AmiWest 2015 - October 16th through 18th

[eliyahu]

@thread

looks like amiwest is a 'go' this year! from the official amiwest blog:

Yes, AmiWest returns for an 18th show! The Sacramento Amiga Computer Club proudly presents AmiWest 2015 at the Holiday Inn Express, 2224 Auburn Blvd., Sacramento, CA. We are currently negotiating with the hotel for room rates for this year and will post them as soon as they are available

This year, we celebrate 30 years of the Amiga community. Little did anyone realize 30 years ago what shape the Amiga community would be in 30 years later. We're not sure anyone even thought about it those terms then. And Amiga has become a community, somewhat unique in the world of IT.

Dates for the show are October 16-18, 2015.

and for folks interested in developing applications for next-generation amigas:

Steven Solie, Hyperion Development Team leader and AOS4.x architect, has confirmed that there will be a 2015 Amiga DevCon preceding AmiWest 2015! He's excited about it and is already developing seminar materials for the event.

The aim of the 2015 DevCon and the three preceding conferences has always been to add new developers to the ranks of Amiga programmers. Prerequisites for this year's event include downloading and installing the most recent SDK, to be available shortly, and having OS4.1 Final Edition installed and running on your Amiga to bring to the DevCon. Steve also recommends reviewing posted materials from the previous three conferences on the Amiga Developer wiki as well as the other materials posted there as background for this year's DevCon.

Be prepared for a full two days of Amiga "C" programming hosted by some of the world's best AmigaOS programmers. Steve requests that as many of the participants as possible arrive by the evening of Wednesday October 14th to set up your software and equipment so that the DevCon can start promptly at 9 AM on Thursday, October 15. Go to the 2015 AOSPS page to fill out the registration form, whose dates will be updated soon. Go ahead and fill in your information anyway and we'll get it without delay. Cost is the same as in previous years.

full details on both events are available at amiwest.net. there are quite a few amiga.org members that regularly attend the show, so i hope to see you all there. it's always a great time!

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@kamelito

heh. no. i think that was just literary license on the part of the blog poster. steven's title is development team lead.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

as usual exhibitors are starting to be announced for this year's amiwest. the latest is jeri ellsworth, coming as part of the castAR crew:

CastAR, the new virtual reality game platform, is a new AmiWest sponsor! While talking with Jeri Ellsworth and her colleagues at Amiga 30 at Mountain View in July, we presented the opportunity to sponsor AmiWest 2015. After some discussion, they agreed.

We are all looking forward to what they will bring to the show. If you saw the exhibit at Amiga 30, you will want to come and see it again. If not, you will be astounded at what happens when you put on a pair of virtual reality goggles then look at the CastAR board. I'll say no more. You have to come to AmiWest to see it in Sacramento.

so far A-EON, castAR, amigakit, hyperion, intuitionbase.com (well, me) are among the confirmed exhibitors -- and i know of at least two other major players in the amiga market still considering presenting their latest wares. but what makes the show great are the attendees and the huge collection of amigas and amiga software and hardware on offer and display. it's a ton of fun, so i hope to see some of you all there!

you can always find the latest on the official amiwest blog.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

looks like there were updates from the amiwest blog last night. first up, amigakit has been confirmed as a sponsor of the show this year. and secondly, the hotel rates have been announced:

AmiWest organizers Chuck Washburn and Brian Deneen met with Holiday Inn Express management yesterday. This was part of our ongoing contact with them to ensure that AmiWest 2015 runs smoothly.

The subject of greatest interest was hotel rates for AmiWest. The rates are as follows:

• $87.00 per night for two double beds in a standard room.
• $107.00 per night for either two doubles or a king bed in a suite.
• All rooms include a free hot breakfast which saves everyone staying at the hotel at least $8-10 a day. Free coffee is provided throughout the conference.

We have blocks of rooms set aside for our reservations, checking in on October 14 through October 18, 2015, checking out on the 19th. Any or all of the dates should give our group rate. The website group rate code is the same, "AMI" without the quotes.

i just made my reservations via the link they provided. looking forward to seeing everyone in a few weeks. :)

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

a few updates about the upcoming amiwest 2015 show in sacramento. first up is the announcement that david morris will be exhibiting on behalf of the MOS team this year:

Amigadave, aka Dave Morris, will exhibit at AmiWest this year. So what is he bringing? He didn't exactly tell us, except to note that the exhibit would include MorphOS. I've seen his MorphOS setup and it is worth the trip to see it.

and steven solie has announced the program for the amiga devcon:

At AmiWest 2015 we are returning to a more formal approach to helping all the eager Amiga developers out there. The plan is to make the Amiga DevCon 2015 similar to the DevCon's of old with fresh articles explaining how to use all those neat new features in AmigaOS 4.1 Final Edition.

We are aiming to cover the following topics:

• RTG graphics and the unified graphics.library API
• Vector-port file systems and the diskio.library
• Extended memory objects
• Extended raw key maps and UTF-8
• New and extended console.device
• New Intuition menu system
• Composited video

hope to see some of you there!

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@Terminills

you gotta come. and bring a recent finalwriter build with ya.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

news via email:

In keeping with the tradition of the last few years, The Friends of AmiWest are pleased to announce they are again sponsoring another guest for the show.  Following in the footsteps of Amiga developers Lyle Hazelwood and Andy Broad, we are please to announce Mr. Rene W. Olsen will be joining everyone at AmiWest this year.

Rene has been a prolific, active AmigaOS developer for decades. Over the years he has worked on the AmigaOS USB system, its graphics systems, hardware drivers; his third-party applications number some 33 uploads to OS4Depot.net.

Rene will be on-hand for throughout the show as well as for Amiga DevCon 2015 on Thursday and Friday.  Please join us for a bit of hacking & chatting with the foremost of Amiga developers!

remember, dates for the show are October 16-18, 2015. amiga devcon 2015 starts October 15th, and full details are available on the official amiwest blog. see ya' there!

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

a few updates from the official amiwest blog. first, dave morris and paul rezendes will be representing the MOS team this year. in addition to having systems to demo...

[dave] will be donating a 1.42GHz G4 ibook to be raffled during the show & selling embroidered MorphOS t-shirts at AmiWest this year.

paul sadlik and alex carmona have also announced they will be exhibiting this year:

We will be demonstrating how to get the most of your modern Amiga computers in today's world. Besides the latest in Amiga applications, we'll show off the latest  web browsers, internet tools and development tools.

and lastly, a reminder about this year's banquet:

Please remember that banquet tickets are NOT AVAILABLE AT THE SHOW. Due to an increasingly large load on our caterer, we must give a count to them at least two weeks before the show. That leaves only 16 days to make your reservations.

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

according to the latest updates on the official amiwest blog, amiga.org member alex perez will be exhibiting at the show on behalf of inertial computing. also, the amiga users of calgary user group (AMUC) and hyperion entertainment will be among the official sponsors of this year's show.

with amiwest 2015 only three weeks away, there's not much time left to make your travel arrangements. hope to see y'all there!

-- eliyahu

[eliyahu]

@thread

yet another series posts on the amiwest 2015 blog for you today, including the news that ron nicholson, one of the original amiga hardware designers, will be presenting this year:

Ron Nicholson who, along with Jay Miner and Joe Decuir, designed the hardware for the A1000, has just confirmed that he will present at AmiWest 2015! He is "pulling out all the stops" to present for us just after arriving back in the US after a European trip.

Ron founded HotPaw Productions, developing apps since the app store first opened. His long career includes working as product and system architect for many famous tech companies such as Wyse (now part of Dell), Agate Logic, and Silicon Graphics. His SGI work included developing interactive television systems and consumer multimedia/3D graphics ASICs. He also designed a portion of the Nintendo 64 Reality Co-Processor, and was involved in the design of ASICs for the MIPS Magic Carpet and digital video servers.

He studied engineering and math at UC Berkeley, designing a RISC CPU for Dr. Sequin's CS152A class. He later worked at Apple Computer on Apple II peripherals including the "Super Serial Card," the "Integrated Woz Machine" disc controller ASIC, and the CMOS clock chip for the original Macintosh (case signatures, Mac 128K through SE), as well as the Apple IIc.

In 1983, he was one of the founders of Amiga Corp., where he was a lead hardware architect of the Amiga 1000 along with Jay Miner and Joe DeCuir and graphics chip set architecture designer.

You don't want to miss his presentation. We've told him he can have all the time he wants to have. The presentation is scheduled for Saturday the 17th at 11 AM.

another presentation this year will be from amiga.org member dan schallock on his amiga animation package, take 2:

Dan Schallock, new SACC member and long-time Amiga animator, announced September 27 that Take 2 animation software has been released into his domain. Dan now has the 68K software and assembly source code in his possession.

Take 2 is a great piece of Amiga software. The developer has continued to update it for other current platforms and was not using the 68K version. The developer has released the code as a donation to the Amiga community.

From Animator Mag, here is a description:

"Taking an entirely different approach to animation sequencing is Take 2 from Rombo. This really is an animation package for animators. In fact, it was originally written by Geert Vergauwe as a line tester program when he was a student at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. If the anims, animbrushes, scenes, parts and videos of Deluxe Video sound daunting, then fear not. Take 2 terminology is extremely traditional. Cels are loaded into a Picture Panel either after being created in another art package (such as Deluxe Paint), or automatically if you grab them with a Vidi Amiga digitizer (also made by Rombo).

Take 2 controls the Vidi Amiga digitizer directly from a special digitizer screen. The program automatically numbers drawings as they are digitized, and even speaks their name out loud to confirm that it has done so!

Once cells are loaded into Take 2's Picture Panel, they can be pasted into a four-level exposure sheet. A Cell Panel controls how many times and where they are inserted. The mouse can then be used to drag cells about and to increase or decrease their duration on screen. Sound samples can also be pasted onto the extreme left of the exposure sheet. Once you are ready to play the animation, simply select Flipper and the animation will run at either 24 or 25fps as selected. A VCR style panel is utilised as in other programs to step through animations when in this Flipper mode."

So come and see it at AmiWest 2015! The demo will be on Saturday afternoon. Be sure to come see it run and hear Dan describe how he used it as part of our celebration of 30 years of Amiga.

looking forward to both of these.

-- eliyahu