ABUG Canada West - February 23 2019 Meetup #8

[klintworth]

Another great meetup! Ed arrived in a snow flurry - literally! If today had a theme I guess it was games. First up was Ed demonstrating some Snapper tips for the current High Score Challenge. To add a bit of spice to the event I got Ed to test Snapper on my issue 4 Beeb keyboard, then on his Master keyboard, and finally on my Master Compact keyboard. Ed's verdict - he preferred the more spongey action of the BBC B and the Compact keyboards to the firmer Master keyboard!

The Snapper Keyboard Challenge

Then Ed used his Data Centre to kindly transfer some floppies into .ssd files for me, among them being View Professional and Screen Thief.

Data Centre in action

Next up was testing my Master. It had not been powered up for more than a week, but started well. I tested the DFS by cataloguing a disk, but ended up with little success, and even less when trying to load and run programs. There seemed to be some screen corruption, and rather garbled data. Not sure what is going on here - will need to test further with Ed's oscilloscope next time.

Stranger Things

After having read about 2 player games on StarDot, we decided to try some out using twin Voltmace joysticks. First up was Bandits at 3 O'clock - Ed consistently shot me out of the sky. Then we tried Dogfight which was a bit more even - good graphics and gameplay! We had a lot of fun with Way of the Exploding Fist - Ed had the upper hand here! I think I got my own back in By Fair Means or Foul, accompanied by lots of laughter at the way our boxers moved. I was also soundly beaten at Arcade Soccer along with sliding tackles and some good goaltending by Ed. Final score 4-2!!

Our get together was over all too soon - looking forward to the next meetup!

Paul & Ed in snow hats

[richardtoohey]

Sounds like you had lots of fun ...

But don't let him win too often!

[flaxcottage]

Looks like a great meet.

Snow?!?? It was t-shirt weather here yesterday on the allotment. Ha ha!

[leenew]

Looks like you had a great time boys

Lee.

[KarateEd]

When I got to Paul's the first thing we did was inspect my new vehicle. Seeing as it is more computer than car, it seemed appropriate.

We then packed my kit inside and proceeded to set up.

Then, in keeping with the tradition of exchanging Acorn gifts, we each found something for each other. It's a very nice tradition and as we're both limited in what we have Acorn wise, we have to search a bit to find something somewhat meaningful as well. It's a wonderful exercise in sharing.

I took but one picture. It was one of the Master creating an SSD of Screen Thief.

Snowy weather, what was that Paul was talking about?

To be perfectly honest, this was the day before I traveled in to Vancouver from Squamish. However, i'm not exaggerating when I say that twice during my ride in I hit weather pretty much like this. Fortunately it was in 'patches' so it wasn't sticking on the road, well in one place it did but that was a short bit of blizzard.

Paul also mentioned By Fair Means or Foul....he said he won slightly? He trounced me at it. He knocked me on my butt twice in that game with merciless upper cuts that almost took my head off and I couldn't seem to do anything about it.

As for Dogfight, Paul was winning that one about at a 2-1 rate. I can see Paul's strengths are in 2 player games.....Well done Paul!!!

In all the other games we were actually fairly evenly matched.

All-in-all it was a wonderful day with a highlight of Paul's wife serving us a wonderful lunch of pea soup, breads and cheeses, fruit, coffee.......thanks Melanie.....