From: seah@ee.rochester.edu (David Seah)
Subject: Apple Expo East
Organization: Univ of Rochester, College of Engineering and Applied Science
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 06:19:05 GMT

Since I haven't seen a report yet, I thought I'd put one up.

Bill St. Pierre was there with the NEW TurboRez board.  He had several 
prototypes running, displaying glorious 256 color 320x200 mode graphics on
stock GS monitors.  $25 would reserve a board off the initial production
run for a hundred or so boards.  The board itself was priced around $330.
Unfortunately, I seem to have lost the flyer, so I hope someone out there
could post the information.  Bill was showing several demos with the
aid of Pete Chin, who was running a prototype desktop GIF viewer.  The board
apparently overlays the video on top of the desktop, so you can have 
native desktop aps with windows and everything.  Also supported is (I think)
a true 16-color 640x200 mode. 

Mike Lutynski was also at the RezTek booth showing off Animasia.  This is a
VERY good looking 3-D modeller/animator.  The interface and design of the
program is great...you can easily create, position, rotate, and group 3-D
objects.  The interface, according to Pete, rivals that of programs costing
thousands of dollars more on other platforms.  You can draw 2-D primitives
(like rectangles) and apply lathe, cone, extrude, path extrude, torus, and
helix tools to make them 3D.  It has hierarchical object relationships,
multiple layers, alignment utilities, clipboard support...AND it can
import DXF files from AutoCAD!  It also has a renderer and animator,
demonstrated in two demos that Mike was running.  The renderer supports
various light and shading models, reflectance models for similaring
material properties, and picture mapping.  The Animation model is time-based
and allows manipulation of ALL object properties, supports non-linear
motion, and the interface also seems pretty good.  Estimated price is $99,
and it looks like it will be worth it.  Write to Animasia at 42 Chaplin St,
Chaplin, CT 06235 (telephone 203-455-0298).

Quality Computers had Platinum Paint 1.99 preview disks.  This is a pre 2.0
release, which has completed document sizing, hierarchical menus, fatbits 8x
mag, full undo, autoscrolling, SOUND, coordinates, and more preferences.  It
looks like there are more shortcuts to get to the useful tools, which will be
much welcome.  Release 2.0 will include "Make Animation", Kids mode, and
tool sounds.  

Lunar Productions was there with Foundation, a resource editor.  Sharing the
booth was Jim Maricondo of the Digital Youth Alliance.  He and Digital
Creations had Twilight II for sale ($20).  Lots of neat blanker effects!

ECON technologies was showing their SoundMeister board, which is supposed
to blow away the Audio Animator for the "Best Sound" title.  They had
a prototype running, using soniqTracker to show off its abilities.  Also
available was Universe Master ($79 at the show, $149 in their catalog) that
looks pretty cool.  It backs up, compresses, encrypts, recovers, analyzes
optimizes and does all kinds of wondrous things.  Apparently, this is
something pretty cool, because an online acquaintance of mine seemed to
want it pretty badly :)  I forgot to look for AutoArc, the "Transparent
File Compression Utility" that doubles your hard drive's apparent size, but
it's listed in da catalog for $59 bucks.  

DreamWorld was present, demoing DreamGrafix 1.0.6, the 3200 paint program.
I got to hang around their booth and watch...it was cool :)  Steve Chiang
and his friend Yong Su were showing off a prototype of KinderGrafix
(tentative title), a KidPix- like program for the Apple IIGS.  The response
from educators and children was enthusasistic.

A+/InCider was there!  I met Paul Staat, who seems to be a pretty nice
guy and a good Apple II dude at heart.  I saw Cameron Crotty wandering
around...he wasn't the old fart I thought he'd be :)  The free issues
of A+/InCider they were handing out had the editorial by Dan Muse saying
goodbye...he is moving on.  

GS+ was there!  I didn't get to see them make any trouble, though :)
Their magazine was bigger and glossier than the issue I had seen a year
ago, but it is still black and white.  Looks like an excellent magazine,
covering programming topics and Apple II gossip equally well :)

Bill Heineman was showing off Out of This World for the IIGS.  Apparently
it's at the duplicator right now, getting ready to be shipped.  Quality
or Big Red Computer Club (also present) will be selling it for 40-50
bucks.  It's a GREAT looking game...the animation is gorgeous.  It's
up there with the quality of Prince of Persia, except this game is
polygon-based (completely, according to Bill) and more cinematic in
nature.  It was (as a friend would say), "simply fabulous" :)

Oh, Apple was there...with five or six Macs.  I didn't really look at the
booth. The show had a good number of Mac exhibitors, but the Apple II
presence was prevalent.  

Roger Wagner was there at the show, pitching HyperStudio :)  What a showman!

Other players:  Joe Schober et al was showing off EBBS at his booth.  They
had an image of a BBS (run by Kim Brennan) that you could play with to try
out the features of EBBS.  Evan Trent et al were showing off SpellBinder, a
HyperStudio 3.1-based "Dungeons & Dragons"-style stack.  Alltech Electronics
had this cool portable GS that was based on the husk of an ancient portable
computer...I don't think it was for sale.  LRO Computer Sales had the
Applied Engineering floptical drive for around $469.  These babies hold
21Meg on a single 3.5"-style disk.  Ron Mercer's graphics conversion program
wasn't available, with no release date given by Larry himself.  Too bad...
Prism looks good.

That's about all I can remember!  Someone find that TurboRez flyer!
-- 
Dave Seah ^..^     | Graduate MSEE, University of Rochester, New York         |
                   | Apple II Art & Graphics Forum Consultant, America Online |

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