Diving into the bargain bins
The atmosphere at a show like this is amazing. The energy and excitement in the Amiga community here is beyond anything I've seen--at any time, for any computer--in the States. The Amiga is BIG, and everyone knows why it's so exciting. Mail-order houses were promoting all the latest and best stuff, including, for the first time in the U.K., Final Copy II, which looks to have a fight on its hands from the latest version of Digita's Wordworth, currently top dog over here. (For the record, I, of course, am using Final Copy II to write this.)

The deals are amazing, as you might imagine, when you can buy from mail-order and software houses direct. The exchange rate right now is about $1.54 to £1, and I bought a 290-DPI mouse for £9. It's not only a great deal, and easily a great deal better than the standard A500/600 mouse.. it's a real contender for the best darn mouse I've ever had the pleasure of using.

They then sent the lil' munchkins up to bounce off an oversized air cushion, flip over in mid-air, and stick upside-down to a velcro wall—a la David Letterman.

To address an earnest need here, I also picked up a copy of Lemmings from the Psygnosis booth for 10 quid. Along with hocking all their latest games, Psygnosis was offering some of the porch-monkeys who wandered away from the Sega booth the opportunity to dress up like lemmings, complete with makeup, and slide into a velcro suit. They then sent the lil' munchkins up to bounce off an oversized air cushion, flip over in mid-air, and stick upside-down to a velcro wall—a la David Letterman. Really—I've got pictures.

To better round out my collection of joysticks (now at seven and counting), I picked up a QuickShot Python I for £8. This is the digital version of the analog flight joystick my buddy Dave Kirby had for his Pee Cee. It feels MUCH better than its analog counterpart, (naturally) and still has that same killer handle grip, dual trigger and fire buttons, stabilizing suction cups on the base, and an autofire switch. Alongside it here I have one of my trusty Wico "Super Three-Way" joysticks with its handle grip. The verdict is still out on which is best, but after enough screaming, tail-wagging, two-player head-to-head sessions of Lotus Turbo Challenge 2, (along with a shamelessly large number of hours of Biplane Duel) I should be able to deliver an informed judgment. We'll see.

The most impressive non-Amiga vendor there, in my opinion, was Philips, who was pushing CD-I for all it's worth. They had full-motion video on display, playing a James Bond movie at a much higher quality than VHS. Rumor has it that they can fit 72 minutes of video onto one CD, making CD-I a real contender as a digital "two disc" movie-rental format, and opening the door to such beasts as "interactive" choose-your-own-adventure movies. Commodore can still win this battle, but only by putting an A1200's guts inside the next generation of CDTV, and giving it an FMV chip to rival CD-I. Super-hi-res HAM8 should work fine as a display mode. But they'd better do it, and soon.

An 030 A4000 on the horizon?
The most interesting and useful piece of dirt I was able to scrape up at the show came from a British lad who worked at the "serious" Commodore booth. I was sitting along a wall having a Coke beside the guy, and I thought, "Heck, why not?" So I just up and told the guy that I have an A3000/16, I realize I have to get a new machine to get the AA chipset, but I can't afford an A4000 and don't want an A1200. Then I asked, "Will there be anything coming out to fill the gap between the two machines?" He smiled, quickly told me not to tell anyone like you, and said that Commodore will be offering an A4000/030 at 25Mhz some time after the first of the year, for around £1300.

Considering the fact that the A4000 sells for around £2000 here, the 4000/030 looks to be a real bargain. At last, I think, we're going to have a real enthusiast's machine at a realistic price. Done right, this little box could take the American market by storm.

At last, I think, we're going to have a real enthusiast's machine at a realistic price. Done right, this little box could take the American market by storm.

So, to all you A3000 owners I offer the following advice: "ABANDON SHIP A.S.A.P.!! SELL! SELL! SELL!!" Enclosed with this report should be a slick color spec sheet on the A4000. Note the footnote at the bottom of the page, which does indeed mention the 4000/030. You've got it in writing from Commodore. I figure that after getting a SCSI-2 card and some extra RAM, an 030 machine is the only way I can afford to go. I can always add an 040 processor module later, perhaps at a higher clock speed and a lower price. Of course, that's what I said about the 16Mhz A3000.

My other impressions of the A4000 are somewhat mixed. For starters, the machine's looks aren't as bad as you've heard, once you see it in person. I sure wouldn't complain about having one on my desk, for instance. It's not quite as sexy as the A3000, but it is a nice, bright shade of ivory-white like the A600 and A1200, and the indented AMIGA logo on the front looks pretty nifty. Still, the 4000 has a kind of bread-and-butter, "pure and innocent" look to it that doesn't seem to fit the character of a computer that will trounce a NeXTstation, Quadra, 486/66 or SPARCstation without stopping to catch its breath.

On a positive note, Commodore has apparently replaced the tired old "butt-ugly-wedge"-style mouse that's plagued Amiga users seemingly from day one. All the 1200s and 4000s at the show had a smaller, sculpted mouse—kind of like a Microsoft mouse, only better—made of decent-quality plastic in that ivory-white color. (It's pictured on the A4000 spec sheet.) The mouse feels solid and sturdy, with nice feedback from the buttons. By the feel of it, it's probably about a 290-DPI mechanism, and it's very smooth and precise. I don't know whether or not I'd say I like it as much as the "pregnant"-style mouse that shipped with some A3000s, but this new mouse should fit smaller hands quite a bit better than the "pregnant" mouse, and it didn't seem to be in short supply, which is real progress.