Miracle in Newport Show Report

Those who have not yet heard of the super time that was had by a group of North American QL users … prepare thyself! On the 5th of June was held the first ever all-QL show in North America, at the Salvation Army Headquarters in Newport, Rhode Island.

Paul Holmgren, my wife Carol, and I met in Indianapolis, Indiana, on June 3 and took off from there in Paul’s van for a 20 1/2 hour non-stop (save for gas, food, and pit stops) trip to Rhode Island. The trip out was interesting in that we had a lot of rain and construction, as well as other folks accidents to figure our way around. We arrived in Rhode Island and made our way to the Carleton Motel, where Paul was to stay and be joined by his wife later. Here for the first time I met Bob Dyl in person. We had become close friends for several years on QL projects, and co-operation between our two magazines. Bob often lays the fault on me, at least partially, for him going ahead and publishing IQLR. If one is to be blamed for things, this is one I am proud of. He and Richard Taylor have done an excellent job.

A couple of hours later, Carol and I were picked up by our host for the show. Parker Lewis III, who had just recently finished his education as a minister. Congratulations, Parker! He took us to his house where we stayed for the next couple of days, and we met his wife. Cathy (I hope I got the spelling correct?). We settled in for a nap and getting cleaned up until we were called for supper. I speak fully for both Carol and I when I say they were excellent hosts and people you can proudly call good friends.

Earlier at the motel we had run into Hugh Howie from the Toronto Sinclair Club and Bill Cable of Wood and Wind Computing (as well as long time contributor to UPDATE Magazine!) and were soon joined by Mr. and Mrs. Mel LaVerne as well as Kenton Barrett from Kansas. Soon we were joined by Tim Swenson, recently having moved to Dayton. Ohio from the D.C. area. He is known to many of you for his fine publication, The QL Hackers Journal I could tell that this was going to be an first class show, if only by the presence of the early participants.

Saturday, at about noon, Parker, Carol and I headed into Newport from Cranston to set up for the show. We got there and found a good sized group already gathering. I got to meet many people I had only talked to on the phone before, such as Al Boehm and his wife as well as Sherman Waterman, Richard Taylor, Will Horton, Ken Lang, Don Walterman and John Impellizzeri to name just a few. The fun had begun before the doors even opened.

We were very rushed to get set up, as we had only an hour for that, but were helped by people who had come to the show. Bob Diggs even went and got me some coffee, which was being supplied (as well as donuts, soft drinks, tea, etc.) by the NEQLUG group. They did an excellent job and it was most welcome by the attendees. I am told we had 60 people show up for the show, which was good when you consider that there was relatively short notice on setting this up. Those who came for the most part came to see what was new for the QL and to spend.

The stars of the show were the 3 Englishmen who made the trip across the big Atlantic pond to be with us and to ply their wares. Stuart Honeyball, of Miracle Systems LTD, was there to introduce the new QXL card that at long last allows the IBM to really multi-task as a QL running at 20 MHz with up to 8 meg of memory. Tony Firshman of TF Services was there and had an ample supply of the long awaited major upgrade on the Minerva ROM for the QL , version 1.97. Bill Richardson was there with an ample supply of QL membranes (he had single handedly undertaken to have a new lot of 5,000 manufactured. The price has gone up a bit. but at least thanks to Bill they will still be there. He also had on hand a good supply of Keyboard 90 Interfaces. Hard Drive Interfaces from Falkenburg, Serial Mouse, etc.

Tim Swenson was there sharing a table with Hugh Howie. Tim was making available copies of his magazine, QL Hackers Journal. Hugh was showing off (with good reason) his new program that gives an excellent index of all QUANTA articles ever published. It has good cross referencing, and is easy to learn. I hope to soon have a copy of it for my own use.

Bill Cable was there showing off his new program QLERK, a financial program that has been a long time in the making. I did not get a chance to look at it myself, but those who did just plain liked it. I shall soon have to acquire this new item. He was soon joined by an old friend of both his and mine, Peter Hale of Boston. I was very pleased to see Peter make it to this show, as when he closed the doors of EMSoft I was afraid he would do as so many had done in the past … disappear. My fears were soon seen to be foolish; Peter is still here to give us his valuable support. Thanks.

Don Walterman and John Impellizzeri of Michigan were both there showing off the QL – 2000 Tower Cased QL they had put together. These items were not being offered for sale by them, yet they kept a busy table demonstrating this as well as other configurations. To find out more about these contact Falkenburg in 6erraany, W. N. Richardson in the U.K., or Mechanical Affinity in the Americas.

IQLR was there and was selling specially done-up back issues of IQLR, great Tshirts. Trump Card Manuals and QUANTA disks. He was of course (Bob Dyl) taking subscriptions to his magazine.

UPDATE Magazine was there selling back issues of UPDATE and taking subscriptions. Business was good. This was manned by the publisher and editor, Carol and Frank Davis.

The next group of tables was manned by the guys from MechanicaL Affinity, Paul Holmgren and Frank Davis. What did we have for sale? Software from Dilwyn Jones Computing. Software from Digital Precision, Software from Jochen Merz, COWD Software, CARE ELECTRONICS Software. Hardware from Miracle Systems (such as Bold Cards. QXL Cards, etc.). Minervas, Hermes. Falkenburg Hard Disk Interfaces, spare QLs . membranes, etc. Just about anything you can imagine for the QL, including the newest versions of LINEdesign and DATAdesign from PROBS, as well as the software from TEXT97 (including the new Publishers Pack for use with LINEdesign). The real question these days is, “Is there anything for the QL they don’t have?”

The show was excellent. We enjoyed it, and met many people I have so far failed to mention, such as Roy Arsenault and his daughter Megan, as well as Fred Romer, Mike Jonas and many others. It looks like we will be repeating this show next year. Would any of you be interested in making the trip to Indiana to have the show there? Let us know so we can mate plans. If not it may be back in Rhode Island, Long Island, or D.C. My hat goes off to Bob Dyl for this show. He as well as 5tuart Honeyball of Miracle Systems were the ones who came up with the idea of this show.

From what I have heard ALL THREE of our English vendors enjoyed their visit to the States and found them to be more pleasant than they had been led to think. I guess we have a small image problem overseas. Perhaps people see a lot of our movies and TV programs and think that is reality? It is always nice when people go away with an improved opinion of you. It appears that all three are making plans to return if we have arrother show. I have myself talked to other dealers in Belgium, and Germany, and find that they are now expressing an interest in attending a future QL show in the States. We may even have a show to the north of here around Toronto, if Hugh Howie can talk his club into it. If so, it would, be for all Sinclair computers. Should this show happen, then UPDATE Magazine will be there to cover it!