** 2 page feature / 1324 words **

Show diary

Colin Monro attended the Spring Atari Show in Glasgow. Here's his diary...

I have to come clean here and admit this is the first Atari Show I've ever attended, despite using Atari machines for nearly seven years. This time around I felt I couldn't afford to miss the opportunity to put faces to email addresses and voices on telephone lines. I was determined not to spend anything except the admission fee - there's certainly no way I would be tempted by show offers!

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Mike Goodman organises the shows and manning the Goodman stand is certainly a family event!
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I arrived in the midst of a downpour and was greeted by the cheerful faces of Sandy Thomson and Al Goold, the ACG/STAG members who were manning the Atari Computing stand.

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ACG members: Brian Stanton (left) and Al Goold (right)
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Apart from selling subscriptions and back issues (having to disappoint people clamouring for AC#1 which is sold out) they were only too happy to point newcomers in the right direction. For instance, one gent asked for information, explaining he was beginning to think he was the only Atari User in Dundee, and had no one to turn to for help. "But nay, nay and thrice nay," cried Sandy Thomson gleefully pointing out the perspiration drenched figure desperately trying to resist the delights of the System Solutions stand - me!

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Karl Brandt (shown) and Rob Perry manned the System Solutions stand and launched the UK versions of Texel and CAB 2
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I have become the unpaid technical support for Dundee but it's worth it with so many Atari users operating in a vacuum with no one to turn to for sensible, non "Stand on one leg and howl at the moon" advice.

Atari Computing stand sported a Nemesis equipped Falcon running an excellent animation by Ed McGlone based on the Atari Spacecraft Carrier used for the cover of AC#3. One foolish youth, after having stared at the animation for a couple of minutes, remarked, "Is that all it can do?". Ever eager to please, Al frog-marched him over to the Calamus User/Image Applications stand and left him to it!

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Image Applications: Steve Llewellyn (left) ably assisted at Glasgow by some local talent!
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Handily, Calamus User, under the expert guidance of Steve Llewellyn, was my next port of call. I was interested in seeing the new version of the desktop publisher, Calamus SL'96, that has been released. My gripe was, that having bought Calamus SL '95 direct from the publishers MGI in Canada late last year, I felt indisposed to blow another £130 on a mere upgrade.
Steve gently explained, as I'm sure he does with all unbelievers, what the differences are, and took me on an extensive guided tour of the new program. While the speed of the program was evident, it was actually some time before anyone else watching realised Steve was running SL on a Macintosh Quadra 840AV under MagiCMac! Performance is rock solid, no glitches or crashes, and this approach remains an attractive option for anyone needing to squeeze a bit more power out of their Atari software.
It is an exciting time for Calamus users. After a period in which it seemed there would be no more active development, Calamus SL'96 is a virtual rewrite - although the interface remains reassuringly familiar. 
The Line Art and StarScreening modules now included with Calamus SL help it outperform giants such as Quark Express and Pagemaker. In fact the Line Art module can do much of the work which previously required Outline Art or DA Vektor. There are also exciting plans to market the Windows version of Calamus and set up bureaux throughout the UK to handle it. More PC defection? Not so, this is a fifth column approach, which will mean Atari users can send their Calamus files to PC bureaux for high-resolution output without the need for much conversion because the document types will be the same.

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Black Scorpion: (left to right) David Encill, Dave Murphy and Doug Little
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Leaving the Calamus stand with thoughts of an upgrade ringing little bells in my head, I moved across to the Titan Designs stand. Apex Media was on demonstration in the hands of Black Scorpion programmer Doug Little. Watching Doug bend Apex to his will was a little frightening - it was all happening too fast for most mere mortals to know quite what he was doing! However, the results were highly impressive.
I got my first look at the C-Lab Mark X cases which Titan can use to re-house your Atari. The case is truly a thing of beauty. OK, so they are not cheap but they are superbly engineered and neat little cases which allow room for expansion and utilise the unsurpassed Mega series keyboard. Even Doug Little's Falcon, equipped with an Afterburner and loads of extra memory, fitted neatly into a C-Lab case.
David Encill was keen to tell me how effective and reliable the Nemesis hardware accelerator and when one sees just how much attention to detail has gone into the product the £40 fitting fee sounds like the snip of the century - especially if you're not experienced with a soldering iron.

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The UK Association of Atari User Groups stand manned by STAG members (from left to right) Neill Hunter, Paul Walsh, Ken Johnston and Andrew Irvine
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Due to the late cancellation of the Maggie team (at Glasgow) a stand under the UKAAUG banner had been created, featuring a selection of STAG members' machines of all types running the Virtual Web pages under CAB, which looks highly impressive - certainly able to hold its head up in the company of Microsoft's Internet Explorer which, in my opinion, runs more slowly on a Mac than CAB does under MagiCMac! Variety was the keyword of this show - there must have been dozens of different machines including the awesome Hades, Apple Macintosh desktop and portable models running MagicMac 2.1, Pentiums running Gemulator and MagiC PC along with an astonishing range of heavily-modified, re-cased and souped-up STs, TTs and Falcons. More akin to a custom car show than a computer show!

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Console Centre: Matt McGee
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16/32 Systems: Nick Harlow (left)
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And now, a confession, I bought myself the one gadget I didn't need, but always promised myself - a Jaguar. At the prices on offer from the Console Centre and 16/32 Systems, I couldn't go wrong. Not that I have time to play games, of course, harrumph...

** Italics on ** Ed's note: Remember this is a personal diary rather than a show report because Colin didn't visit every stand and spent more time at some than others. If you'd like to contribute alternative viewpoints we'd be pleased to receive them. ** Italics off **

** Boxout **
2nd Opinion
John Fletcher, Atari Wrinklies club member, attended the Birmingham show at the Motorcycle Museum with his son Simon - who soon found himself in Atari gaming heaven! One vendor seemed to think he was in a casbah offering a bewildering number of bundled packages which seemed to change price every time we visited the stand and I have to admit to being tempted!

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Floppyshop: Steve Delaney (left)
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I picked up Protracker for £3 and a comms starter pack of six disks from Floppyshop to "surf the net" for £8 along with a new 14k4 Fax modem from TUS for £44 - the last one on the stand.

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The Upgrade Shop (TUS): Dave Prescott
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We both really enjoyed the show. I met two fellow Wrinklies and my son came away with two plastic bags full of boxed games at bargain prices - we'll certainly be back for more!
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** Images and Captions **
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Portfolio Club: 
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Titan Designs: David Encill