was working fine, and made the presentation
much more enjoyable for all present.
Much of the session duplicated some of the general items shown in yesterday's
"Beginners" session, but before long he moved into some "how to" demos showing
some of HyperStudio's more powerful capabilities.
He showed how to attach 320-mode graphics to stacks and attach buttons to such
graphics.
Roger showed several advanced video techniques, from simply attaching short
video sequences to stacks to using advanced color masking tricks for special
video effects.
In response to audience questions, he elaborated on his cable hookups. Realize
that his "show" system consists of just about everything that can be hooked up
to a HyperStudio system, and when you take into account tying all this in to
speakers and overhead projection systems while using the Video Overlay Card,
videodisc players, and more. Consequently, there are a LOT of cables running
between the various components.
Roger assured everyone that things were simpler than they immediately appeared,
thanks largely to the fact that the audio and video industry had standardized
on a few connector and cable types years ago. He expressed approval that Apple
seems to have finally settled on compatible cable types between most of their
peripherals.
He expounded a theory that Apple used to throw a party every year, and halfway
through anyone still sober would be sent home. The rest would be kept drinking
far into the night, and then would be assigned the task of designing the next
year's cables.
A couple of interesting observations about this seminar:
There were several handicapped individuals present at this one, indicating
significant interest from that area in the capabilities of the HyperStudio
environment.
Roughly a third of the attendees at this presentation were women of various
ages. Is this indicative of a change in the trend of computers being a
male-dominated world?
Roger closed the session with a quick demonstration of the Quickie hand
scanner, using it to digitize some graphic images live. It produced some
excellent gray-scaled images without any notable difficulty.
Later in the afternoon, a session was held on starting up and installing a BBS
system. Dave Gair attended that one, and reported that as far as he was
concerned as an existent BBS Sysop, the session was pretty much a joke.
Primarily it was a "how to" session on installing and patching a GBBS board.
Being a Proline Sysop, Dave found nothing interesting here, so he left and went
to Barney Stone's demonstration instead.
Here he learned much about DB Master he didn't know before. A small group there
made for some serious quality instruction time, and there was much group
participation among the attendees.
The show closed down for the day, and again a keynote speaker was scheduled for
the evening. In place of last year's "Hospitality Suites" that took place
outdoors around the pool, this year's show involves an open bar indoors wherein
attendees can sit around and chat, joining in on various conversations with
friends, strangers, and dignitaries.
This lasted until 7:00, at which point the keynote speaker was introduced.
Actually, this was preceded momentarily by the introduction of Apple's Craig
Elliott, who currently heads the User Group Connection. He talked briefly of
the Connection's activities, mentioned that there are over 1300 user groups
registered now, and said he'd be around for the rest of the show hoping to hear
from user group members.
At that point, the keynote speaker was introduced. Larry Jorden, director of
marketing at Bitstream, spoke for about 45 minutes on "Fonts Without Fear." A
dynamic and forceful speaker, he preached the virtues of graphic based
computers for the purpose of creating and making best use of fonts in printed
documents.
He pointed out that most important correspondence-- your resume, documents to
close major business deals, executive business correspondence, and so on-- are
all printed on paper, not carried out in the form of Hypermedia stacks or
interactive video or anything else. He opined that the look of those documents
makes a difference on their perception by the recipients.
He described Bitstream as a major publisher and distributor of fonts for
various graphic-based computers. He said his wife has an Apple //e, and that
there are two IIgs's in his family as well. From that perspective he stated
that the Apple II "must migrate" to a graphics environment. More specifically,
he said it was time for Apple II users to "move their data" into a graphically
oriented machine in which the full power of fonts could be exploited. He did
not seem to consider the IIgs as such a machine.
An excellent speaker, Jorden nonetheless seemed to be speaking from the
perspective of one to whom a computer is exactly one thing: a font processor.
He did make some interesting points about how some successful corporations have
achieved wide recognition through the use of a distinctive and recognizeable
typeface: Apple itself makes consistent use of a primary font ("a modified
Garamond Condensed, if you're interested"), as does Dunkin Donuts, Exxon,
Playboy Magazine, and several others. He gave these as examples of users of
Bitstream fonts in particular, and named several other companies who do so,
including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and more.
Jorden mentioned that he went to Playboy HQ once to discuss their imminent
purchase of several copies of the Bitstream font library. Looking over their
particular fonts used in their magazine, he said he hadn't noticed previously
that they even used "body type." Jerry Cline responded in the affirmative that
they do indeed employ "body types."
He expressed opinions about several well-known fonts, disclaiming the use of
Times and Helvetica for all users, but not directly elaborating why. Addressing
the consistency issue, he said each user should try out a few fonts and pick
one or two that you really like; this will automatically reflect some aspects
of your personality, thus projecting YOU into what you publish.
He was most pleased about the forthcoming System Software 7.0 and its form of
outline fonts, which he called the "most significant challenge to PostScript"
since its inception.
Jorden was a fascinating if controversial speaker, and was well worth listening
to. Certainly no one walked out on him during his speech.
And this brings to a close the second day of the 1990 Apple Fiesta.
DAY THREE - SUNDAY, 17 JUN 90
The 1990 Arizona Apple Fiesta is over, and all of you who didn't attend BLEW
IT!
It was a terrific show, and everyone present had a good time. Most of us
managed to learn some new things, get answers to questions, spend quality time
with some big names, and talk to actual Apple II people actually from Apple
Computer Inc., sent to the show in an actual official capacity.
As for Sunday, we started out with the Beagle Buddy Breakfast. Hosted by
Beagle's Marc DeJong and Lee Ronick (the new Beagle Buddy program manager),
about ten BBuds attended. As most of us chowed down, Dave Gair and Marc
discussed their ProLine BBS systems and then began talking about UltraMacros
programming. Not a thing directly about the Beagle Buddy program was ever
brought up at all. Oh, well-- There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free, uh,
Breakfast.
From there, I went to Bee Lancaster's session. She was holding a seminar of
interest to craft persons with computers. She demonstrated various ways of
using PostScript printers to create images on various fabric objects,
woodworking, rubber stamps, and so on. The examples shown exceeded by far what
I can describe here; you'll just have to attend her session next year to get an
idea of what all she has learned to do.
Yesterday Bee had asked me to attend that session to briefly describe the world
of telecommunication to these people, to explain a little of how an individual
working a craft-type operation out of the home can reach out into a national or
international network of people with similar interests and share information,
experiences, questions, answers, fellowship, and long run-on sentences like
this one.
Well, most of that, anyway! I did as asked, and hope I reached a few receptive
souls.
Dave Gair came looking for me and anxiously motioned for me to come outside
right away, so I missed the end of Bee's presentation. Dave called me out to
tell me the big news of the day and possibly the entire Fiesta.
There have been indications for some time that Seven Hills was working on
printer drivers to allow the IIgs to use Hewlett-Packard printers through
standard print commands. Of course, we often hear stories about mythical Neat
Things under development for our favorite machines that never appear.
Imagine our surprise when Bill Heineman arrived with those very same drivers in
hand!
Bill set up at the Vitesse booth with a DeskJet printer and showed how he could
load a graphic into PaintWorks Gold and from there print it on the DeskJet
simply and effectively. Heineman said that the driver he was using would work
on both the DeskJet and the DeskWriter line. Asked when these would be
available, he said that the driver he was demonstrating would ship "in a
month," and that drivers for the LaserJet line would be released "in two
months."
I watched his demo, and the thing looks pretty complete. He did suffer one
lockup, but from his reaction, it did not appear to be caused by the printer
driver. He just rebooted and repeated the print operation he had just tried,
and it worked fine.
Naturally, this generated a LOT of interest among Fiesta attendees,
particularly with H-P present and with Computers Plus selling H-P printers at
discounted prices. They were selling DeskJets for $549 and DeskWriters for
$799; the LaserJet IIP was going for $899 and the IIIP for $1589. Some of those
prices were "after rebate" prices, but there was no question that they moved
some printers!
I stopped by the Bitstream booth and talked to Larry Jorden. I wanted to take
him up on an offer he had made during last night's keynote to analyze a user
group newsletter from the standpoint of a professional fontmonger. I handed him
the new issue of the newsletter I edit for the Applequerque Computer Club and
waited for him to let me have it. He held back no punches and made a lot of
observations, in both the general and specific. I intend to implement some (but
not all!) of them. That was an interesting and worthwhile experience, and one
that would be harder to manage at an AppleFest.
The Big Red Computer Club booth remained empty, and, being this was the last
day, it seemed somehow unlikely that we were going to see them at this show.
They weren't the only no-show, they were just the only no-show that had a booth
set up. I talked to Jerry Cline later in the day, and he was a bit steamed
about the no-shows. He said he had tried to get Claris to come, but was told by
Claris that they don't attend such shows (last year, Claris showed up with
nothing but Mac stuff, directly and deliberately insulting all the Apple II
users; this year, they decided to insult the Macintosh folks as well). Jerry
also called Microsoft, only to be told that they couldn't afford to attend.
Poor Microsoft!
He was most displeased by Aldus, who had promised to attend and managed to
generate a double no-show. First, they bought out another company that was
going to attend (the name escapes me offhand), thus cancelling that booth, as
their products would be shown at the Aldus booth. Later, Aldus cancelled their
own booth, as they had worked a deal to exhibit at Apple's booth. Then when the
show started, they didn't bother to show up. Jerry was clearly pretty mad about
that treatment, and understandably so.
I found a quiet moment at Roger Wagner's booth and sat down to converse. I had
a couple of questions about HyperStudio, and a couple of suggestions for a
future rev. Without going into detail (Roger threatened to qualify me for
membership in the Vienna Boys' Choir), I did see what might be called Strong
evidence that RWP intends to aggressively continue to develop and expand the
HyperStudio environment for the foreseeable future. Send in those registration
cards NOW if you haven't!
While at Roger's booth, I got a guided tour of several of the more interesting
stacks that Roger has collected. Apparently there are a lot of people out there
who, when they complete a stack, send it to him. He's got a 100 megabyte
InnerDrive filled with mostly HyperStudio stacks. People are doing things I
would have never thought of! Some of the more interesting stacks are the ones
created by the younger users, and I can't help but wonder if there are many
Hypercard stacks created on the Macintosh by kids.
And of course, what mention of Roger Wagner could be complete without...
THE ROGER WAGNER TIE REPORT!
Today's tie reflects the fact that we're into Rerun Season, as it's the
infamous dark and dismal "Jungle Tie." This has been described by others as
being a representation of a famous painting, but I'm sorry to say I don't know
this one. Mona Lisa it ain't.
It is a dark tie, with various strange and exotic animals peering forth from
their jungle habitat. Appropriate for the zoo atmosphere that so often pervades
these shows!
Many of the booths had set up prize drawings, and I entered them all. I even
bought some raffle tickets, as they had a LOT of donated prizes to give away.
Didn't win anything! Ray Merlin did win one drawing, finding himself the lucky
recipient of a year's membership in the AzApple/Mac User Group. Ray was sad
that the prize didn't include transportation to the meetings (Ray lives in San
Antonio), but was pleased at the fine newsletter he'll be receiving now!
Dave Gair and I ruined the whole day for one of the Apple reps. He was sitting
at the Mac IIci at Apple's booth when Dave and I happened to wander near there.
Dave, a dedicated //e user, looked at the IIci and allowed as to how it looked
like a pretty powerful system, but he wondered how much it would really cost to
acquire such a setup.
The rep quickly turned and named a price of just over $4000 for the basic
system. I pointed out that by the time you've expanded the basic system into a
system capable of really doing something (you CAN run AppleWorks on a 64K
one-floppy //e, but the power doesn't get turned loose until you acquire those
little extras!), and add the laser printer, you're over $10,000. The rep turned
around and Dave and I continued to converse, wondering who in the world could
afford to drop ten grand on a personal computer and how Apple could ever expect
schools to jump for such an expensive system (like they show in their
kindergarten ads) when for the same price they could pick up a dozen PC clones
and have money left over...
Well, we had some fun at the Apple fellow's expense. After all, it was only
fair.
We ran into Jim Merritt, and I had a chance to put in my two cents worth. I
made what I thought was a terrific suggestion, and Jim mercilessly picked it
apart and destroyed it utterly. Okay, so it was a bad idea. I won't bring it up
again. But it was nice to be able to actually talk to an official Apple II
presence, and I'm grateful he took the time to answer and explain the answer.
Dave Gair then asked him about all the signs around the show referring to
Merritt as the head of Apple's "Green Software Group." Merritt said that the
various software groups had the chance to pick a color denoting their section,
and his group's perception was that green was the color of money, and the Apple
II was being treated as a cash cow...
The show was scheduled to end with Merritt's keynote speech at 2:00, so
naturally the hotel staff completely took down the keynote room just before
that. It took them about twenty minutes to get the place back together with all
the chairs and the podium and mike in place so we could start.
Ray, Dave and I spent this time chatting with Dennis Doms about Apple II
things. Dennis, who now pretty much writes all of the A2-Central newsletter, is
a very bright fellow with a lot of insight into the Apple world and especially
the Apple II portion of that world. He's easily approachable, talkative (if you
ask his opinion on anything relating to the Apple II in any way, you WILL get a
dissertation) and always interesting. He also tends to wear buttons he picks up
at Science Fiction conventions. My favorite of the ones he wore at this show
said something along the line of, "Calm Down, It's Only Ones and Zeros."
The keynote finally began, and Jim Merritt again talked to us about the
directions in which Apple is moving these days. It was a most optimistic talk
for the Apple II enthusiast, even though it wasn't as specific as some of us
would have liked for it to be.
He did touch on several interesting points, including an observation that in
the past Apple has worked toward making more and more powerful machines, and
that now the thrust is along the lines of making similarly powerful machines
for less cost. He said this is happening in the Macintosh line and the Apple II
line as well. He also said the push included making less expensive and common
peripherals.
Merritt hopes for an end to the schism that now exists between the Macintosh
and the Apple II, both at Apple and among the users. The situation, as he put
it, should not be that of a war between "us and them," but of a single company
that puts out two product lines. They don't have to compete; Apple needs to
recognize that sometimes the answer for a specific job is Macintosh and
sometimes it is Apple II. Merritt said that this is a feeling that is working
its way through Apple, and he hopes to also see it filter through the dealers,
user groups, and so on.
He said the future ahead of us is a future in which all Apple computers and
Apple users can share data together, communicate freely, share peripherals, and
"play together."
Referring to this concept later, Merritt mentioned that "whatever computer your
buddy is using, if it's an Apple, you will be able to use that person's
computer and data."
The phrase "One Apple" popped into Merritt's speech several times, denoting not
a single product line but a single unified company turning out both the
Macintosh and the Apple II.
Speaking directly on the Apple II's immediate future, he said, "Throughout the
rest of this century-- and I like using that phrase-- you will be able to see
the Apple II being an important platform. You may possibly see this continue
into the 21st century." Like most quotes in this report, that's not verbatim. I
could only write so fast, but it's as close as I can get it!
As he closed, he said he had pretty much filled up his notebook, and thanked us
for all the input. He promised to take it all back to Cupertino and see that
the people who needed to hear it all would indeed hear it.
Answering a couple of questions, he specifically stated that "Apple is
continuing to pursue Apple II development," and, in response to a question
about the so-called Mac/Apple II "Bridge" machine, referred to it as being able
to run "Macintosh and Apple //e software." That one's verbatim.
In the current hostile atmosphere that prevails among Apple II users toward
Apple (does "on the verge of riots in the streets" qualify as hostile?), such
statements from Apple personnel tend to get picked apart and analyzed to death.
In the case of Jim Merritt, he was warmly received by most if not all of the
attendees, and his presence here was greatly appreciated. For the first time in
untold years, Apple actually sent a high-level Apple II manager to a public
show and even let him talk to the people! This alone is significant, but take
into account Jim's obvious and clear optimism toward the recent attitude
changes at Apple.
He was good to have around, and his presence and availability on the open show
floor was a boon to the show and an added bonus to those who attended. In case
you read this, Jim, thanks for coming! Now get back to work.
The AppleFiesta overall was a terrific show. It wasn't as big as some of the
AppleFests have been; after all, it's promoted as a regional show! If I had to
sum up the difference, I'd say that the AppleFest tends to work towards
Quantity, and the AppleFiesta aims for Quality.
Attendees came from all over the southwest and there was even one attendee who
flew in from Connecticut!
I highly recommend this show to any Apple user, Macintosh or Apple II. There's
much here for everyone, and it's one of the few places where, magically, Apple
II and Mac people get together and smoothly mesh. Everyone gets along well,
many events span computer types, and the general feeling of friendliness
pervades all.
It's not an expensive show to attend, as Phoenix is a semi-major airline hub
for aviation in the Southwest, making travel generally reasonable. Show tickets
cost $8 for three days, and the hotel rooms were $40/night for a double. The
Sheraton Mission Palms Tempe is a beautiful hotel that is perfectly set up for
this size and sort of show. Every needed facility, including a most decorative
swimming pool, is present in the hotel. You never have to leave the air
conditioning for the legendary skin-flailing Phoenix heat (though Dave, Ray and
I did usually walk to nearby restaurants-- there were several-- for dinner).
AzApple's Jerry Cline runs the show, and is consistently successful here.
Watching him run about trying to meet all the demands on his time, I found
myself wondering how in recent months he was able to organize this show, manage
the volunteers, and still push ProTerm through a major upgrade, publisher
change, and repackaging!
He does make use of a large and active team of volunteers to help run the
thing, and all of them I met were impressively helpful and friendly from
beginning to end.
One of the volunteers particularly stood out. As I arrived at the registration
table Friday to pick up my name tag, I noticed my name had been spelled wrong.
I mentioned this to Dave, and a young girl (about 10 or 12) behind the table
reached over and took it from me and said, "I'll take care of it. Write down
what it should say on this pad, and I'll see you get a new one." I did, and she
handed me a hand written badge. "This will get you into the show for now. Stop
by later in the day and your new printed badge will be ready." I was
flabbergasted! And she was as good as her word.
From there, I repeatedly noticed Melissa Freiberg dashing about the show,
talking to people running booths, checking out the seminars, and just generally
gophering all three days. She was great to watch; she would step up and take
charge of whatever situation she was involved in. Absolutely unflappable.
She may well have been the only one present who had as much energy as Jerry
Cline! Hope she's there next year.
Great show, great times, great location, great user group, great experiences,
great accessibility, great fun. Where the hell WERE all you people??? BE THERE
next year!
-Joe Walters