Pictures from Home Electronics World 1999 in Cologne

These are some slides I took on the Home Electronics World 99 show in Cologne.

A bit of background info: After having attended the C98 show last year (pics here) and the WoA99 show in London this summer (pics not (yet?) online), and after having been involved in the OS3.5 project as a translator, I had to get back to Cologne again this year. Not only to see the show and whatever news and stuff would be there, but at least as much to meet some of the people behind OS3.5; developers, beta-testers, other translators, and the organizational workhorses behind it all at H&P.

Like the previous year, I went there together with Ole Friis Østergaard, who is the administrator of the Danish department of ATO (of which I am a member myself) and one of the original initiators of ATO, and Allan Odgaard, the developer of fine Amiga software such as Daywatch, TextEditor.mcc, BetterString.mcc and the mythical, yet-to-be-released web browser IProbe. Ole had also been involved in OS3.5 as a translator, and Allan as a developer (TextEditor.gadget, a version of TextEditor.mcc for Reaction, used in EditPad).

The three of us drove down from Denmark Thursday (Nov. 11th), arriving in Cologne that evening, went to the show all day Friday and Saturday, and returned home Sunday.

This year's show was notably less interesting than last year's. For one thing, there were of course no sensational announcements from Amiga Inc. (seeing as they weren't there at all, only Petro). We also missed several of the people we met last year, among them Holger Kruse. But we did get to meet a number of the people we had communicated with on the OS3.5 beta mailing list, which was really nice. It was also good to see a lot of people buying Amiga stuff as if there was no tomorrow (hopefully not true); both hardware and software, among the latter a lot of OS3.5 packages were seen wander over the counter. And the new British magazine AmigActive also had a strong presence and seemed to get a lot of subscribers. There's still some life left in our platform!

Enjoy! And greetings to everybody we met there - and those we missed!


Niels Bache (nbache2@mail.dk) Niels Bache

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1: My travelmates, Ole and Allan, at H&P's stand.Slide 1 2: Jochen Becher draws a crowd demoing AmigaWriter.Slide 2 3: André Dörffler and Gudrun and Jürgen Haage servicing customers at H&P's stand.Slide 3 4: Urban Müller at Schatztruhe's stand - note the stack of OS 3.5 packs in the background.Slide 4 5: Petro getting input from customers buying OS 3.5 at Amiga's stand.Slide 5 6: RBM's Bernd Rudolph with some of their neat tower boxes.Slide 6 7: Martin Steigerwald of H&P is busy demoing OS 3.5 to interested users (I had to shout at him to get him to look away from the screen ;-).Slide 7 8: Check out this beauty! Built and decorated by Heinz Andreolla for his own use, took him several months. The little boing ball actually rotates!Slide 8 9: Could this be the future of AmigaOS? An IBM POP (PowerPC Open Platform) board in a fairly ordinary box, part of Amiga's exhibition.Slide 9 10: Following the latest round of layoffs at Amiga International (Nicole and Alex), the "gadget" counter was manned by Petro's daughter and son.Slide 10 11: Ben Vost of Amiga Format - trying to sell his wares? (Who is the other guy?)Slide 11 12: The hardware tinkerer's ideal tower mount - who needs a cabinet anyway? They're just in the way! Jens Schönfeld of Individual Computers with some of his products.Slide 12 13: Petro and Tanya Tyschtschenko.Slide 13 14: Flemming Steffensen, an old mate of ours from ATO-DK that we suddenly ran into, talking with Allan and Ole.Slide 14 15: Michael Christoph, André Dörffler, Ole Friis, Ben Vost.Slide 15 16: Ole Friis, Ben Vost, Thierry Sillis, Allan Odgaard.Slide 16 17: H&P's Michael Rock (left) no doubt discussing 68K emulation (with who?).Slide 17 18: Among others you can see Allan Odgaard, Dr. Greg Perry, Michael Christoph (in the background), Martin Steigerwald, Mario "padrino" Cattaneo, Ole Friis, Ben Vost.Slide 18 19: Allan Odgaard, André Dörffler, Michael Christoph and Ole Friis watching as Mario Cattaneo tries to switch into his coolest look before I take his picture. Way ahead of you there, padrino!Slide 19 20: Mario Cattaneo showing off, André Dörffler and Michael Christoph watching in disbelief ;-)Slide 20 21: Ole Friis, Martin Steigerwald, Eike M. Lang (I think - in the background?), Jochen Becher, Allan Odgaard, Michael Christoph.Slide 21 22: A small part of the people involved in developing, testing, and translating OS 3.5 lining up for a mugshot: Michael Christoph, Ole Friis, Ben Vost, Allan Odgaard, Jochen Becher, André Dörffler, Thierry Sillis, Dr. Greg Perry, Mario Cattaneo, and Martin Steigerwald.Slide 22 23: André Dörffler, Jochen Becher, Jürgen Haage, Mario Cattaneo.Slide 23 24: No, they were not from IWin Corp. They claimed (everything dealing with IWin has to be expressed with caution ;-) that they had phoned IWin and posed various questions and asked for the T-shirts, which they then received in the mail. Needless to say, they drew quite some attention at the show. Sorry, I didn't think about getting their names; anybody know? Mail me...Slide 24 25: Petra Struck wielding her digital camera, covering the show for her AmigaNews.de site (who's the guy next to her in the white T-shirt?).Slide 25

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