Date : Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:31:01 -0000
From : dllm@... (Dave Moore)
Subject: OT (-ish): Beeb meetup at BYTE BACK? (March 2009,
re: BYTE BACK Classic Gaming Convention, March 7-8th 2009, Stoke-On-Trent
Thanks to Rob and Ian for taking the plunge and buying tickets (and also to
Joel, Jon, Andy, Alex and Charlie for expressing their intention).
As we appear to have been allocated more tables than I was originally
expecting, if a few more of you were to confirm attendance (preferably by
ordering tickets!) I could simply assign one of the 6ft x 2.5ft tables for
Mailing List members to do with as they please.
A few days ago I began creating the following doc (which I'll periodically
update) to help me coordinate who's bringing what in terms of kit:
http://www.stairwaytohell.com/ByteBack2009_AcornTables.pdf
I've provisionally included a "Mailing List" Table, however, as Rob's LED
display is the only confirmed exhibit to-date, it's currently looking a little
bare! ;) (though Joel /has/ promised to bring Domesday!)
Now I realise that when I first posted about the event, there were only two
days to go before the 'early bird' offer expired. So with this in mind, the
organiser has kindly offered to give a quid discount (per adult ticket) to any
list-members who order their ticket(s) before the end of January.
Incidentally, if anybody intends to bring a small selection of 'stock' to sell
at the event (BeebMaster perhaps?), drop me a line and I'll add details to the
above PDF. Whilst I severely doubt there'll be enough room for anyone to set
up a "stall", there's bound to be space on the floor to store a few small
boxes of upgrades/interfaces or other spares.
http://byte-back.info/tickets.html <-- if I've somehow managed convinced you
to come along, go here!
Regards
Dave.
P.S. If anyone is still in touch with Chris Richardson (who exhibited at CGEUK
2004) perhaps you would be kind enough to forward the information about the
event along to him? The only email address I have is an old Karoo.net one, but
it bounces. :-(
P.P.S. JGH: I know you intend to travel by Train (which may make it difficult
to bring kit) but if there's any chance you could bring your Mini B that would
be AWESOME! (as I don't think Sprow is able to commit just yet).
P.P.P.S. In terms of accommodation, a load of us from the STH forum have
booked the Weathervane Hotel in Stoke on the Saturday night, which is just 5
mins walk from the venue.
At ?40 a night for a double room, this was by far the nearest/cheapest hotel
we could find (I haven't actually visited, but have been told it was recently
refurbished, has wi-fi, and is quite reasonable bearing in mind the price).
So should anyone wish to book a room, it would probably better to ring them
directly on 01782 388799 (please mention my name!).
They also said they'd do 'Family Rooms' [i.e. 2 double beds] for the same
price i.e. ?40 instead of the usual price of ?50.
I believe some other BBC peeps have also booked into the nearby Holiday Inn
Express (where the price for a double room is ?60 if paid in advance
[non-refundable] or ?80 if you pay on the day).
> All
>
> There have been quite a few attempts to organise BBC meetups on the ML over
> the years, so I thought I'd make members aware of the BYTE BACK Classic
> Gaming
> Convention, which takes place the weekend of March 7-8th in Stoke-On-Trent.
>
> I've managed to secure a few tables for "Acorn use", in the smaller/quieter
> of the two rooms (well away from the noisy arcade cabs that will be
situated
> in the main room!).
>
> So far, a broad mixture of BBC gamers, 6502-coders and hardware hackers
> from the 'Stairway to Hell' forum have bought tickets and, due to its
central
> location, I figure the event might also be a good opportunity for mailing
> list
> members to get together and put names to faces etc.
>
> Our current plan is to use tables 1 + 2 to run demonstrations of the latest
> Acorn/BBC projects from the retrosoftware.co.uk crew, whilst the third
> table
> will be used to demonstrate various hardware add-ons such as the RAMmagic
> upgrade, GoMMC and MMBeeb, the Compact Flash Hard Drive interface and the
> ARM7TDMI co-pro.
>
> There's likely to be plenty of time/space left for the display of other
> "homebrew" creations too, so if there are any list members who'd like to
> bring
> (or supply) their own Acorn-related inventions, please get in touch. And
> who
> knows - with enough hardware bods present, the event might turn out to be a
> useful springboard for the development of some brand new Beeb upgrades,
> too?!
>
> Also, I'm sure that attendees would appreciate the chance to see some of
> the
> more esoteric commercial upgrades (M5000's? Domesdays?) so if you have some
> really obscure kit that you think would be of interest to visitors, again,
> please let me know.
>
> Anyway, to find out more about the event or to buy tickets, please visit
> the
> homepage @ http://www.byte-back.info
>
> There is currently an "early-bird" offer on tickets (?10 for the weekend)
> though this expires in a couple of days (November 30th); after which the
> price
> will rise to ?12. Incidentally, all proceeds from the event will go to
> charity.
>
> So, hope to see some of you there in March! :)
>
> Regards
> Dave.