Subject: 2014 Faire report

From: [email-masked]
Date: 11 Nov 2014 10:20:06 -0800

The 32nd Annual Chicago TI International World Faire was held in Evanston, Illinois, on Saturday, November 1, 2014. The gathering of TI99/4a and Geneve 9640 enthusiasts was considered a success by those who attended, and those who watched from around the world via the live broadcast via Ustream.
 The Faire opened with a group dinner at a local restaurant on the Friday preceding the show, with the early attendees renewing friendships and meeting new friends.  Long after the meal was over we had the chance to sit and talk about our computers, new programs, and absent friends.  It was a very nice start, despite the terrible weather, which saw high winds, sleet and snow, and the coldest day in many months. www.abc7chicago.com/weather/highwaves-cause-damage-along-citys-lakefront/376379/ http://www.abc7chicago.com/weather/highwaves-cause-damage-along-citys-lakefront/376379/
  
 The storm was over by the start of  the next day, and the group began to assemble at another local restaurant early in the morning.  There were many hands to help with the move-in to the Evanston Public Library, the venue of the Faire for the last many years.  The TI equipment and the video gear were quickly set up, and the usual glitches were overcome by the time the attendees rolled in.  This year we had a multiple camera array for the live broadcast, so that those who couldn’t make the trip this year could still view the event, and even make comments and ask questions of the presenters.  The taped Faire will be available to view on the Ustream archive presently.  The currently available versions are somewhat less than perfect, due to audio problems which will be corrected in the finished version. It will be available on You Tube.  http://youtu.be/4Z_KLYMKUgY http://youtu.be/4Z_KLYMKUgY
  
 This year’s Faire was dedicated to Irv Levinson, our long-time CTIUG treasurer, who passed away on July, 2014, after his battle with pancreatic cancer.  Irv was a very valued member of our group, and a very good friend.  He will be missed by all those who knew him.  If you have attended the Faire in the past, you have probably eaten one of the doughnuts he always brought.  Irv’s wife, Syvia, kindly donated his TI equipment to the group, to be passed on to someone who would need it, and keep it in the TI community. 
 As is the tradition, I introduced Berry Harmsen, the chairman of the Dutch TI group, and the roving ambassador of all things TI, as our first speaker.  Berry showed pictures of, and spoke about, all the TI meetings and gatherings he has been attending throughout Europe and the world.  He mentioned the Annual General Meeting of the British TI Group, the Birkenau gathering of TI’ers in Germany, and told us all about the last TI-Treffen, held in Vienna, Austria.  He told us how the TI is experiencing a resurgence of interest, with the formation of new user groups in Austria and Italy,for example. This was the first of Berry’s talks, more about that later.  Berry gave us an oversight of the proceedings for next year, including the TI-Treffen in Crewe, England, where Bentlys and Roll-Royce cars are built. The Treffen is scheduled for the first weekend in October, 2015.  The next Birkenau meeting will be sometime in April next year.
 Our second speaker was Lee Stewart.  Lee, from Silver Run, Maryland, demonstrated fbForth. This Forth version is a file based (fb) implementation of the original TI Forth that Texas Instruments donated to the TI groups in 1983. fbForth uses Level 3 file I/O for the access of Forth blocks. It also implements 80-column text mode. Lee used the Classic99 emulator of Tursi for his demonstration. He showed the essence of RPN (Reverse Polish notation) and gave examples of using Forth for numbers, strings and graphics. He also showed how to make and edit Blocks for this language. fbForth was at the Chicago Faire for sale as a cartridge for the TI-99/4A. The manual for fbForth is available on the web.
 We then took a short break for lunch.  The attendees were able to spend some time eating and talking TI.  When they returned, we began the afternoon session.
 Norman Rokke was the third presenter of the day, and began by thanking a number of people for the work they had contributed to his project.  Norm said that the author of the program FlipSquare, originally for the iPhone, was Matthew Sich, and he had given him permission to port the program to the TI. Norm coded the program in Extended Basic, with embedded Assembly.  FlipSquare was a series of puzzles that required the player to move a cursor around the block of squares, “flipping” the squares from red to green.  Of course, it wasn’t just that easy.  There were rules, as in life itself, that must be obeyed.  Norm outlined some of the rules, and asked for volunteers to suggest moves.  The complexity of the game was soon apparent, and the puzzles got harder as you progressed from one to another, as in most games.  Norm mentioned that he is attracted to puzzles that change, not those that can only be solved once.  By the time you read this, the program FlipSquare will probably be up on Walid Maalouli’s site, “TI99/4A Gameshelf.  www.tigameshelf.net http://www.tigameshelf.net.
 Our fourth demonstrator was Tony Knerr, creator of  Extended Basic v2.7 Suite. He began by debuting  his cartridge, built on a 512K card developed by Jon Guidry, Jim Fetzner and Mike Brent.  If I missed anyone, I apologize.  Tony’s XB included a number of new calls and links.  His cartridge had 26 utilities and a couple dozen games on it.  He also demo’ed a series of new carts that contained multiple games. There were so many that he was only able to show us a small sample of each cartridge. The 2.7 Suite carts were for sale, and sold out quickly, but Tony promised to make more.  The other carts were prototypes, I understand, but may become available later.  Tony discussed other plans, including a cart of the Winfried Winkler’s Expanded Basic.  Documentation for XB 2.7 can be found on Tony’s Yahoo.com site.
 Berry Harmsen returned to demonstrate the games authored by Rasmus Moustgaard, Titanium, Scramble, and Road Hunter.  Berry enlisted some help from Jim Fetzer’s son, Cesar and Peter, to play the games, and they showed that they had reflexes that exceeded his.  The games themselves show the talent that Rasmus has brought to the TI community.  New games are already being published by the same author.
 Jon Guidry was our sixth speaker, and he showed off the cartridge cases that he had created with a 3-D printer.  He explained the process of creating the 3-D file, and the program he used to do so.  He attended classes to learn the techniques of 3-D modelling. Jon said the cases were expensive to produce that way, but it could be that it will less expensive to do so in the future.  He learned more each time he produced a case, and changed the design to make the pieces more robust.
 Our seventh, and last speaker was the CTIUG president, Victor Steerup.  Each year Vic compiles a CD of interesting items, and distributes it to those who attend the Faire.  Over the years he has included many photos, programs, articles, and other things that we have found to be amusing, puzzling, disturbing, but always fascinating.  This time Vic had a massive collection of TI software, plus other things too numerous to mention.  Amongst the TI pieces, were libraries of TI programs from different user groups.  Vic listed some of the other discs he had given out in past years.  He answered questions about some of the titles on the discs, and explained the contents of some of the previous CDs.
 At the end of the official presentations, as between the various speakers, attendees had plenty of time to walk around and view the tables and the wares that were for sale, and in some cases, being given away.  CDs, MFM harddrives, 5.25 floppies, EPROMS, printed circuit boards and even a P-Box were on offer.
 Once all the equipment had been packed up, cars moved out of the underground parking garage, and chairs stacked, we headed over to our usual restaurant for dinner and our door prizes and award presentations.  Our thanks to Jim Fetzner, Tim Tesch, and Marc Hull for their donations of items to be given out as prizes.
 The John Birdwell Committee had selected the recipient of the most prestigious award in the TI community, and it was my honor to present it to Walid Maalouli, author of numerous programes, and creator of the TI99/4A Gameshelf.  He richly deserved the award, for his many contributions to the TI world over the years.
 At that point, Berry Harmsen took over, to choose the juries to judge the four nominated TI sites for the Rob Tempelmans Plat Award.  After their site vists and deliberations, they chose the site of Ciro Barile, of Italy, as this year’s winner. http://www.ti99ersiuc.it  All of the sites were well done.
 Now that all the official business of the Faire had been done, it was time to relax and have a little more fun.  We proceeded to a local craft brewery, where we were treated to a tour of the facility, and tasted the various products they produced.  Our next stop was another craft brewery, but on a grander scale, and again were greeted by the manager and treated to a round on the house.  From there, we went on to several of our more familiar haunts, and finished up not far from where we had begun.  Most of those who started the seven hour trek, finished with us, but a few casualties fell by the wayside.  Names will be omitted to protect the guilty.  The following morning the walking wounded met for breakfast to celebrate having survived the Infamous Pub Crawl
 Before I end this report I want to thank those who attended, those who presented, those who helped set up and take down equipment, and most of all, all those who contributed money in donations and dues to fund the Faire for another year.  As some of you know, Fifth/Third Bank gobbled up our bank account in service charges, and without the generosity of the attendees, the future of the Faire was in doubt.  Thank you, and we will see you next year, on October 31, 2015. –Hal Shanafield  p.s. The enhanced video of the Faire is now available on You Tube.