Annual Chicago TI International World Faire 2009!
winston19842005
The Chicago TI International World Faire will take place on the
weekend of October 17-18, 2009, at the Evanston Public Library, in
Evanston, Illinois, USA. We have just secured the large meeting room
where the Faire has traditionally been held. There will be the usual
Friday night gettogether, a breakfast meeting before the Faire, the
Banquet after the Faire, and the usual post-Banquet pub crawl and
drunken revelery. Survivors will drag themselves together on Sunday
for a stirrup cup, breakfast, and goodbyes. Set aside some time and
some money(if anyone has any left!) and plan to join us for a good
time amongst old and new friends. There are always surprises at the
Faire, and most of us go home with more than we brought. Come and be
part of the face-to-face TI community. --Hal
--- End forwarded message ---
radiologian
wrote:
Does this event have a website? What time does it start on Saturday?
Vendor information? Etc?
winston19842005
e1ff14d6-5197-4310...@v36g2000yqv.googlegroups.com,
"radiologian" <ian...@gmail.com> wrote:
No website. Start time is 9am. Don't know of a vendor list, although I hear
Ekmelsoft will be there.
Jonathan Hoyle
> > Vendor information? Etc?
>
> No website. Start time is 9am. Don't know of a vendor list, although I hear
> Ekmelsoft will be there.
I'm surprised this event has no web site. Is this a bad sign? There
are a few really nice TI-99 sites, and I'm sure that a notice could
posted on one of them, if there isn't funds elsewhere (although web
sites are not expensive).
MainByte.com has a description of each annual faire from the early
80's until 2007. The fact that there was no listing for '08 or '09
led me to believe that 2007 was the last year these were held.
winston19842005
47df1885-f16f-4819...@v25g2000yqk.googlegroups.com, "Jonathan
Hoyle" <jonh...@mac.com> wrote:
There is now some info on the TI 99 Olug site. www.ti99ers.org.
winston19842005
C6FA5B7D.1068A%bjjl...@NOSPAMbellsouth.net, "winston19842005"
<bjjl...@NOSPAMbellsouth.net> wrote:
Look here:http://ti99ers.org/modules/thyme/ and click on the link on the
17th...
Math1723
How did the faire go? Those unable to attend are anxious to hear!
winston...@yahoo.com
> So ... ?
>
> How did the faire go? Those unable to attend are anxious to hear!
From Hal Shanafield, dated Oct 22:
The 27th Chicago TI International World Faire took place last weekend,
from
Friday, October 16th until Sunday, October 18th, here in Evanston,
Illinois, and
was judged by all who attended to be a success. Following is a brief
account
of this year's events.
The Faire began on Friday evening, as has become traditional, with a
gathering
at a local watering hole, this year the "Club 1800." The management
gave the
dozen or so of us the entire establishment, as well as excellent
service, to the
point of turning off the music so we could talk without having to
raise our
voices. That would be something to be more valued the next day, but
more about
that later. We were even given access to the sound system to play Owen
Brand's
brand-new song, "See You At The Faire." All the patrons at the bar
agreed that
it was a hit, and many asked where they could buy the CD. We directed
them to
Owen's website, www.opry99er.com . It would become the theme song of
the
Faire!
The second day of the Faire began with a breakfast gathering at the
local Burger
King, with old friends met new friends and took in a little
nourishment to last
throughout the day, since with a full slate of speakers, and a
shortened period
at the Evanston Public Library, there was no time to go out for lunch.
The
library had let a parenting group rent our room for the morning hours
without
notifying us. We didn't wish to kick moms and tots out into the
street, so we
worked around them.
At noon, we all went to the library and began the real work of the
Faire: the
demonstrations and introductions of new programs and equipment. It
would be a
busy day for all of us. We were hopeful that the entire show could be
put up on
Ustreamtv.com,( http://www.ustream.tv/channel/chicagotiusersgroups-show0
) and
it was largely successful. My son John handled that on his computer,
which was
lucky, since my computer was not able to access the Internet all day
long.
Others experienced similar problems with their computers.
After a few brief opening remarks by me, Gregg Lemke of Emkel
Software,
http://ekmelsoftware.tech.officelive.com/default.aspx debuted the
excellent new
text adventure game, "The Hunt For Bigfoot." Gregg and business
partner Terry
Mayer also had new versions of their well-known screen saver
available.
Our second presenter was Berry Harmsen, Chairman of the Dutch TI Users
Group,
who brought us all up to date on developments in the European TI
community.
Berry told us about the latest TI Treff, held in Vienna, Austria,
during the
last weekend of September. Berry mentioned that there was a resurgence
of
interest in the community due to the appearance of new software from
those
programmers who have produced new methods to break through barriers
and achieve
things which were thought impossible only a short time ago. Amongst
those
producing new software were Thierry Nouspikel, who released "Bug 99"
on his
website. Fred Kaal produced new versions of his emulator, and his
utility
"TI99dir." The next programmer Berry noted was Filip van Vooren, who
has been
studying the possibilities of porting retro games to the TI99/4a.
Wolfgang
Bertsch has finished a new version of the program "Magic File
Manipulator," and
made it available on the website of TI-Club Errorfree: www.errorfree.de
.
Berry reported that Paolo Bagnaresi totally rewrote his program, "TI99-
PC" for
use with Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. Berry showed the first part
of an
interview with Paolo, which will soon be available on YouTube.
After his report on Europe, Berry returned wearing a new hat: as
representative
of the Board of Governors of the TI99 Hall of Fame. He first
acquainted us with
the purpose and history of the Hall of Fame and the HOF website,
www.ti99hof.org
. Berry then called the members of the executive board of the Chicago
TI User
Group to the front of the room and announced that the CTIUG had been
inducted
into the Hall of Fame, and presented us with a certificate attesting
to that
fact. Berry introduced the group, Vic Steerup, president, Irv
Levinson,
treasurer, Al Antonowitz, membership chairman, and me, Hal Shanafield,
secretary. We were all greatly honored by the selection, and thanked
the Board
of Governors. We will treasure the certificate, and plan to share it,
much as
members of the winning team in hockey share the Stanley Cup.
Our next presenter was the unofficial TI historian, Bill Gaskill, who
brought us
a large variety of very interesting things. First off, Bill introduced
his
program, "INFO-BASE," which he pointed out, is built up the fine index
card
program, "TI CARD," by Lucie Dorais, originally published in
MICROpendium in
1994. Bill demonstrated the additions and improvements to the original
program.
The next item he presented was the updated version of the Altman
Fairware List,
of which he is now official custodian. Bill has not only taken on the
responsibility for maintaining the AFL, but he has also sought to
improve it by
building in a function to allow it to be searched by various
categories, e.g.
author, subject, and type. He has researched the AFL carefully and has
divided
it into ten categories, which he constantly maintains. It is a major
ongoing
service to the entire TI community. Bill then demonstrated the new
port of the
Activision game, "Pitfall," originally written by David Crane, and
ported to the
TI by Filip van Vooren. Bill confessed to not being a great gamer, but
he gave
a fine demo of Filip's effort. Finally, Bill introduced a special
Faire CD
containing all the articles he had written in past years. He offered
the CD for
a nominal price of $10, and announced that all the proceeds from the
sale would
be raffled off. He handed out numbers to all the attendees and had a
visitor
pluck a number out of my TI hat. Irv Levinson was the lucky winner!
Erik Olsen was next to speak, and he showed us a program that he and
his friend
Graig Donini had begun some years ago, "Bubble Plane," which caught
the
attention of the audience. He first demonstrated the assembly version
on a
Geneve, at the back of the room, and then the XB version at the front
of the
room, on a TI99/4a. We were impressed by the graphics and levels of
difficulty
in a game originally developed some time ago. Erik said the game in
its final
form will be released presently.
Our next presenter was Walid Maalouli, who showed off his latest
hardware
project and supporting software. He purchased an off-the-shelf card
reader,
which he connected to the joystick port. He then wrote an assembly
program,
"Magstrip," which read the magnetic strip on the back of a credit
card. Several
viewers on Ustreamtv.com immediately thanked Walid for providing his
numbers and
said they would only buy expensive items! Fortunately, not all the
numbers
showed up. Walid then previewed the assembly game he is currently
working on,
"Ultimate Planet," which he promised will be ready for next year's
Faire. The
game was unique amongst TI games for its potential similarity to
Avalon Hill
board games. We will look forward to the release next year. Walid then
proceeded to demonstrate the brand-new game from Owen Brand, "Lemonade
Stand."
It was a business simulation game that required the player to decide
how much of
certain items to purchase, depending on how the weather is forecast,
and how
many customers are expected. The game lasts 21 days, if you guess
right, and a
lot less if you guess wrong! This game is the first effort from a
promising new
author, whose next offering, "Honeycomb Rapture" is already in the
works. The
game is currently available from his website.
Glenn Bernasek spoke about the Jim Peterson Award, named for the
prolific
software author and publisher. Glenn is the person responsible for
receiving
the nominations for the annual award, given to individuals in several
categories
in the TI community. He exhibited several of the past awards and
listed the
history of the winners.
Richard Bell showed us the new and improved version of the Myarc
floppy disk
controller, which featured a design by Michael Becker and was
implemented by
Richard himself. He mentioned that Michael had added an oscillator,
which
provided stability. He explained that he would simply swap cards sent
to him for
new cards unless the owner insists on getting back their original
card, and is
willing to wait until Richard has time available. He mentioned for
those who
weren't aware, that he is still repairing Myarc products, subject to
the
availability of the components.
Jon Guidry then took the floor to discuss his latest project, the
module kit,
which comes in 8, 16 and 64k versions, depending on the EPROM
inserted. His
slide show was very well done, and answered many questions before they
were
asked. Jon mentioned that he would be selling the kits he had brought
to the
Faire, until they were all gone, but only after the speakers were all
finished
with their presentations, to avoid the stampede of attendees to his
table as he
was speaking. The kit lists the contributions of Carlos Randolph, Ron
Reuter,
Stuart Conner, Mike Brent and Jon. He mentioned that he would be able
to burn
EPROMs for programs such as DM2K, by Fred Kaal, which could be placed
into the
completed module kit. He also said that if there was sufficient
interest, and
if his wife would allow it, he would consider making another run of
boards.
More information can be found on his website, www.hexbus.com .
Our last speaker was Mike Brent, perhaps better known as Tursi. He
showed us
the latest version of his hardware creation, the PS2 adapter that
allows the use
of both the TI and PC keyboards with the console. He directed us to
his
website, www.harmlesslion.com
for the latest versions of his TI software, including "Image
Converter," which
converts PC pictures into TI Artist images. He was reluctant to
discuss
programs under development until they are closer to release.
The seminar portion of the Faire ended with the announcement that this
year's
banquet would be held at the Evanston Panera restaurant, and time was
given for
everyone to gather their gear, buy their goodies, and move their cars,
since the
library parking garage closes its gates early in the evening.
A new record was established this year: unlike years past, no one got
lost on
the way to the restaurant. We were able to take over the back room and
had the
opportunity to eat out dinner before the speeches began. The banquet
was
televised on Ustreamtv.com again, despite the injunction from the
management
"not to do any videotaping." I assured myself that no tape was
involved, and
carried on broadcasting. During dinner we treated the whole room to
Owen's
song, which they all enjoyed. Owen was present in spirit, and online,
and
promised to be here next year to play it for us in person.
Once dinner was over, the serious business of presenting awards began.
The John
Birdwell Award is presented to someone whom the Birdwell Trustees
select as a
person or persons who have made a significant contribution to the TI
community.
This year the recipient was Mike Brent, who has been very active for
the past
few years. His emulator, "Classic 99," has become a major development
tool
for those writing new programs for the TI99/4a. His games are well
known in the
community, and his website is a great resource for software and
information. He
represents a valuable potential for the future of the TI community.
The final event of the official Faire was the selection of the
recipient of the
Rob Templemans Plat Award, given annually to the author of the best TI
website.
A jury of nine "volunteers" were chosen to evaluate six websites
nominated from
the extensive list of existing TI websites. Each team of three were
asked to
examine the nominated sites for just ten minutes and score them on
three
grounds, information, ease of use, and graphics. This year's excellent
nominees
were:
Rich Polivka (Ninerpedia) www.ninerpedia.org
Tom Wills ((TI99ers Hal of Fame) www.ti99hof.org
Fred Kaal (My TI99 and Geneve Web pages) home.wanadoo.nl/fgkaal
Mark Wills (Planet 99) www.planer-99.net
Owen Brand (Opry 99er) www.opry99er.com
Don O'Neil (WHT ftp site) www.whtech.com/ti/
The result of the jury's deliberations were very close, but the final
winner was
Tom Wills. He will receive this year's RTPA logo and will proudly
display it on
his site.
Once the formal business was out of the way, it was time for the
Magnificent
Seven to begin their annual Bacchalnalian revels. We began slowly, and
gathered
steam as we went on. Each of the stops on our circuit was singular in
a variety
of ways. Some were loud, some quieter, but all were enjoyable thanks
to the
golden fluids which we encountered. This year another candidate for
Babe Magnet
came forward, and made an outreach to Russia and Austria. Names have
been
changed to protect the guilty. We found out that spirits raise
spirits, but
don't improve singing. They do, however, remove caring about how we
sound. We
needed Owen, who CAN sing. We ran into a pizzeria that would deliver a
pizza
across town, but not in front of the door. And just today, as we were
walking
down the street, we were hailed by an employee of the Burger King who
remembered
the huge order placed by a certain doctor of our acquaintance.
Doctor's orders
should always be followed, I guess. For the rest, my lips are sealed.
What
happens in Evanston, stays in Evanston. Come to the Faire next
November 6, 2010
and see what I mean.
At this year's Faire there were a number of disks given out, and it
would be
remiss of me not to mention the names of those who distributed their
handiwork.
Vic Steerup, Bill Gaskill, Gregg Lemke, all passed out disks, and Owen
Brand gave
us the anthem of the Faire. In addition, Al Antonowitz, Irv Levinson,
and Vic Steerup
manned the CTIUG tables. And without the gentle prodding by Berry
Harmsen, this report
would not have been produced, and the Faire would have been a much
less
pleasurable event. Now all I have to do is lose the ten pounds that I
gain each
time he comes over to make this a truly international occasion. Thanks
to all
those who came, as well.