AVC Online
US Tour
I was unable to attend Jag fest 2000 in Austin, TX and I had no one to act as representative for the club there ( a Jagfest issue of the Atari zone was made but it came out after the fest)
Classic Gaming Expo 2000
This being my first time at Classic gaming Expo, it looked like to be a hugh success . when you first walk in you see the first three booths which were: Telegames USA, Intelivision (aka blue sky rangers) and B&C computers was showing some new games for the colecovision and atari 2600,,Telegames and B&C were showing various atari systems).
Behind the first group of tables were a new gaming magazine called classic gamer magazine (I brought the first three issues ),Digital Press Fanzine(where I picked up the current issue of the fanzine and finally met up with Joe Santullli and Al backiel(Al is a long time AVC member),Cyberroach(where he was showing the Jag CD with most of the Jaguar commercials including the infamous “cave “ infomercial.) ,United game Source, Cosmi software and Blast from the past.
On the other side from those tables were Classic Games Expo table(where they were selling old shirts from the previous expo as well as old gaming products),Hasbro/Atari table(where they were showing some newer pc games) and Imagane media table. The back of the room had many coin-operated games including Tempest and a couple laser disc games. The final sets up booths in the back were :Retroctive games, Cyberpunks (where I met up with Glen Saunders who was showing the stella at 20 part 1 and 2 videos and Stella CD), Carl Forhan’s Songbird productions (I brought two new jaguar games (Protector & Sky Hammer) and a new Lynx game(Remant) I also tried the new rapid fire controller),Howard Scott Warshal( former atari employee and maker of the once upon Atari video),Marvin Lambert, Las Vegas pinball club(they supplied the coin op machines and they were holding a raffle for two coin-operated machines as well as other gaming items.
And Twin Galaxies who were holding a high score competitions to have the winner’s name in the book as well as a cash prize). Also at the expo was a museum of sorts of game related items from the past (from Atari old pong system to the original Oddesey system).
They also had some interstering Keynote speeches I missed a couple of them including the one that had the Atari ex-employees and intelivision employees, the ones I did see were Joe Decuir who talked about programming the stella(the name of the chip in the 2600), Arine Katz,Bill Kunckel, and Joyce Worely who were the people for making Electronic games magazine which was the first magazine that covered mostly of electronic games (ie home video games) Arinie was also the first person (in my opinion) to review gaming fanzines in a major magazine(he reviewed The Atari Zone in a couple of magazines). And Ralph Baer the maker of the Magnavox Oddessy system I also seen the black box the first model of the odessy system. I also met some people that I knew from the internet: like Fard Muhand(we had fun going at each other playing tempest on the coin-operated machine), Jay Silvewheels(who I didn't’t know because he didn't’t introduce himself to me and I found out on the net when I got back from show) and Scott Walters who works with Carl making the games for jaguar (he came over to my hotel to gamble the day after).
There is one more person I didn't’t want to leave out that was Russ Perry JR. (he’s the editor of the 2600 connection newsletter but before that me and him had a hugh fight over the swordquest solutions,I was going to publish a solution book using the the solutions from the 2600 connection (I was going to give them the credit) but Russ put up a fight and I had to drop the idea, I don’t think he rembers that). Overall I think that CGE2k was a big hit.
Click here to view pics from CGE2k (pdf reader needed)
The Forth Jagfest issue is now availble at the new stand with the new cover designed by cover contest design winner (it is also available in PDF format(minus the new cover)by request at the back issues page(a link to back issue page
can be found on News Stand page on AVC Online)
to view the new cover got the Jagfest secion
of the AVC news stand at cafepress.com
Click Here for a list of winning issues |