AmigaOS 4 on Tour - Report From the Inside
By Andreas Loong

When it was announced that there would be a beta-tour, we were immediately very happy when we saw it, and then our hearts sank. It wasn't going to come to Sweden! The team that put together the AmiGBG fair just a few months earlier tried their hardest to get someone from Hyperion or Amiga to come and answer questions, but to no avail. Hyperion currently had little in the substantial way to differentiate it from the modules shown running on 68K processors back then.

We discussed it between ourselves and became quite determined to have a show here too! We contacted Mr. Schober from Point Design and asked if it was possible to extend the tour, and then he explained that it was entirely organized by usergroups/betatesters Uh oh It's only a month left to get going.

There are quite a few things to get ready before a show; it's way more work than you can imagine. We started to look for a place to be, first of all. That went very smoothly, and after that someone popped the bright idea that we should have give-aways. A CD with teasers, info and some software. Then Schober showed us the t-shirts and mugs. We started to contact the authors of AHI, IB and a lot of others, sent out invitations to user groups all over the Nordic regions and the replies poured in. By this time, we were quite stressed out. Would we make it?

We contacted Hyperion, Amiga and Eyetech to let them know that we'd VERY much like someone from them there, to answer questions and "lift the show up" somewhat. We'd already got 3 A4000's but only one beta tester. If we couldn't get the beta quite soon, it would be too much for one person too many questions.

To our delight, Ben Hermans got back to us with a quick answer - We'll see what we can do. We made the proper arrangements, checked flights, arranged for the night and more. This was really getting busy. Only a couple more weeks to go, and the orders for the t-shirts/mugs has to be done. How many? Almost the entire show was funded by the people organizing, from their own pockets - and AmiGBG helped out too. We were worried about ordering too much and then lose money by not selling out.

And then - who should we target with ads? Someone suggested printing out leaflets and putting them up all over the city, but Did we want the true Amiga-fans to come, or those that quit the Amiga 10 years ago and wanted to see what was going on in our world right now? The latter, we wanted them to see a finished product and not a beta. This show was for those who already knew, who'd been there all along. Not for the masses, not yet.

Every weekend up and to the show was booked for most of the organizers, and all of them had day jobs as well. This will be a tight fit indeed. First meeting was held on a local pub where the assignments were handed out. It looked grim; it didn't look like we would break even.

Two weeks left until the show is held, and we have some great news for our visitors. Ben Hermans accepted to come and talk about OS4! This will surely draw more people to the show! It seems like we can get a little hardware and software to sell, too. This is looking better and better.

Final meeting. The show starts tomorrow. We've printed out the CDs and made the CD-covers. On Saturday, we'll make everything ready. That Friday, we didn't get any sleep at all. We originally had 3 machines that we were going to use as OS4 Beta machines, but one fell out the night before the event. It was an A3500 prototype, and we had some disk issues on that machine. When we came to the show, one machine didn't boot up! Christ! From three, to two, and then to one!? Disaster! Luckily, it was just the Cyberstorm accelerator that had come off slightly during the move to the premises, and we got the machine up and running just in time for the show. We made some sketches for a schedule and put it up on the whiteboard. The place we got for the show was really something. A sound room, projector and lots and lots of chairs. It really looked professional. Then Ben H arrived from the airport, and we started the show. We just let it go, it was like a bird that just learnt how to fly, and a beautiful first flight it was.

Later that evening, we all gathered at the house of one of the organizer's. Ole-Egil brought some moose with him, and we thought that we'd have a quiet evening, some BBQ and some beer and a few laughs - we hadn't had any sleep the previous night. It turned out to be quite the opposite, jokes and laughter and partying until the sun went up.