Computerfest Show Report
Eric Schwartz
AmiTech-Dayton Gazette -- September 2004
Well, another Computerfest has come and gone. This year's was the first in several that we did not run an official Amigafest, though we did have a presence that equaled or bettered that of the previous year. Special thanks go out to Mr. Bryant Pedigo from the Amiga user group in Indianapolis, for bringing in his Amiga One system with the pre-release version of Amiga OS4, which generated a great deal of interest. The system and the new OS, while lacking for a few needed features (it is not a final release, after all) showed itself to be more stable and capable (and familiar) than many might expect for a "beta" pre-release. Two of our group members brought their own Pegasos II systems, running MorphOS, so there was a fair deal of friendly rivalry and feature comparison going on, but none of that "Blue troll -- Red troll" anger seen on message boards was to be found.
Our groups' tables were placed in the flea market area this year, which, as a fairly central hub for all parts of the Computerfest and MACES (Mid-America Consumer Electronics Show), allowed for some very good foot traffic and exposure. There isn't a lot of opportunity to make an impression on someone walking by, so my Pegasos spent much of its time multitasking, playing Mp3s with AmiNetRadio, while running a combination of musical displays, videos, and emulated games with MAME. I've rarely tried to do as much at once, or as many things I haven't tried before with my Pegasos, so I was pleasantly surprised that the machine and its OS handled the load as well as it did, only needing one reboot as I was shutting down software on the last day.
Overall, it was pleasing to see the interest generated by the new machines, especially the Amiga One. Seems there are a lot of former Amiga users out there from the original Commodore days, and it takes a lot to catch them up to the Amiga's present (and even more to explain "related" systems like the Pegasos). Many folks, often Linux users, seem to want an Amiga OS (or Morph) which runs directly on Intel/PC hardware. Luckily, we were able to show them to Lora and Andy's table, where they had the Amiga Forever emulator on display. As I said earlier, we had our own presence at Computerfest this year, not an official "Amigafest" (mostly because we were unable to lure out any dealers), but in many ways we met or exceeded our expectations, even those of previous years, largely because we were able to show the public no less than three modern Amiga and Amiga-like systems (Amiga One, Pegasos II, and emulation) and make an impact with them, however subtle.