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A
photo diary by Shiuming Lai
"It's about
time I go to Unconventional again," I told
myself. Despite the low-key organization this
year, with not much announced on the Foundation
Two web site, the photos and videos from the
one I missed last year promised another show
of familiar faces no matter what. So it was
the preparation began.
Going away on
a short break was a perfect excuse for spending
yet more money on camera accessories, namely
a spare Li-Ion battery, so I wouldn't have to
carry the much bulkier charger with me. During
a trip into town I took a diversion onto Tottenham
Court Road as usual and headed straight for
Micro Anvika, which listed the battery for at
least £10 less than anywhere else. The system
showed one in stock, but not at the branch where
I enquired. Typical. The salesman had the good
sense to call the other branch (one of four
within probably a half mile radius) to check if
it was really in stock, which it wasn't. Useless.
Thursday 28
August 2003 In the end I
took the charger, and just as well, because
the plane ticket cost over £200 due to my late
booking. I was almost spitting blood. That's
economy class, too, and these days that means
a solitary sandwich and a drink, not one of
those exquisite bonsai airline lunches.
I was due to
meet Mad Butscher at Frankfurt Airport again,
at 21:00. During check-in at London Heathrow, I sized up the measuring
frame for hand baggage, confident that my bag
would fit, but more concerned about the maximum
permitted weight. I had everything stuffed into
one bag, including clothes, one heavy camera and the
MyAtari silver Jaguar. I could always take the
camera out and carry it around my neck but as
it happened I was well within the limit. Besides,
I think nobody took any notice judging
by some of the ridiculous items being passed
off as hand baggage with no complaint from staff.
My flight was
delayed by 40 minutes because some confused
passengers destined for Stuttgart had made their
way on board, so cabin crew had to do a head
count, several times. The German gentleman sat
next to me saw me taking a photo of the starboard
wing of our Lufthansa Airbus A300-600, noted
my camera and said he considered the same but
found it too big so bought the next model down.
He turned out to be an employee of Motorola.
There would be plenty of Motorola power where
I was heading!
Clear sky quickly
turned to thick fog, at one
point we hit very strong turbulence which nearly
threw one stewardess off her feet as she served
drinks, she was scared stiff. Finally we arrived
in Frankfurt in one piece and right on time, then I
wasted 15 minutes getting lost at the terminal
once more. When I found the gate where I was
supposed to emerge, Mad Butscher was nowhere
to be seen. A quick telephone call confirmed
he was at home, having only just got back from
working in the south of Germany. He would be
another 30 minutes, as he needed to load his
equipment.
I kept myself
entertained by looking at some of the beautiful
new cars on display around the airport. Sadly,
I would not be staying in Germany long enough
for the IAA or Frankfurt Motor Show, where I
could see the new generation of my own car.
![[Photo: New Mazda]](images/uc01326.jpg)
There was some
more confusion when Mad Butscher arrived. He
asked me to wait at the departure hall,
which made sense because it's a wide open space,
even though I knew he meant the arrival lounge.
Nevertheless, I knew he knew what he had said so I
waited in the departure hall. When he arrived
he still had to phone me because he was waiting
outside while I was inside...
Off into darkness
on Germany's unlit highways, where Mad Butscher
demonstrated he could indeed drive as fast
as other Germans. I would not even think about
driving at those speeds without lighting, but
I think they take smooth, straight and unobstructed
roads for granted. His 1.7 turbodiesel Opel
Corsa didn't look very cluttered inside, just
a couple of bags on the rear seat. This was
a stark contrast to the same car used by Dutch
guys MNX, more of that later!
![[Photo: Speeding]](images/uc01332.jpg)
Following tradition,
we stopped at a Burger King to re-fuel our
stomachs, and the Esso station next door to
re-fuel the car. It was a quite relaxed break,
there was no rush, it was very late anyway.
Mad Butscher lifted my bag and correctly guessed I
had the MyAtari silver Jaguar with me (oh,
by this time it also had 1.5 litres of Captain
Morgan and a box of Belgian chocolate stuffed
inside...).
Friday 29
August 2003 By the time we arrived at
the Schützenhaus in Lengenfeld it was
03:00, we didn't stop at Helmut Weidner's
house because we didn't want to wake anyone
up. It was pitch black in the field outside
the hall and only one car was there, with a
Floppy Doc sleeping soundly inside. We knocked
at the door of the hall but there was no answer,
so we went back down the hill to Helmut's house
where, to our surprise, he was still awake and
greeted us at his doorstep, having heard the
slamming of car doors outside.
Helmut
had a key to the hall so we drove back, following
his lead. Even with just car headlights, I could
see the marvellous exterior renovation
of the hall which I first saw in photos of Unconventional
2002. As soon as we got in, Helmut conjured
a table from behind the stage curtain then proceeded
to set up a 1040ST in the corner by the door
next to the bar, for the real-time article.
Talk about priorities!
We were the first
to gain access, meaning we could choose the
best location for the Foundation Two table,
though tradition would dictate this to be directly
in front of the bar anyway, at least we could
get started with building up. However, Mad Butscher
was tired. I, on the other hand, was wide awake
and rushing with adrenalin. I had to
start doing something. A quick snack of chocolate
and rum gave us the boost to set up the main
Foundation Two table, and the gaming competition
table in the middle of the hall. All the other
equipment was still in the car but I put the
silver Jaguar on the table anyway. Satisfied
with this bit of work, I decided to sleep as
well, waking up just hours later at 07:00. That
would be the last time I slept for the rest
of the entire convention.
At 07:50 there
was a knock on the metal door, it was Floppy
Doc. Within minutes we were building up his
table, 130XE with XEP80 and 80-column amber
screen monitor, and his UPS and power extensions which would
feed more than half the hall later on. This
did mean he couldn't leave until everyone else
had unplugged first! Helmut arrived shortly
after, ferrying crates and crates of beer from
his house. The next person to arrive was musician
R.I.K. of Foundation Two, also known for his
pizza ordering skills at this event. Once things had settled
a little and machines were up and running, Mad
Butscher took the opportunity to show me the
latest version of NonConForm, his rapid multimedia
development system. While it may have looked
like I wasn't showing any interest, truth is
I was feeling the effect of lack of sleep, I
wasn't being rude! It certainly looked more
advanced than when I last saw it two years ago,
and I got the chance to play some games developed
with it. Steinbruch, a simple coloured
blocks type game in the Tetris mould, was not
complete but showed the potential of this system.
I had some ideas for the game itself and was
promised all of these could be done. Cross-platform
development is another potential avenue for NonConForm, ideally
one would be able to code a game once and port
it to other systems very easily. Mad Butscher
talked of wanting to do such a thing with the
Jaguar, so he could code a game on the Falcon
and Jaguar players could enjoy it as well.
![[Photo: Atari banner]](images/uc01349.jpg)
Dutch
crew MNX arrived in a cloud of cigarette
smoke at midday and emptied the contents of
TXG's tiny Opel Corsa onto several tables, two
deep at some points. The amount of boxes
and odds and ends they brought was nothing short
of incredible, there were Atari Megafiles for
free (what great project boxes they would make),
TXG also had lots of games including new, shrink-wrapped
Jaguar titles for 10 Euros a pop, I grabbed
a copy of Iron Soldier, which I have yet to
open and play. TWW (The White Warrior) wasted
no time in getting started with his soldering
iron, salvaging chips from a large box full
of bare XL and XE motherboards. It really
seemed like MNX had brought a complete electronics
workshop and the guys were casually tinkering
with many different projects as if they were
at home, from SCSI device installation to Ethernet
configuration across platforms from 8-bit up
to the Falcon and the odd PC somewhere along
the line. People even queued up for hardware
diagnostics and repair.
Helmut installed
an 800XL with large television set on one side
of the Foundation Two table, where I played
the Preppie! series, very fun games from the
'80s that I'd always heard about but never played.
I really enjoyed Preppie! II in spite of the
ear-grating sound and music.
![[Photo: Floppy Doc]](images/uc01352.jpg)
![[Photo: TWW playing with a soldering iron]](images/uc01353.jpg)
![[Photo: The Dutch table with lots of hardware]](images/uc01354.jpg)
Before
lunch, Mad Butscher made some Unkon 2k3 signs
with Atari Fuji symbols on them. We drove around
the village with Floppy Doc and stuck these
on local sign posts to guide visitors coming
by car! Other drivers gave us strange looks.
Upon returning, we met what looked like the
local farmer, at first I thought he was annoyed
but Mad Butscher was merely answering his curiosity
as to why there were so many people around,
most wearing Atari shirts. All became clear
and the man remembered previous years' events,
and thought we were computer experts so called
his son out to talk to us and ask us questions,
in the embarrassing way only fathers do.
Back
at the party, plenty of drinks were in the house
including the usual unusual local variation
on the cola theme, and R.I.K. had started his
day with a bottle of beer, but there was no
food. Bulk pizza ordering was not due for several
hours, when more visitors had arrived. As
it was Friday, many people were still at work while
others were coming from a long way and
so wouldn't arrive until the evening. I joined
Floppy Doc and Mad Butscher to go to a local
supermarket. They were looking for one in particular,
passing by a few other supermarkets on the way.
I don't think they found the one they were looking
for, I couldn't tell. Every one looked the same
to me, cheap and cheerful was the order of the
day. We drove all that way and by the looks
of it the three of us only stocked up on junk
food, mainly. I had some Schinkensalat,
snack pepperoni, more chocolate for my rum and
nice German bread like slabs of stone. Mad Butscher
also bought some paper and pens for the gaming
competitions, what expensive "cheap"
pens they were at 35 cents each...
![[Photo: The fields outside]](images/uc01356.jpg)
Much
of the day was quieter than I expected then
as the evening approached, so did many more
visitors. Our friends from the Czech Republic,
Bohdan Milar and his girlfriend, and Jan Krupka
from Jay Soft. They had travelled by train this
time, Zdenek Burian was to arrive slightly later
due to work. TWH (Thomas Havemeister) of Foundation
Two appeared from nowhere and was chatting to
the MNX guys and Floppy Doc on their side of
the hall and I recognized him from photos in
some MyAtari articles so introduced myself.
Gaming
high score challenge On the table in
the middle of the room were several machines
set up for people to play as many times as they
liked, with a sheet of paper beside each machine
for recording the highest scores. I liked the
show of trust here and everyone was a good sport.
The MyAtari silver Jaguar GTI (a cool thing
was later we had a visitor who actually works
at Volkswagen HQ in Wolfsburg) was used
for Club Drive, a Jaguar game known for
being trashy more than anything, so much so
that the enjoyment of playing it is purely having
a joke at the expense of the game. It was utterly
incomprehensible to me. We played in freestyle
mode and I found the whole experience unlike
anything else I've played, the graphics looked
like they were made with STOS 3D and the
music and sound effects were so oddball I couldn't
help but be incredibly amused by it. I
think many players of Air Cars at JagFest UK
had similar sentiments.
A
2600 hosted Space Invaders, lots of people played
but nobody listened to my advice about the cheat
which allows firing two shots rather than one
between hits! It wouldn't be so much cheating
as everyone would have the same feature, more
to do with removing the frustration of the slow
rate of fire for trigger-happy freaks like myself.
It was the 2600 which brought my attention to
the use of the "thickened" Atari logo
(with the closed "R" - refer to Atari
Logo Evolution in issue 32) on the product
itself. Then I saw it on a 7800 Proline joystick,
and XE computer badges. Very interesting.
Qix,
one of R.I.K.'s favourite games, was played
on an XE computer with matching grey CX40 joystick
from an XE Game System. Last of all there was
an ST with funky coloured Competition Pro joystick,
running Reservoir Gods' SuperFly. This game
was almost single-handedly responsible for my
total lack of sleep during Unconventional. Like
many things it seemed more complex than it was.
I watched a few people play it but when I came
to have a go, I pressed the fire button too
rapidly (thinking I was playing Joust) and quickly
got tired, wondering how anyone could play this
for a long time. Mad Butscher pointed out the
error of my technique so I gave it another try
- that was it, I had it! I couldn't tear myself
away from the game until I had surpassed the
highest score thus far, setting a new high of
4,880. Obsession then set in and I tried and
tried to beat this during every spare moment
I had, the closest I got was within just 100
points and I was pulling my hair out! I also
found several shots of rum to help relax and
get the rhythm. Then Jan
Krupka bounced along smiling and laughing and
effortlessly equalled my score! My determination
to beat it was by now very intense, though I
could see the funny side.
Gaming
champion Mr XY of Foundation Two made a late
appearance, this time with a toddler and baby
in tow, both his creations. I guess fatherhood
won't leave him much time for game playing now!
Charlie Chaplin of SWAT also arrived around
this time, with his XL system.
![[Photo: Shiny Competition Pro joystick]](images/uc01592.jpg)
![[Photo: TXG floating in a sea of hardware]](images/uc01384.jpg)
![[Photo: MNX busy]](images/uc01389.jpg)
![[Photo: Mr XY with his new baby]](images/uc01395.jpg)
![[Photo: 16/32 Systems]](images/uc01400.jpg)
![[Photo: Wide angle view of hall]](images/uc01420.jpg)
![[Photo: MNX crew]](images/uc01437.jpg)
Pizza
time Ah, the moment we've all been waiting
for: party food. I remember at Unconventional
2001 the pizza had a texture like rubber, but
the flavour was not bad, quite distinctive.
R.I.K. informed us this year we would use a
different pizza service, and made sure
nobody ordered a number 52 without knowing what Schnecken
were (how hard it must be to resist playing
a joke on someone). Thanks to his previous lesson in gastronomic
German, I made an intelligent guess about
Parmaschinken and partnered it with a
side order of bruschetta. Meanwhile, Nick Harlow
of 16/32 Systems arrived. Mad Butscher yelled
for everyone to help unload his car and Helmut
delivered the low wooden benches for Nick to
sprawl out his wares.
We emptied the car in less than five minutes,
contrary to the marathon unloading session I
was expecting judging by Mad Butscher's account
of the last time.
Amid
the flurry of activity, Sacha Hofer from Switzerland
arrived with two friends, Sacha had his personal
VGA projector and the three of them set up a
table in one corner by the stage. All of them
brought notebook PCs and were doing strange
things. It's good that Sacha brought friends
who would otherwise not have come to this event,
I think others can do the same - the more the
merrier. For example, when I go to Cheshunt
Computer Club I always invite non-Atari friends
along, even if only to help carry stuff!
Pizza
arrived and we hastily paid before tucking
in. Hmm, last time we had rubber pizza, this
time it was like plywood! Of course, that can
be of practical use in some situations but I
think I made a bad choice of topping as well.
I like Parma ham and have it regularly at home
so know what to expect, but I think my pizza here
had more salt in it than the Dead
Sea. I couldn't finish it in one go and had
a bruschetta break, which I shared with Nick
since he arrived too late to make his own pizza
order. Obviously that wasn't enough to feed
even a hamster so I guided Nick across cobbled
streets to the local
petrol station, the route firmly embedded in
my mind now, to buy snack sausages and other
stuff.
As
midnight drew closer, some people started making
plans on sleeping. I expected most people would
have sleeping bags or mattresses and just sleep
in the hall, but some chose to sleep in their
cars, probably to get some peace and quiet.
We had the hall to ourselves and there would
be all-night gaming for sure. A group of people
helped TWH set up a tent at the far end of the
field, and the Swiss would be driving back to
a hotel some 20 km away.
![[Photo: TWH's tent]](images/uc01410.jpg)
![[Photo: MNX crew with the Czechs and Nick Harlow]](images/uc01412.jpg)
![[Photo: The bar]](images/uc01426.jpg)
There
were lights in the ceiling of the hall but only
the lights on the wall were switched on during
the night. It lacked the harshness of the ceiling
lights I remember from 2001 but made taking
pictures very difficult. I didn't use flash
for most of them and the resulting dark but
warm pictures here are actually quite close
to what it was like.
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