The "Mega" Spectrum Meeting in Filderstadt '96

The "Mega" Spectrum Meeting in Filderstadt '96

Actually, this article was supposed to appear in the previous issue of Scene+; pictures from the meeting were already published there. The article was basically finished and tested, but then an evil wizard came along and devoured the floppy disk containing the text! In reality, though, it was quite different: this happened before I modified my Speccy. The old 48k machine kept having issues with IN/OUT handling. Sometimes it acted as if I were pressing random keys when I actually wasn't (have you noticed some errors in previous texts?), and it culminated in unformatting every track it tried to write to on the disk. On the next read, instead of the directory, all I got was the message: Format Data lost. So I had to rewrite the article from scratch. I hope no such errors occur again after the modification.

Time: September 28, 1996 AD.
Location: Filderstadt near Stuttgart, Germany, Europe, Earth.

Since Fred had vented so much about the Cologne meeting, I was curious to see what he and Thomas would put together this time. For the second time already, the gathering took place at Hotel Schinderbuckel, in the large club hall. Shortly after I arrived and unloaded my car, I got the feeling that not many visitors would show up. Unfortunately, I wasn't mistaken: even when I had to leave briefly around noon to drive my brother to his girlfriend, there were no more than 14 freaks present upon my return, including the two hosts. With two PCs, two ASC members were also present (just kidding! ASC naturally has far more members) — one from Holland and the other from Germany. By the way: welcome to the club, Manfred Messerschmidt!

As expected, MB-02 users were also heavily represented, and idiot that I am, I hadn't bought any disk drives for it yet. Oh well, now that I know which models work, I can buy them here ten marks cheaper. My other drives are partially defective, working only with +D/DISCiPLE, or they are DD drives. Regrettably, the MB-02 system is only supplied on HD disks, even though DD would be much better. I don't want Thomas to take this as criticism — he can't help it, because the boot disks can only be created on a PC. It's quite absurd: if a boot disk ever corrupts, you have to get a new one. Hopefully someone in Zlín reads this!

+D was also strongly represented, and naturally I fall into that category too. No, I am not a +D, I am merely a +D user. I brought along my almost-portable Speccy setup. On it, I displayed pictures from Legacy, as well as some not-safe-for-children pictures for NFC II, which I am still working on. Naturally, I also brought the latest issue of Scene+. I think some folks are still laughing about the date (9/86, haha, very funny).

Let's move on to the other faces at the meeting. I already mentioned Fred; he explained a few things to me about the MB-02. Now I at least know how the SDA4 works when connected to the printer port. By the way, one of its inputs/outputs is connected in parallel with the Kempston port.

Thomas had tracked down a large TV set on which he showcased his latest Sintech products: Quadrax and other titles. Later on, though, people only played soccer on it (and definitely not with it!).

The Dutch guys also brought an entire wagonload of magazines, hardware, and software. You could pick up a DISCiPLE for 70 DM or an original Sinclair Speccy 128K+. Well, I ended up buying most of the Crash magazines, as they haven't been available in Austria since 1986. I was also granted a look into Crashed.

Manfred Messerschmidt ran a slideshow of game title screens on his PC. I promised to expand his collection if he sends me his list.

Richard Raddatz was the only hardware expert at the meeting besides Fred (you certainly can't count me as one). It was a shame that many familiar faces were missing, like WoMo, but they have an excuse: moving home isn't exactly a walk in the park.

As for new software, only Quadrax, Kliatba Noci, and a Prince of Persia demo were shown. Yes, a demo, because the finished game only runs from Beta Disk. I am really looking forward to UFO, King's Bounty, and Warlords.

I was even more disappointed by the second day. While on day one I could still find plenty of people to talk to, on the next day there were only six people left (supposedly two more users arrived after I left, but they had already been there the day before). Well, at least the first day was great, even if I had expected around forty users like last year.

Thomas has already announced that no more large meetings will be organized unless enough people firmly promise to attend. In closing, there is one thing I must get off my chest: if the scene gets ruined because too few people show up to such meetings, it's no wonder our numbers are shrinking. Can it really be true that many users are losing interest in the Spectrum or simply have no desire to meet like-minded folks and exchange experiences? What is this all about?

Just keep this up, and don't be surprised when one person after another switches to bigger, though not necessarily better, machines. In any case, I'll be staying with the Spectrum for the coming months, and the earliest I will reconsider switching is in summer '96.

Tiger's Claw