Report on What Really Happened at DevCon

To all AmiGuys and AmiGals!

I know that I am not really supposed to talk about it, but hell, non-disclosure 
agreements are just pieces of paper, aren't they?? So what follows is a 
summary of the events and non-events that went on at the recent Amiga 
Developers Conference and Glee Club Tryouts.

We arrived at the conference on January 25, Monday. For early arrivals 
Commode-door was holding additional seminars. One was "Introduction to 
Mac Programming", and the other taught by Mehdi Aleeeeeeee!!!! was called 
"Managing Your Business for Failure-A Case Study".

After signing up everyone received their conference notes in 27 convenient 
3" binders, a handcart and a free CDTV.

That evening they held a banquet and inbetween frequent visits to the 
DevCon Kissing Booth (thanks to Cathy), the Jolt concessions and tryouts for 
the Mark Barrett Whine-Alike contest we begin to hear about the adventures 
in store for us in the upcoming 4 days. We were tipped off about the new 
Elvis chipset, featuring the regular Elvis chip for the low-end Amigas, and 
the Fat-Elvis  for the high end models with the option jewelled cape. We also 
heard the NewDrek was coming, and that they had rented out EPCOT for 
what was billed as a "Little NewDrek Family Get-together". 

That next morning we reconvened for the keynote speech covering new 
directions for Commode-door. We learned that Commode-doors new 
direction for 1993 was  "left and down the hall" as compared to their 1992 
direction of "turn right, go down a block and make another right at the beauty 
parlor, you can't miss it". I assume that this made sense to someone.

After this was a talk on future hardware and software. Not only did we learn 
more about the Elvis chipset, they also talked about the new Elvis.lib, the 
Elvis.emulator package and Elvis boopsi objects and datatypes. The entire 
interface was going to be modified to take advantage of these "powerhouse 
new capabilities". "What other computer will talk to you the way Elvis 
would?" the CA marketing guy told us. He then typed in something on the 
machine and the Elvis-narrator.device kicked in "Would'ja please insert one 
of them disks?", which he did. The computer then replied "Thank-you, thank-
you very much". This is meant to be only the first of many CEKs (Celebrity 
Enhancement Kits) to be made available. If, God-forbid, you're not an Elvis 
fan, you may have your choice of other PMs (Personality Modules), going all 
of the way from Elmer Fudd ("Harddwive wead ewwor, hehehehehehehe!") 
to the Dr_Ruth.lib ("All you haff to do is to please insert disk"). Developers 
have already begun to take advantage of these features, from NewDrek's 
Elvis effect (best observed when one is in a highly drug induced state) to 
Electronic Arse's "Deluxe Elvis Construction Set". ASDFG also showed off 
their "Morph Elvis Plus" in which anything can be morphed into looking like 
The King. SunFries likewise demonstrated their "Studio 54 Disco Board".

Right after this we heard a double-sonic boom over the hotel. Rushing out 
visitors were treated to the sight of NewDrek's own private Space Shuttle on 
final approach. At last, I thought, I could finally meet that great NewDrek 
babe, Kiki Jackhammer! Star of the Video Roasters special Power Tools 
effect series.

From then on the sessions broke up into about 129 different parallel 
meetings, covering topics from "FuzzyLogic As Applied to Commode-door's 
Marketing" to "Localizing you Software for Arkansas". This brings to mind 
one of the main thrusts of the entire conference, namely localization issues. 
For instance we learned all about the new keymaps, from the Arkansas 
keymap (everything types an "X") to one for Linear-B to handle that ancient 
Sumarian market. At this time, CA also announced their bringing back of the 
beloved "Guru" error. But due to the increased "diversity" of the Amiga 
market, a new sensitivity was awakened inside Commode-door, so as with 
everything else the Guru was localized. In Japan it will read "Shinto priest 
meditation error".  Machines shipped to South America will use the Madonna 
(this may be a mistake due to the fact that a machine running the beta release 
of this software had 14 shrines built around it overnight following an Illegal 
address error. However 78 miraculous healings were also reported 
testifying to the power of the new OS mods). Machines sent to the far East 
will use the Buddha, French boxes, Jerry Lewis, and Fidel Castro goes to 
certain pockets in Berkeley.

Around noon the NewDrek entourage arrived, pulling up in 42 stretch limos 
out in front of the hotel. The first 14 limos contained nothing but bodyguards,  
off-duty defensive linesmen hired away from Forty Niners. Then came the 
NewDrek engineers, who were quickly whisked away by the adoring press 
after tossing some flower petals our way. Finally Tim Geniusson stepped 
out, put a clenched fist in the air and yelled "Roaster! Roaster! Roaster!". He 
then approached a microphone, and the crowds stilled. He thanked everyone 
for coming to the Video Roaster Power Supply Developers Conference, 
tossed some diamonds into the throng and mysterious vanished.

A number of disks were handed out to the attendees. A new SetPatch was 
supplied which came on only 14 disks.

The following day we heard about the new interface standards. Peter Hernia 
opened up the advanced Intuition meeting by announcing "up to now, GUIs 
have only addressed 2 of our senses, sight and hearing, ignoring 3 other 
perfectly good senses, those of taste, touch and smell. Well, wait no longer!". 
Beaming, Peter then began to demonstrate several new features such as the 
proportional "Scratch and Sniff" object. He gave a sample of the source 
code:


      smellgad.ng_GadgetText="Lean close and sniff really really hard!";
      smellgad.ng_GadgetSmell=SNG_PORCUPINE_MUCUS;


      gadget=CreateGadget(SMELL_KIND,gad,&smellgad,TAG_DONE);

Commode-door will supply a scent.lib used by the datatypes, and users are 
free to add their own. Supplied smells include those for a dead skunk, 
Madonna's armpits, Sushi in a hot car, Calvin Klien's Obsession and wax. 
Beta testers have been reporting one fairly major bug however, which seems 
to make everything smell like dead skunk. That could explain why the first 
12 rows were empty in the meeting room.

He followed this by mentioning the "Point and Lick" extensions still in their 
early stages and showed the optional tongue electrodes needed to "fully 
appreciate" the new features. For some reason, Peter refused to 
demonstrate, saying something about the smell bug also affecting the taste 
code.

Extensions were likewise shown for BOOPSI. The new "OOPSI" modules 
were created for the clumsy programmers out there.

At this time, members from the Kansas City Royals handed out flyers 
announcing the release of NewDrek's, BlightWave 3.0. Current owners may 
upgrade for only $42,199. "A FULL $150 OFF OF THE REGULAR 
PRICE!".

Besides the seminars, Commode-door had special rooms set aside for other 
activities. They had the "Compatibility Lab" so developers could try out 
their products on a variety of equipment. Next to that was the 
BLAZEMONGER Compatibility lab, so developers could try out their 
products while BLAZEMONGER was running at the same time, in the SAME 
ROOM! I never went in there as it was always just a bit crowded due to the 
presence of half of the Orlando fire department and the NEST team supplied 
courtesy of the Atomic Energy Commission.  I did notice that Commode-
door thoughtfully provided free psychological counseling to anyone after 
using the lab. There was a long line for this as well. (Side note : On the third 
day, ABC's Nightline did a live broadcast from in front of the lab door. I 
didn't have time to see what they were talking about, but I caught Koppel 
mentioning something about "how could anyone let this happen", and the 
words "careless", "irresponsible" and "Chernobyl" were overheard as I 
rushed to the Marketing seminar.)

In the Marketing meetings, Dave Goldenarches revealed some of the 
preliminary sales figures for the Amiga 1200. He announced that the Central 
African market has finally opened up, and they';ve sold over 9500 units in 
only 10 weeks in Botswana alone. And 16000 machines were sent to 
Cambodia just for Christmas! This was followed by the US Marketing rep 
who boasted that a full 28 Amiga 1200s were shipped in December and that 
they had orders in hand for at least another 12 units.

A new "PowerDown" program was revealed in which C-64 owners could 
trade in their system for a CDTV. If they wanted, the C-64 could be bought 
back for $1.19 which could be traded in again if desired.

In between the afternoon meetings, various goodies were handed out. On 
Wednesday we received free Dove Bars. On Thursday, it was CDTVs. 
Friday due to popular demand, more Dove Bars were given out, as well as 
CDTVs. In understand that the extra CDTVs were sent to a local landfill.

Thursday night was "NewDrek" night at EPCOT. We were ushered in to the 
park by colorful characters dressed as Penn and Teller (goofy ponytails and 
nails through their arms) or Kiki Jackhammer (leather pants, splitting at the 
seam). After the catered French banquet, Michael Jackson performed for a 
few minutes followed by a reunion of the remaining 3 Beatles. Next, Tim 
came out and spoke briefly, announcing that the next DevCon would be held 
in Topeka, Kansas, which he had just bought (Kansas, not Topeka). 
President Clinton wound things up, announcing that he had just made Tim 
Ambassador to God.

The show restarted, SDI lasers were used to burn "NEWDREK" on the 
moon's surface. (Too bad about that 747 that wandered into the beam 
though, but Tim brought out his checkbook and promised to take care of 
things).

As we left the each attendee was handed a numbered key and directed 
towards the parking lot. There we saw a literal sea of red Ferraris. Tim said 
that they had considered handing out free T-shirts, but "everyone hands out 
T-shirts".

On Friday morning we had the Mark Barrett working group. New flags were 
introduced into the driver support code to filter out anything from Mark 
Barrett that might get through. These included MB_ANNIALLATE, 
MB_BLAST,  and FORCE_MB_TO_SMELL_PORCUPINE_MUCUS.

Commode-door unveiled their new Mumbly-PEG board, but no one could 
explain just what it did. To answer the complaints of no SCSI support in the 
A4000 they showed off there new interface card supporting the SCSI-4 
standard! Shipping date is whenever SCSI-4 is established. To support that 
ever expanding graphics-computer-multimedia agricultural market we were 
shown the EIEIO board, able to control 12 milking machines simultaneously.

We saw the new ABCDTV prototype, dubbed the "3DO Killer" because if 
placed near a 3DO unit it would explode. During the demo, the Arkansas 
keymap was accidentally loaded so all text on the screen was rendered as 
"X"s. 

Commode-door had a store available to all attendees selling things like 
Amiga keychains, CD-ROMs, Dave Haynie pinups, and notes from past 
conferences. Buyers were given free CDTVs for each purchase over $1.25.

Also on Friday, we were given a peek at the new chipset, dubbed the "AA 
killer". Details about these chips have already been revealed at the World of 
Commode-Door, but they did mention a new HAM-24 mode (set with the 
"Sagan" bit), able to display "billyuns and billyuns" of colors at once.

Motorola came in to talk of future CPUs, after the 68040 is going to be the 
680486, capable of "emulating" popular chips by other manufacturers. Then 
comes the 680586, capable of "emulating" popular Motorola chips.

The retargetable graphics seminar was popular. We were told that the design 
goal was to permit Amiga graphics to be displayable on any device. Not just 
a display device, but ANY device. The engineers explained that in the lab 
they already had Workbench displaying on a washing machine, a Sears 
Craftsman powerdrill and Mr. Coffee. They were at a loss to explain as to 
why anyone would want to display workbench on their Mr. Coffee, but were 
quick to add that the Amiga "would be the first computer to do so!". They had 
a point there.

On Friday night there was a field-trip to the local topless bar, notably absent 
were most of the developers who stayed back at the hotel building play 
fortresses out of CDTV units.

The last day of the conference began with a talk about the App-BodyBuilder 
software. Not only does it help build nice interfaces, it will pump up those 
flaccid biceps as well. This requires a the new "PowerMouse" weighing in at 
25 pounds.

The conference ended with a "Developer's Choice Awards Luncheon", in 
which Amiga developers were asked to vote for their favorite products. Best 
interface went to NextStep, best hardware was the Pentium chip, Best 
Software awarded to Ultima Underground. It was decided that next year, 
winners will be limited to Amiga only products. The conference ended with 
drawings for door prizes. The first prize was  5 CDTVs, the second prize 3 
CDTVs, and third prize was an Amiga keychain. The conference ended with 
a group tour of Disney World, now named NewDrek World.

As I was climbing aboard the plane to head on home I heard that NewDrek 
just bought the planet.

------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Portions of this report were inspired by Steve Pietrowicz one dull 
January night inbetween top-10 lists. Gee, I need to get out more often.



Copyright 1993 by Mike Smithwick, no part of this may be reprinted or 
distributed without permission from the author. If you do, I'll put you in 
contact with the BLAZEMONGER "Customer Service" department for a 
little "discussion".






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