The Australian Roadshow - Sydney, Brisbane,
Canberra By Sydney Amiga Users' Group
(SAUG)
Looking back at old agenda for the Sydney Amiga
Users' Group (SAUG) <link www.saug.org.au> meetings, it
seems long ago that the prospect of a Roadshow in Australia
raised its head. At the time, Colin Ward, our OS4
developer/betatester, had been trying to get his Cyberstorm
repaired so that he could demonstrate OS4 (on Cyberstorm) to a
club meeting. How ambitious it seemed then, how mundane it
seems now! While the demonstration was delayed because of
hardware problems, it transpired that Steve Bowman, our
President, had been having secret discussions with Ben Hermans
about the demonstration ;-).
It was going to become more than a demonstration
to the Club members - it was going to become a full-on public
event, all and sundry invited, reports to the Amiga forums,
the works. The Australia-wide Amiga Downunder User Group
(ADUG) <link www.amigadownunder.org> was to be the
sponsor for the tour. Suddenly the importance of the
demonstration assumed frightening proportions. Tony Wyatt,
SAUG's Secretary/Treasurer and our hardware expert, worried
about the hardware - would it work on the day? How would we
guarantee a backup machine? There was no latitude for
failure.
Slowly the plans for a European-style Roadshow
took shape. Only OS4 beta testers or developers were approved
to do the show presentation - anyone with less experience of
the OS might make an embarrassing blunder on stage. Since only
Sydney had a team of such people, we decided that a Sydney
team travelling to all venues, using the hardware available in
each city, and taking the remainder with them would present
the Roadshow. The cities were to be Sydney, Brisbane,
Canberra, and possibly Melbourne. The local User Group in each
city would organise the venue and share in the total cost for
the travelling party.
We discussed the "rundown" - who was going to
speak, the subjects, and the duration. Jeff Sereno, SAUG's
Vice-President, took the responsibility of making the show
look professional, with an audio-visual introduction and a
Scala presentation to back up the presenters. We decided that
Ross Vumbaca, our resident Linux guru and OS4 developer, would
accompany Colin on the stage. Steve Bowman, as President of
ADUG, would introduce the Show, and the local User Group would
hawk their wares also. For Sydney, Jeff took on the
responsibility of finding a suitable venue.
Jeff made up a stunning audio-visual presentation
for the introduction to the show, showing a litany of Amiga
models and OS screenshots over the years, to the accompaniment
of music from Enigma. Ross and Colin sat down and wrote their
presentations, then rehearsed them in front of the show team.
After a couple of weeks and two rehearsals, we were all
satisfied. Andrew Haslehurst printed all the banners on a huge
plotter, including a three-metre and a five-metre long
banner!
At that time, OS4 would only run on Classic 68k
Amigas (not very exciting) and Cyberstorm-equipped A4000s. We
found Cyberstorm machines and developers in Sydney and
Canberra, but not Brisbane or Melbourne. We decided that
Colin's A4000 with Cyberstorm was to be THE machine for the
tour, and it had to be made reliable. Tony took it under his
control, repaired it and rebuilt it to be "roadworthy". A
primary backup Cyberstorm machine was found for Sydney. The
secondary backup for the Cyberstorms would be Classic A4000s,
running the 68k betatester's version of OS4. We would have
some AmigaOnes running Linux, but the main thrust was to be
OS4 on the Cyberstorm.
Then, a week or so before the Sydney show, the
long hoped-for announcement was made: OS4 now booted on the
AmigaOne. Would we have a copy by the day of the show? Ross
managed to get a copy to run on his AmigaOne, but we had only
one AmigaOne (no backup) and the demonstration of OS4 booting
on an AmigaOne had to be a bonus. The main presentation would
still be on the Cyberstorm, with the 68k as the backup.
The Sydney venue was a lecture hall at the
University of Technology, Sydney.
[Click for a larger version]
As a presentation room, it is breathtaking. Jeff
had chosen well, for the room has three drop-down screens,
built-in audio and video facilities, and comes with its own
guard. Tony ran around with video cables, extension cables,
adaptors, and all the stuff that "roadies" like to play with.
Steve showed up in a smart green coat that matched his like of
green apples, but couldn't find a matching tie.
[Click for a
larger version]
Doug Moir, the owner/proprietor of AnythingAmiga
(one of the last Amiga dealers extant in Australia), arrived
from Brisbane with a trolley full of equipment, including the
secret AmigaOne Lite (as it was then called). Doug took one
look at all of us, and then ran out to a nearby shop and had
"AmigaOS4" T-shirts run up on the spot! Well done, that
man!
The Sydney presentation went pretty well for our
first attempt. Colin talked about the history of the OS from
the developer's viewpoint.
[Click for a
larger version]
Ross talked about the history of the Amiga and
some of the new features of OS4.
[Click for a larger
version]
He then described the AmigaOne board and showed
OS4 and Linux booting on it. We never used the Cyberstorm or
the Classic 4000. Doug showed off the "Lite" to the audience,
then after the show, presented several Earlybirds with their
long-awaited XE boards.
[Click for a larger
version]
Suddenly, after all the months with only a couple
of AmigaOnes amongst us, we were awash with AmigaOnes!
The next weekend we traipsed off to Brisbane (1100
km north). The venue had been organised by the recently
started Queensland And Northern Territory Amiga User's Group
(QANTAUG), and was a large lecture theatre in the Queensland
University of Technology, just as imposing as that in Sydney.
Strangely enough, we had a larger audience in the Sunshine
State, and there was an audible gasp of excitement, as Doug
held up the Lite and the XE side by side by side by side. The
show was entirely performed on AmigaOnes, except for the Scala
presentation, which ran on a PC.
The third time was in Canberra, the national
capital. Canberra is midway between Australia's two largest
cities, Sydney and Melbourne, and is 550 km from each. We
drove down from Sydney on the Saturday and after examining the
Irish Club that the Canberra Amiga Users Society (CAUS)
<link www.actco.org.au/canberraamigausersociety> had
arranged for us, we feasted on pizzas on Saturday night. On
the Sunday, the show was well attended, despite local
thunderstorms that threatened to hail on cars with weak or
expensive roofs.
[Click for a
larger version]
We enjoyed the less formal atmosphere of the Irish
Club. It seemed much more sophisticated to be able to sneak
out of the function room, visit the bar and bistro in the next
room, and return with a plate of food that you could enjoy
without missing the show. At the end of the show, Ross put up
a demonstration of Quake running on the AmigaOne, native, with
full sound effects from the Soundblaster Live! which is now
supported on the AmigaOne. The Canberra crowd was enthusiastic
and keen to touch and feel the new equipment and play with the
OS.
As we write this, we are enjoying a rest, as
Melbourne is still a couple of weeks in the future. Melbourne
should be interesting, and we are all looking forward to it.
The Roadshow has been tiring for all of us, worrying for some,
but has turned out to be less troublesome than we expected. No
equipment has failed (touch wood!); everything (that the
customers have seen) has worked as intended. We have had a few
minor hassles with video projectors that didn't sync to
"normal" VGA signals, and presenter's monitors that wouldn't,
but by and large it has all gone well.
After the Canberra show, we all gathered outside
Parliament House and held up our big five-metre banner for a
group photograph.
[Click for a larger
version]
This banner, according to reports, can be seen
from the International Space Station. It was showering in
Canberra that day and we had to wait for the rain to stop so
that we could unroll the banner. We didn't want the ink to
run! Naturally, once the pictures had been taken, the sun came
out!
The crowds so far have been interested, asking
many questions, most of which have been well informed. None of
the attendees have asked "dumb" questions, all seemed to have
a good knowledge of the current Amiga situation. Many of the
crowd have been ex-Amiga users who have come to see what the
new hardware/software is all about, and invariably have gone
away excited, wondering how they are going to tell the wife
about this new computer that has just become essential. One
fellow even brought his wife along, but strangely, she
appeared to be less excited than he was. We have to cater for
everyone, I guess.
Pictures by Andrew Haslehurst, Richard Tapp and
Kresimir Rogic. |