The Nostalgia Column Part 3 - By Dean Garraghty
(c)1996 Dean Garraghty
Well, as hinted at last issue, this time I will be getting nostalgic
about the All Micro Shows.
You may be thinking that the AMS shows haven't been going long enough
to get nostalgic, but they have been going since about 1988-ish, which
is a lot of years! Most Atari 8-bitters "joined" in 1989, although I do
know that BaPAUG (Colin Hunt) did the one in London the year before. In
fact, the very first AMS show was held in a sports hall somewhere very
obscure which I can't remember the name of (somewhere in the West
Midlands I think)!
Originally, AMS was short for Alternative Micro Show, which eventually
became All Micro Show. It was originally organised by a small 2 man
team called Taurus, which made the early shows that bit less formal.
Taurus were essentially a Tatung Einstein software supplier, and the
show was originally just for these now almost unheard of machines. Then
the show became open to any "alternative" machines, which basically
meant any old and obscure machines, like the Tatung, Spectrum, ZX81,
QL, BBC, TI-99/4A, Oric, and lots of other weird machines!
I first heard of the AMS show after I placed one of my regular small
ads in Micro Mart (yes, this was when you could advertise for free
without them rejecting the ad and trying to flog you an over-priced
display ad instead!). Taurus obviously went through looking for anybody
who would fit into the "alternative" bracket. They sent me details
about the London show, but I just didn't have the sort of money they
wanted for a stand (I was in my first year at college at the time). But
then they sent me details of AMS3, which was the first one they did at
Stafford. For some reason, the stands were way cheaper (about 1/5th the
price of the last one), and I had more chance of getting a stand. Even
though, this was quite early on in my career as a supplier and I was
still at college. I think they wanted about £25 for the very smallest
stand without any power supply. I must admit that I had terrible
difficulties raising the money and I managed to avoid paying for as
long as I could by sending letters to Taurus by 2nd class post asking
all sorts of stupid questions about the show. Yes, the truth is out all
these years on! I eventually raised the money and the stand was booked.
At this point (November 1989), I only had about 10 PD disks and a bit
of software called DMS (a very crude early forerunner of Digi-Studio).
I remember that I was hoping to release v2.0 of this at the show, but
found massive bugs in it just a week or so before. I spent a long hard
week making it work to sell at the show! I also had a load of tapes and
carts. and some hardware of my own that I wanted to sell. But, that was
about all!
I can still remember the morning of that show as if it were yesterday.
We were going down on the train (me and my parents that is), which
wasn't easy with all the stuff we were carrying. We had arranged a lift
to the railway station. It was a typical damp November morning, and it
was raining (like every year after this as well!). We had to change at
Birmingham station to get the train to Stafford. In typical BR style
the guy on the station directed us to the wrong platform and we missed
the train (it could have been a language problem - he was speaking Brum
after all!). We caught the next train, but we got to Stafford about
9:30, and the show opened to the public at 10:00. We managed to get in
the hall, and then tried to find the stand. We were totally lost, so I
asked somebody who turned out to be Colin Hunt. The stand we were
supposed to have had been nicked by a QL supplier, so I ended up
nowhere near where I was supposed to have been (next to a Spectrum
software supplier of all people!). We frantically threw everything on
the stand and just waited. At this time I didn't have ANY sales
experience behind me, and really just didn't have much of a clue about
promotion and such like. The other problem was that I couldn't afford a
power supply for the day, so I had no way of demonstrating any of my
stuff.
At 10:00 the doors opened, and I was totally amazed at the number of
people who came through the doors. I must have spoken to hundreds of
people that day, many of whom are still customers now! I managed to
sell quite a few copies of what I had. I was also cleaned out of all my
used software and hardware. I think I went home with about £150, which
to me as a student was a massive amount of money! In fact, this is
probably the only show at which I made a profit! I also bought my old
XMM-801 printer for £50, which was a fantastic bargain and went on to
last me 4 years. I found the printer by accident after going round all
the stands asking if anybody had any Atari disk drives. One guy said
no, but he had some printers at the back of the stand. The deal was
done and I went home happy! I also bought a copy of SAM (the talking
program) for £10, which thrilled me! At the end of the day the taxi
picked us up and we went back to the station. My first show ever! I was
on a massive high, and I remember not being able to sleep that night!
I remember that soon after the AMS show, there was a show in Tamworth.
Being on a high from the AMS show I decided to do this show as well.
What a BIG mistake! It was basically thrown together by 2 guys who
didn't have a clue! There were only about 6 stands, and about the same
number of visitors! I lost a lot of money on this show.
By AMS4 (November 1990) I was in my first year at University. This
presented a bit of a problem, because I was over in Aberystwyth and the
show was on a Saturday, but I had lectures on the Friday so I couldn't
really slope off the day before. The solution was to catch the very
first train out of Aberystwyth at about 5AM on the day itself. This was
no easy task! I was living on the campus which was only about a mile
from the station (to be honest, everywhere in Aberystwyth was only a
mile from the station!), but getting all my gear to the station at this
time in the morning was to prove difficult. I had all my Atari gear at
University so all this had to be carted off to the show (by this year I
could afford a power supply for the day!). I managed to borrow a couple
of very large suite cases (which became my trademark in later years!),
and everything fitted in these quite nicely. However, getting them to
the station required some effort. My first thought was to book a taxi.
Most wouldn't come out so early, and the few that would wanted stupid
amounts of money. I think one wanted 20quid!! I decided that I would
have to walk. Now these suite cases were so heavy that they would
barely lift off the floor, and I had TWO of them! I could only walk
about 100 yards and then I had to stop for a rest. I set off about 4AM
for the station, and arrived about 10 mins. before the train went! I
had to change at Wolverhampton for the train to Stafford. I remember
that there were some problems because some trains were badly delayed
due to a strike or something at Manchester. Luckily, my train wasn't
affected. I hit problems on the train to Stafford because somebody took
offence to my two large suitcases and started to give my a load of
grief about it. I just put up with this because I just wanted to get to
the show.
I arrived at Stafford about 9:00 and jumped in a taxi to the show. I
remember the driver was asking me about the old Aquarius machines,
which he had recently been given. I remember giving the guy a fiver for
a 2 quid journey and telling him to keep the change! He was pretty
stunned (and so was I later when I realised what I'd done!). That day I
met up with my old mate Bill Todd who was sharing a stand with me and
who was selling off all his old Atari gear. Also, my parents had
brought some people down and they brought the essentials like food, and
the TV for the computer set-up (there was no way I could get a TV on
the train!).
By this year the AMS show was pretty much well established and quite a
few people knew me from the year before. The show was also promoted
more professionally, and there were a lot more stands and more
visitors. We only had a 6ft. stand, which was tiny because we were
in-between Page 6 and Micro Discount who had massive stands in
comparison! I remember Micro Discount had a MASSIVE amount of stuff
from Atari, all of which was sent back to Atari as not working. The
pile of stuff stretched all the way along the back wall and went right
up to the roof! By the end there was almost nothing left!
I had managed to get a load of good PD from the US, so I had a lot more
stuff to sell! I also had more used tapes and stuff, which sold quite
nicely. We were a bit short of space, but most people managed to see
us. The best deal of the day for us was a load of cheap 5.25" disks we
were selling at about 2quid a box. We had actually done a deal with
another company just 2 stands down from us, and bought them out of
disks! Yes, that's where they come from if you were one of the many
people who bought blank disks from us that day! The cost of the stand
for that day had gone up quite considerably, and I think I only just
about made a profit! It was still a great day that I remember quite
fondly.
By AMS5 (November 1991) I hit a bit of a problem. That very early train
from Aberystwyth didn't exist anymore (typical BR!). The first train
out wasn't until about 7AM, which was useless for me. The only solution
was to go up to Doncaster on the Friday and travel down to Stafford
from Doncaster on the day itself. This meant skipping some lectures,
which I didn't feel too comfortable about, but I had no choice! I also
had another problem, though I didn't know it at the time! The guy who
was supposed to be driving us down couldn't which left me with no way
of getting to the show. Luckily, Mike Blenkiron stepped in at very
short notice and saved the day. For some reason, the stands this year
were amazingly cheap and I remember having my biggest stand ever - 24
feet! It was so big, you had to shout to each other to be heard! This
year my PD library had grown quite considerably, and I also had the
first working part of Digi-Studio on sale for the first time. I also
had a load of used software and hardware. I had bought the hardware
earlier that year from Micro Discount at a radio rally. I had spent
quite a lot of time getting it working properly over the summer, and
now it was time to sell it! And sell it did! I was totally cleaned out
by the end of the day!
I spent the entire day demonstrating and trying to sell that first part
of Digi-Studio. It didn't really do an awful lot at this stage. It only
had the keyboard player and a very basic tune player, but no way of
creating your own tunes. I was after a fiver a copy with a printed
manual (which you may remember I had only just had printed the day
before! - read the review of AMS5 on one of the old News-Disks to find
out more about this), which I thought was a good deal, and so did about
15 people who bought a copy! Visitors to this show may remember I had
it running all day with the volume of the TV turned up very loud. The
theory - if it makes a noise they'll come and see what it is!
I think I probably did make a small profit that day, mostly because of
the hardware, but the costs of the show were massive because of the
hire car and the petrol. I enjoyed the '91 show a lot, it still had a
great atmosphere, and it was at this show that Mark Keates and Paul
Saunders came along and helped for the first time. These guys still tag
on even now!
AMS6 (November 1992) was the last show I did as a student. It was also
the first year we were stuck on the side wall, next to a fire door and
a leaking roof! In 1992 I was in my final year at University, and work
was piling up. I found it very difficult to prepare for this show.
Again, I had to miss lectures on the Friday, but I think I didn't miss
an awful lot. I also spent a lot of time during the week leading up to
this copying loads of disks. It was at this show that I was finally
ready to release a full working version of Digi-Studio, and I was
racing against time to get this working properly! I didn't have
problems with the manual this year because I printed them all out on A4
using the University laser printer, which actually cost me a lot less
than using the University photocopier, so work that one out! We also
did some sort of deal which got you issues 1-9 of the News-Disk for a
fiver. I had copied 10 sets of these, which sold after about a couple
of hours, so we had to keep copying more.
This year I had a similar problem to the previous year's show because
Mike Blenkiron was unable to drive me down, but I only found out about
this about a couple of weeks before the show. A quick begging phone
call to Richard Gore and all was well! We also had Bill Todd with us
again, who was living near Doncaster at this stage. He was stuck in the
back of the van with all the stock!
That '92 show was probably the last good one we actually did. There was
still that good atmosphere, and I wasn't under any real pressure to
make money, which allowed for quite a relaxed atmosphere. Again, my
main task was to sell as many copies of Digi-Studio as possible, but
this was no easy task at 12quid a copy! I think I sold about 10 copies,
which wasn't too bad, although I had produced about 25 copies so I went
home with a load! I also remember selling quite a lot of PD disks at
this show, which certainly doesn't happen these days!
In November 1993, I did my first AMS show as Dean Garraghty Software,
rather than just plain old me as a student enterprises!! It may not
sound like a big difference, I mean we had the same stuff, the same
people behind the stand and such like, but it was very different to
shows of the past. This time it was important to make a profit, or at
least break even, which put more pressure on me and ruined the great
atmosphere of shows past. You may remember that I had Harald from PPP
Germany over for this show, which was a great experience for all
involved. We were mainly concerned with showing the public the new PPP
range for the first time, along with showing our newly formed printed
magazine. The magazine caused us some problems, as you may have read
the review we did for this show. It was very difficult to have a good
atmosphere because for the first time ever I was pre-occupied with
boring things like profit margins, sales targets and that sort of
thing. The stand had cost a MASSIVE amount of money now that I was
operating as a company, rather than a user group, and just trying to
recover this was a big headache. I remember being quite disappointed
that day, but compared with shows to come it was relatively good!
In 1994, the show was to become a twice yearly event, with one show in
April and the other in November. The April 1994 show was excellent
because we managed to sell a stack of used hardware and software and
actually made a very good profit for the first (and last!) time ever.
Indeed, I made such a good profit that day that it enabled me to get
into other things, such as supplying disks and things. However, things
were to get quite bad at all shows from then on. As the Atari 8-bit
user population decreased, so did the number of people visiting the
Atari stands at the show, and sales slumped to a point where we started
losing money.
I have had some fantastic times at the AMS shows, and I have many many
fond memories, especially from the very first ones I did. I have had
the opportunity to meet and work with some great people at these shows,
and this has led to other things and work opportunities. I am still in
some doubt whether or not I'll be doing any more AMS shows, so if I
don't do any more I would like to thank everyone who has come along and
bought from us at these shows, and all the people who have volunteered
their time to come and help me out.
Originally published in The Atari 8-bit News-Paper.
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