Hello Amiga community,
It's about 60 days until AmiWest 2024, and the planning team and I have been busy getting everything in place. If you're considering attending, now is a great time to act. The hotel has rooms available at a special show rate until October 4th. The banquet ticket sign-up page is available. The raffle items are coming in, and exhibitors are signing up.
This year, the show theme is gaming, and we will bring many games to the show floor—games like those in the AmiWest Games Competition. I use the plural because, unlike years past, Jerry and his sons are bringing us two fantastic modern classic games: Donkey Kong 500 and Hop to the Top—Bunny's Revenge.
We're thrilled the show is on track to have nearly 40 active tables, making it one of the largest shows in many years. We're also excited to welcome back many familiar faces: Doug Compton, Trevor Dickinson, Bill Panagouleas, Michael Salcedo, and David Coombs. And we're honored to have the legendary Commodore Engineer David Haynie with us.
One of the long-time features of the show has been the AmiWest DevCon. In past years, we set aside the show's first two days to host the DevCon in person. While it was great to spend time person working on development, the attendance has been historically small, and many of our presenters were remote. When we created the AmiWest DevCon, we envisioned it as a way to enable more Amiga programmers. To improve For 2024, we will pilot a shorter online event. Having it online would be a better format to achieve those goals. We have yet to set the exact date and time, but we expect an announcement in the coming weeks.
With the DevCon change, we are reducing the four-day show to three days. Friday will feature long-form general presentations covering topics for the general Amiga user. Please note that we still have a few slots open for speakers. Please get in touch with us to share your Amiga project at the show.
The last item to announce is the banquet speaker. For AmiWest 2024, we have asked Trevor Dickinson to present. Trevor has been a fantastic supporter of AmiWest for over a decade. I fondly recall his first AmiWest presentation and how he charted the growth of his family with the development of his Amiga collection. Since then, Trevor has been a prolific supporter of the Amiga Community with numerous projects such as A-Eon, which brought the AmigaOne line of PPC-based systems, high-performance video drivers for OS 4, and enhancer software. Recently, he has published his 3rd installment of his Vultures to Vampires series; I highly recommend it to every Amiga fan, and it will be for sale at the show.
Trevor will speak about "What is an Amiga in 2024? " Having written three books on the topic, no one is better positioned to ask and answer that question. Join us on Saturday, October 26th, to hear Trevor speak and enjoy the AmiWest banquet.
In closing, AmiWest 2024 is going to be another great show. The organizing committee—Jerry Gray, Chris Toast, Brian Carpignano, and I—has been working all year to put the show together, and we are excited about 2024!
Bill "tekmage" Borsari
