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ATARIANS.COM 11/15/00 - Here is an e-mail I recieved from Robbie Otal about Atarians.com:
Date:   Tue, 14 Nov 2000 20:42:38 -0500
From:   "Robbie Otal"
To:   <[email protected]>
Subject:   Atarians.com
Atarians.com is sort of a pet project for me. Basically, I've always dreamed of an era where a newly reformed and revamped Atari could return to the console industry, to create a machine of revolutionary capabilities, to compete with the likes of Microsoft's XBox, Sony's PlayStation2 and Nintendo's Gamecube. In order to do this however, Atari would have to experience a multitude of changes, including being bought out by an electronics based firm; one who can reestablish Atari around the world.

To me, such a possibility of not that farfetched. It just needs to be approached from the right angle. Atarians.com will focus on what I believe will be 'a possible future'.. sort of a positive outlook on what Atari may become in the next decade. Besides this, Atarians.com will also have detailed in-depth content regarding it's prior history starting from 1972, along with it's present status as a third-party developer within the Hasbro infrastructure.

Atarians as the name implies, also deals with the fans and the people who love Atari. And I hope to do the same with this site. I hope to have specials, editorials and interviews with people who have contributed to Atari, whether it is the creation of a website to the creation of a system. There are many people out there who still play important roles in preserving Atari's past history, and many who want to see Atari return in the future.

Initially, alot of people were actually against my idea. Many of my friends believe that Atari is nothing but vaporware. There are so many sites out there that only support Atari's past, and not it's future. There are even people who don't believe that Atari still exists today. I hope to change these opinions with my website. Of course, a single website can't cause a revolution, but in this way, I hope to do my part as a loyal Atarian; to get the word out to everyone that Atari is not dead -- it is alive and well. It just needs that 'push' to bring it back to supremacy.

Ever since Nintendo reestablished the gaming industry in 1985, it has been Japanese-based electronic's firms who have been dominating the current modern gaming industry. Microsoft will be the first American founded company in many years to introduce a new console into the fray. With luck, Atari will be able to do the very same in the future.Thanks alot for your interest in the site, and thanks for your time. I was wondering if you knew any contacts within the Atari community (in terms of websites) so I can start piling up a link page with supporters. Thanks again.

 - Robbie Otal

Posted @
Jaguar interactive II

eJagFest Rocked!

Posted by JustClaws (cs45.esoc.esa.de) on November 13, 2000 at 05:15:14:

Hello!

eJagFest (AKA Euro JagFest) was a great success!
We won the title "Biggest JagFest 2000" no doubt!!

Matthias Domin and I arrived soon after the event
started, I think we were the first foreign people
to arrive, and at first we were disappointed to
find that only 5 people were already there. As we
started to setup our machines, new people kept on
arriving, so many that tables, power sockets, and
monitors were in short supply, yes it was rocking!

Rock music was playing the background, with Jaguar
games in action all around the room. There was a
bar with soft drinks to buy (and some Groelsch!!)
but no food to speak of. (We all fasted for Jag!)
Lars had written an "eJagFest Demo" with a nice
parallax display, and built-in Jag CD player...

Soon after we arrived, a ceiling mounted projecter
was brought into action (good job I thought to put
my extra long SCART - A/V cables) and so lots of
games were played on the 15' projection screen! As
if that wasn't good enough, a few minutes later,
the stereo sound from my A/V lead was being pumped
through the wall mounted speakers shaking the room!

I brought 2 Battlesphere cartridges, and 2 Aircars,
other people brought 2 Dooms, so networked games
were going on virtually all day. Battlesphere was
played both networked and single-player, although
people found it hard to "get into it" at first, I
tried to explain it, and demo it, and I also put
up the "Yakkity Yak VLM" cheat on the projector...
but we didn't put up the real VLM as comparison...

Other games demo'd were the Songbird games, with
Protector, SkyHammer, and Soccer Kid in gameplay.
I think probably every Jaguar and Jaguar CD game
was played, and it was a great opportunity to see
how many Jaguar fans there are, having so much fun!

There were some contests running, and I hear that
there were some prizes, posters, and wot not, but
unfortunately I was too busy to get involved... I
heard plenty of "Ultra Vortek" and Primal Rage in
action, along with a constant background of Tempest
and NBA Jam, no doubt some Team-Tap games as well.

Publicity for eJagFest was very limited; and the
location was good, but for a one-day event still
a long way to travel. People travelled from all
around Germany, and Holland, and there were guys
from Belgium, maybe other countries. (I'm English,
but living in Germany and I added an English view!)
Sorry if I've forgotten your nationality here too!

Even driving at 120+ M/H (cool German autobahns!)
we had a long drive, and the journey back was also
very tiring, as rain was so heavy we kept expecting
to see "Noah's Ark" floating across the motorway...
(No, four hours of high-speed night driving in the
pouring rain is never the most fun end to a day...)

Several BJL Jaguars were in use, and Matthias and
I fielded questions all day about Jaguar development
from interested people, including a group of Falcon
game programmers who were interested in bringing a
bit of quality gaming from Falcon to Jaguar perhaps.
Some of us also had Alpines, so Alpine demos were
also demonstrated, but BJL was the devkit of choice!
(Jugs fatally flawed due to upload speed and lack of
Battlesphere carts at the present time in Europe!!!)

Nearly everybody had a Lynx with them, and Matthias
Domin was demonstrating the new Songbird Lynx racer,
in both single player and networked play. I was too
busy talking to people and showing demos to get to
play much else, Lynx or Jaguar, except Protector...

I saw all the BJL demos running at some point, and
people were very interested to know about some of
the "announced" games which have not been released.
I had to point out that these are mainly just intro
demos, and very few real games are available today.
(e.g. Arkanna, Assassin, and stuff from BadCoder.)
Also Gorf, Jagmania, Native, and some prototypes.
(I wished we'd had a small demo of Gorf-Pluz too!)
Only Songbird/Scott Walters have some of the games
which were not released, can you help us next year?

People were really pleased to find that the BJL
has several "underground" games built-in, and we
hope that next year more demos will be released.
A European team of programmers had been hoping to
release a new game for the show, but other factors
meant that this will have to be a follow-up event.

Matthias was demonstrating TOS running on the Jag
using the "Jaguar Engine" card, but the IDE LS-120
drive was playing up after bumps on the journey,
but it raised a lot of interest, especially among
the Falcon owners who liked the idea of developing
directly on the Jaguar in 'C', with keyboard and
mouse and hard disk. BiTmAsTeR be praised I say!

There was no selling/buying done at the show, no
dealer tables, but there were people involved with
the Jaguar market one way or another, and one guy
(forget his name) was talking about Nuon Extivas
which should be in Europe early next year. (Yeah!)
There was a lot of interest, but apparently now
Samsung say they are completely SOLD-OUT of them,
so delivery will be a long-time, even in America!!

At the end of the day, (once several people had
left) we got a group photograph done, using the
self-timer on my camera, and we would all have
been in the picture had I not blotted Lars out
trying to avoid blotting out several other guys!
(I had to dash from the camera to get in shot.)
I gave a disk of photos to Lars (Starcat) so do
expect to see them on the eJagFest site soon...

DVD should know total visitors, but I suspect it
will be lower than the real number, because we
saw people we never got to talk to, coming and
going all day, but it was certainly over 20...

I had a great time, and tiring as it was, I'd do
the drive again, as talking to so many possible
new developers was good, only the future will say
if any of them end up doing good stuff on Jaguar!
It certainly made me feel less like the only Jag
owner in Europe, playing games, and the number of
younger Jaguar players bodes well for the future!

Suggestions for next year?
Badges, and tickets. Nobody knew everybody else at
the event, and without badges we often got talking
and only discovered later who somebody was... and
I still want a ticket to remember the event later!
A more southern European location, Bavaria maybe...
(Maybe we should hold it just before Oktoberfest,
and then we might get Austrian, Italian and French
visitors too... as there are many fans there too!)
Let's extend JagFest to include Lynx in a bigger
more official way, along with the Nuon players...

So... the gauntlet is now thrown to you American
guys- we won the title "Biggest JagFest 2000", so
let's see who can win the title for the year 2001!

Cheers,
JustClaws.

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