Acorn Gaming: Features - Acorn World 1997

FEATURES

Acorn World 1997
Other stuff

Miscellaneous other parts of the show arguably worth commenting on include:

[Black Risc PC]

Acorn Computer Enterprises, a German company, had a spray-painted black Risc PC on their stand, complete with "marble effect" ripples - the case, keyboard and mouse were all painted, but some rather naff logos and also been painted on. Hmm.

[Eye Massager stand] The highlight of the show for some visitors was the Eye Massager stall - or Shakti Chakra as the show guide proclaimed. There were lots of bizarre-looking (and heavy) spectacles-type devices which the people on the stand were falling over themselves to persuade you to experience. It was certainly weird - the thing vibrates madly around your eyes (but not actually in your eyes, because that would be a bit of a bad idea...). Apparently it "works on acupressure points around the eyes". Ah. I tried it out, and it just itched like crazy. I couldn't wait to get it off. So to speak.

The Datafile had offers on most of their games, with Flying High available for £12.50 (saving £2) and Wizard Apprentice for £25, saving £10. The offer on Wizard Apprentice has now been extended until the end of January.

[Much Ado at Rainbow's Edge] Great fun was to be had by playing with the various educational games on display. This one on the RESOURCE stand was quite good, with lots of things to click on. I don't think I impressed the person who was looking after the stand, however, because he made some sarcastic comment about me trying it out. Oops. Maybe he thought it was strange that I was taking a picture of it, too. All in the name of research, of course. Actually, taking lots of random pictures all around the place, especially of really boring things, is a good way of getting stared at, as I soon discovered.

[Someone on the Clares stand] The 20x zoom I was using came in quite useful, however, particularly for aerial shots of stands (such as the ones in the TBA stand report), and it also allowed extremely useful shots such as the one on the right here to be taken. I call this picture "Someone on the Clares stand eats a sandwich". It somehow captures the essence of the entire show. Well, maybe not. I did get some interesting shots of people, but mostly I've censored them from these pages - but I included a few amusing ones on the Chris Cox and Peter Bondar presentation report.

[Doom on the R-Comp stand] R-Comp had Doom running on their stand, but it was just a demonstration of their PC sound software, which seemed to be working fine since you could certainly hear all the sounds from Doom okay! Incidentally, if you're interested in details of PC games compatibility with the various PC cards and software then check out the PC card games compatibility list (also available at this site).

There was a show theatre as usual (see The Future of Acorn show report, but this year you could also watch nine copies of it on (surprise) nine TV screens around the back of the theatre - although on the Sunday it was so empty that noone bothered to do so:

[Show Theatre monitors]

ANT's huge popularity rating following the amazing bug-free nature of their wonderful internet suite software, combined with wonderful customer service, was confirmed by the huge crowds that flocked around their stand continuously throughout the day:

[ANT's stand]
^{ANT's stand at the busiest I saw it all Sunday}

The ARM Club were present with a large stand which featured the Association of Acorn User Groups and the wonderful GameOn! - and the not-so-wonderful StrongGuard. This, of course, is perfect justification for a random picture of The ARM Club's Mark Smith, wandering around the show making notes on a clipboard:

[Mark Smith]

Finally, as per every other year that I can remember, The Guardian were there dispensing free copies of their newspaper. And advertising some network thing, I think, but by the Sunday they seemed to have given up. Anyway, it had a pretty banner which I couldn't resist including a picture of:

[The Guardian stand]