I'm afraid I won't be able to attend the October meeting, I'll be attending the wedding of a friend of mine in Tuscon, Arizona.
The most important business to conduct at this month's SPACE meeting is to solicit nominations for the Club Officer positions: President, vice-president, and Treasurer. I would like to encourage you to consider running for one of these positions. I'm willing to run for a second term as President, but I think it'd be great if we had three different people to fill the three positions. Next month is the Annual Meeting: November 12 -- Elections!
In September we weren't able to hold votes on the current proposed Bylaws changes because there were so few of us there. If there are enough people this month, maybe you can hold some votes without me. For your review, here again are the changes I proposed for Article IV. Here is my proxy vote: "yes" on all the following:
Article IV, Section 1.
Now reads: "The officers of the club shall be President, vice-president, and Treasurer. These officers shall perform the duties prescribed by these bylaws and by the parliamentary authority adopted by the club."
Proposal, make the Secretary an elected officer: "The officers of the club shall be President, vice-president, Secretary, and Treasurer. These officers shall perform the duties prescribed by these bylaws and by the parliamentary authority adopted by the club."
Article IV, Section 2.
Now reads: "The President and vice-president shall preside over the scheduled club meetings. The Treasurer shall keep account of the books and the treasury of the club."
Proposal, adding Secretary's responsibility, as well as clarifying contingencies for absences: "The President shall preside over the scheduled club meetings. In the President's absence, the vice-president shall preside over meetings. The Secretary shall record in writing the minutes of each SPACE meeting, and preside over club meetings in the absence of the President and vice-president. The Treasurer shall keep account of the books and the treasury of the club, and shall preside over club meetings if the President, vice-president, and Secretary are all absent."
Article IV, Section 3.
Now reads, no changes proposed: "Section 3. The officers shall be elected by a majority vote, or by acclamation if only one person is running. The term shall be for one year, or until a successor is elected; the term of office shall begin at the close of the annual meeting at which the officer is elected."
Article IV, Section 4.
Now reads: "The President and vice-president shall actively seek volunteers to fill the following positions: Secretary; Disk Of the Month (DOM) Librarian; Paper Librarian; Educational Software Librarian; Bulletin Board System Operator; Newsletter Editor; and Membership Chairman. These volunteers shall be subject to the approval of the club membership. Special Interest Group (SIG) Chairmen will be appointed as needed."
Proposals, separate votes for each:
1) drop "Secretary"
2) drop "Paper Librarian"
3) drop "Educational Software Librarian"
4) drop "Bulletin Board System Operator".
See you in November. Keep using that Atari, and come you your next SPACE meeting, Friday, October 8.
Space Minutes - September 10, 1999
Michael Current, Space club president, opened meeting at 8:15 p.m. Michael stated that this month's attendance is probably the smallest in the club's history.
Michael Current asked for a secretary report from club secretary, Mike Weist. Mike recapped the minutes printed in the September club newsletter.
Michael Current then asked for a treasurer report from club treasurer, Greg Leitner. Greg stated that not much happened last month. The club had 8 DOM sales. Two month of newsletter expenses were paid to club newsletter editor, Mike Schmidt. 2nd quarter room rent was paid out. Lance Ringquist has not been at the club meeting to be paid for BBS expenses. Treasury balance stands at $1343. Greg said there may be a club auction in future. Greg stated that our club many have more money in our treasury than any other Atari club in the USA.
Michael Current asked for a DOM report. Glenn Kirschenmann, DOM chair , talked about what was on the DOM.
MICHAEL Current asked for a membership report. Glenn Kirschenmann, membership chair, said membership doesn't look good. Glenn said he will be paying his membership dues tonight. Members have to renew their membership. Currently the club has 16 members.
OLD BUSINESS- Bylaw changes can not be voted on tonight because 8 members are needed to vote on changes. At the club meeting tonight only 6 members are present.
NEW BUSINESS- Michael Current said at October meeting, we will take nomination for Space club officers for the year 2000. We will vote in November.
Glenn Kirschenmann stated that he may not be able to make October meeting because of a possible schedule conflict.
Michael Current introduced a possible new club member, Dan Mohrland.
Meeting adjourned at 9:15 p.m.
I can't remember the last time we have had a meeting where I could count the attendees on one hand. That's right, we only had five members present at the September meeting and if you subtract the President, Secretary, Treasurer and our disk/membership librarian, we only had one other member show. What's going on? Last month we had to change our regular meeting to the third Friday of August and even then we had about ten members attend. We can't even vote on the all-important by-law changes with just five members present. So even though we still had a great time at the September meeting, we couldn't accomplish much Club business. So I am hoping that with summer now over we can get back to normal Club meetings and get our by-laws updated.
Remember that the October meeting is generally for nominating officers for the new year and I am sure that most of us will want to keep our positions for the year 2000. But if we don't have a better showing of support from all of our members some of us may lose interest in trying to keep the Club running and that would be a shame. We have lives to live too, and I know all of us could find something else to do on the second Friday of each month. I don't want this to happen but it is awfully discouraging to see just a few members show up for the meetings.
As you can probably guess by now, we didn't have much financial business going on in September. There were no bills paid but if we were on an accrual basis we would owe $10.00 for the newsletter and the BBS respectively, and the room rental is $65.00 for the month.
We took in a suprising $45.00 in membership renewals and sold four Dom's. The total receipts for September were $57.00 and this brings our total treasury to $1,400.51 for the year to date. This is great, but if you see what the normal monthly costs are we are still a little short of the $85.00 needed for the month. We have a treasury balance that can afford this situation for a while, but you can all see that this can't go on forever.
Please make an effort to come to the October meeting so that we can nominate officers for the year 2000 and finally do some work on the much needed updating of our by-laws. Keep SPACE alive.
Subj: Classic Gaming Expo 1999 Report
Date: 99-09-19 21:18:15 EDT
From: mcurrent@carleton.edu (Michael Current)
Classic Gaming Expo 1999 Report
There's old games and there's bold games, and actually, there are plenty of old, bold games.
August 25, 1999
August 20, 1999
Following on the heels of last year's successful World of Atari show, organizers Keita Iida, John Hardie, and Sean Kelley decided to expand the show's focus to include all of the first generation gaming consoles. This lead to the inevitable name change of the show to Classic Gaming Expo(Link).
Held off the main Vegas Strip at Jackie Gaughan's Plaza, the show's floor space doubled from last year's. The enhanced space in the dealer room allowed for all to walk freely without being crammed in like sardines. It also provided lots of room for people to crowd the 30-plus arcade games that made the trek to Vegas including Tron, Space Invaders, BattleZone, Missile Command, Mad Planets, and even one of today's hottest games - Hydro Thunder.
One of the show's sponsors, Telegames (Link), had the Game Boy Color conversion of Howard Scott Warshaw's 2600 classic Yar's Revenge for sale at their booth. This was about a month before it is due to hit retailer shelves. They also brought along copies of their limited release Atari Jaguar and Lynx Games, their Colecovision Compatible console, the Turbo Duo and Express, and Sega Nomads. With so much to purchase, one had to be careful with one's purse strings.
Next to the Telegames booth was B&C Computer Visions(Link). They brought along every piece of Atari hardware and software you could think of. I mean, they even had the original Atari XM301 300baud external modem for the Atari 8bit systems! Cram that in with all the games for the various systems and boxes full of "Atarisoft" game conversions for the IBM, and the booth was one of the most heavily trafficked of the show.
One of the most anticipated, and best-looking, booths of the show was from Blue Sky Rangers (Link). With complete Intellivision I and II systems on display under glass and the Intellivision Lives CD playing on the PC, Mac, and PlayStation. Blue Sky really showed off a presence that resonated throughout the show. And while it took a while to get used to playing Baseball and Utopia on the PlayStation controller, it did bring back many fond memories of the past.
Another Show Sponsor, Nyko (Link), was situated next to Blue Sky Rangers. Nyko had all its controllers and peripherals available including a great new accessory for the Color Game Boy - the Shock and Rock. This product was a lot of fun. It's a thicker grip for the system (for people with big hands like me), a 10-hour rechargeable battery, a pair of amplified speakers, and a Rumbler. Like that rumble pack on your N64? Now you've got it for Color Game Boy. Really quite sweet. Also, Dan Kramer (creator of the original Atari 2600 and 5200 trackballs) was on hand showing off new controllers for today's hottest systems.
Hasbro was also on hand as a dealer and Show Sponsor. It brought advance copies of Pong, Qbert, and Missile Command for the PSX. Free play led many to believe that the update to Pong is the best update for any classic game since Tempest 2000.
The official Classic Gaming Expo booth featured cartridges for every system under the sun - 2600, 5200, 7800, Intellivision, Vectrex, Lynx, Jaguar, Sega, Nintendo, Commodore, and many many more. They also hosted John Harris' (8-bit programmer responsible for Frogger) super-powered Atari 8-bit compatible system which featured VGA graphics, 2 3.5 floppies, a hard drive, detachable keyboard, faster processor(I think it was around 5MHZ up from 1.78MHZ). A wonder of modern day hacking. Also at the booth they also sold souvenir t-shirts and baseball caps from CGE. At the end of the show, the gang at CGE didn't want to take home all their loose cartridges. So they dumped what must have been at least 500 cartridges from Atari and Intellivision onto the floor in front of their booth and had a fire sale - all carts fifty cents. I went home with quite a few carts I didn't own.
The CGE booth also sold the newest Atari 2600 cartridges from Eric Bacher and Igor Barzilai(Link). Pesco, a Pacman style game was leaps and bounds over the original 2600 Pacman in graphical excellence and sound. But Merlin's Walls was the game of the show. A 3D Maze game for the Atari 2600. That's right, walls and everything (it's textureless and you gotta turn your TV 90 degrees to play correctly, but you know what, it's a 3D game on the 2600 running at - ready for this - 60 frames per second! That alone is beyond impressive.
Microdaft and Lambright were selling computer software for just about every system under the sun. Form the Atari 8bit to the Amiga and IBM, every system was on the table and ready to be sold. Blast from the Past(Link) had copies of Space Ace and several other Laser Disc games for play as well as various arcade artwork for sale.
Two companies, Arcade 2000 and Hot Rod(Link) brought along their Arcade PC set ups for people to try out at the show. Both units were full size (although Hot rod also offers a mini size) arcade units with computers, MAME, Retrocade, and full arcade quality controllers on board. These systems were hammered away at for two and a half days, and I never saw them break down. Hot Rod also offered the joystick portion of the cabinet for sale separately. And Arcade 200's systems offered trackball, driving controller, spinners, and 4 way joystick(for Pacman) built into the units. Very nice indeed.
The last couple of booths included Songbird Productions (Link) which was selling their new Lynx Games SIMIS, Ponx, and Lexus, as well as demonstrating their new level editor for the Atari Lynx's Crystal Mines 2. New Jaguar Games at the booth included Protector and Skyhammer. CyberPunks Entertainment was selling their two volume video set Stella at 20 to show goers as well as Scott West Productions(Link) was selling it's Atari Retrospective, Once Upon Atari. And finally, Terminator Line Entertainment was there covering the entire show on video and is making it into a documentary (Link).
With all this you'd think that there wasn't time to do anything else? Well, a host of speakers attended the show and spoke in panel groups. They included some of the Creators of the original Vectrex, the Atari 2600 programmers, Console Hardware Legends(which included Ralph Baer - the father of videogames), Coin-Op Creators, some of the Entrepreneurs of the time, the Blue Sky Rangers, the founders of Imagic and the original Activision Group. Each group spoke for about an hour and then were gracious enough to continue conversations afterwards in the showroom. An additional talk was given by Ralph Baer - who brought with him the original brown box Odyssey. This was really cool for several reasons. First because it still worked and he let us play around with it. Second, he opened it up for us and showed inside - no IC's, but Vacuum Tubes! A definite highlight. John Harris and Sam Palahnuk rounded out the speakers from the show.
The final area earmarked for the show was the museum which included every system under the sun including the Odyssey, all the Atari systems, the Original Prototype Vectrex and the Prototype Color Vectrex, the Nintendo systems, Sega, Intellivision, Colecovision, multiple handheld systems, various controllers, and more than I can recount.
One thing I feel I must point out is that there is something to be said about location. Last year, one was able to walk out the front door of the hotel the show was situated in and have the strip at his feet. He could walk to Gameworks, the MGM Grand, and a host of other Casinos. This year, you walk out the front door and onto the Freemont Experience. This three block long covered walkway is the site of the first casino in Vegas and a host of other casinos. But they are the older casinos. The ones that you immediately think of when you think of pre-1990 Vegas. I don't know, I just feel that the location could've been better.
Overall I'd rate the show as a resounding success. The envelope was pushed by including people from the Vectrex and Mattel kingdoms. It also brought Ralph Baer to the attention of many people. If you missed it, well, you missed a fun show. And you could meet a lot of great people, including those who might have programmed that game you dropped $30 in quarters into. But don't fret. I happen to know that the Classic Gaming Expo 2000 is already in the works. And if I were you, I'd start scheduling my vacation time for it.
LAST MINUTE ADDITION: Over at IC When (Link) there are already over 160 images of the show for viewing. I've been told that some include your esteemed writer. And while there will be a full update over at the Classic Gaming Expo website sometime next week, you can grab a quick look at IC When to wet you appetites.
- Mark Santora
Comments or Suggestions?
Email editors@next-generation.com.
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Subj: APE'98 Final Beta Now Available
Date: 99-09-19 21:04:34 EDT
From: mcurrent@carleton.edu (Michael Current)
From: ai123@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Steven J. Tucker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Date: Mon Sep 13 04:02:31 1999
APE'98 Final Beta is now available. Registered users interested in trying it out please e-mail me at the address below for the download URL and installation password.
Enhancements in this version include keyboard commands, a complete R: telnet server, a complete telnet R: telnet client, windows shell extensions, bug fixes, and much more.
Thanks
Steve
***Author of Imagic and APE - The Atari Peripheral Emulator!***
**Turn your 8-bit Atari into a powerhouse with APE! **
* * *Ape Homepage: http://www.nacs.net/~classics* * *
!! Request my *FOR SALE* LISTING OF CLASSIC VIDEO GAME STUFF !! 2000+ Lines !!
Subj: 1999 Classic Gaming Expo Documentary
Date: 99-09-19 17:54:51 EDT
From: mcurrent@carleton.edu (Michael Current)
THE OFFICIAL CLASSIC GAMING EXPO VIDEOTAPE DOCUMENTARY BEGINS TAKING ORDERS!
August 4, 1999
LOS ANGELES - Terminator Line Entertainment is deep into preproduction on the official documentary for the upcoming Classic Gaming Expo (CGE), which is set to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada, on August 14-15. The CGE show is a celebration of the early years of classic gaming including systems from such developers as Atari, Apple, Intellivion, Vectrex, and more.
The video, which is set to run at approximately two hours, will cover all aspects of the show including highlights from all the Keynote Speakers - which include Steve Cartwright and David Crane (of Activision), Christian Svensson (of MCV), Donald A. Thomas, Jr. (formerly of Atari Corp now with VM Labs), Don Daglow and William C. Fisher(Blue Sky Rangers), Michael Cartabiano and Patrick King (of Vectrex), and many many more! Also covered in the video will be all the booths, show-goers, the Museum of Classic Gaming systems, contests, and direct feeds of all the new games being premiered at the show.
The video is set to be shot on Mini Digital Video and edited on-line for maximum image quality. It will then be professionally duplicated and mailed out. Current projections suggest that the video will ship the first half of September.
Ordering information is available through the CGE Video website, http://home.earthlink.net/~santora/cgevideo.html, or at the show through the Atari Gaming Headquarters Booth.
Mark Santora, head of Terminator Line Entertainment, has been an active member of the gaming and video community for the last twenty years. His previous video work includes the highly praised World of Atari 1998 Documentary, the Next Gen Debuts videos from E3, AEO at E3, and several independent projects.
Copyright 1999 Terminator Line Entertainment. All rights reserved. This article may be reprinted in its entirety.
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Subj: announcing midas maze analog classic on cart
Date: 99-09-19 21:04:30 EDT
From: mcurrent@carleton.edu (Michael Current)
From: Video61@webtv.net (Lance Ringquist)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Date: Tue Aug 24 22:34:59 1999
The classic midas maze from analog is now on cart, this will run on all atari personal home computers with at least 48k of ram. You can order it from www.atarisales.com.
Thanks,
Lance
Video 61 & Atari Sales
22735 Congo ST NE
Stacy MN 55079
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Subj: announcing smush antic classic on cart
Date: 99-09-19 21:04:24 EDT
From: mcurrent@carleton.edu (Michael Current)
From: Video61@webtv.net (Lance Ringquist)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Date: Tue Aug 24 22:32:58 1999
Smush the classic from antic is now on cart. It runs on all atari personal home computers with at least 16k of ram. You can order this from, www.atarisales.com.
Thanks,
Lance
Video 61 & Atari Sales
22735 Congo ST NE
Stacy MN 55079
Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do however ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SPACE, the club officers, club members or ATARI Corporation.