The second quarter meeting was held on June 18, 2005. I arrived to find that BobC and his wife were already there awaiting my arrival. They drove over from Apex and spent the night in Charlotte to be here for the meeting. Cameron was the next to arrive shortly after I had the door unlocked. He brought a monitor to use with the A1000 display. While bringing in the food and computers, Plaz (from Atlanta) arrived. We all introduced ourselves, since BobC and Plaz were first time attendees, and I left the others to chat while I setup the food area.

The next to arrive were Chris, who brought his A500 in a custom wooden case (very nice) to display, followed by Mark and Becky Midyette, who were also first time attendees. I knew it was going to be a fun meeting just from the initial showing and the atmosphere. We had a good crowd already, and the AmigaOne's with OS4 hadn't even arrived yet. I attempted to get the A1000 running but for some reason, the mouse wouldn't work and it was having problems with the disk drive reading floppies. I was beginning to worry that we wouldn't have it functional during this 20th year celebration. Cameron helped with suggesting the drive may be dirty. I quickly went to my desk, got out a floppy cleaner and cleaned the drive. It booted like a champ but still no mouse.

I think the next arrival was Lyle and Kim Hazelwood, and the first AmigaOne (micro) was setup on display beside of the A1000. Lyle also brought a box full of A1000's and spare A1000 parts which were given away during the meeting. I got one spare and an extra mouse (which was used on the display), plus the DataFlyer 1000 unit. The rest were picked out and claimed by other members. (Thank you Lyle for the generous donation!)

So, now with the A1000 booting fully, I finally connected the X-Specs 3D glasses and fired up Space Spuds. Members were able to try it out, and look through the 3D images and demos that came with the glasses. It was still impressive to see the old Amiga do such things on such a simple 7MHz machine.

Doug and Ray arrived next and brought the other AmigaOne with OS4. During the setup of the Amiga's there were some issues with the broadband connection, and nobody was able to connect to the net. I attempted to move everything to a new switch, but we still had problems. Turns out it was only a cable at the main patch panel that was not seated good. Once that was solved, everyone was surfing in no time..

Prior to the meeting, Lyle was attempting to resolve the problem with his OS4 PR3 update. Multiple attempts and obviously some frustration later, he had to resort back to PR2 for the meeting, but brought everything needed to perform the update during the meeting. Doug assisted with the install, and after some troubleshooting, found that it was the DVD drive in Lyle's MicroA1 that was causing all of the problems, and resulting in the update failing to install properly. Once the DVD Rom was disconnected, update 3 installed without a hitch. Soon we were looking at a MicroA1 running OS4 PR3 and one happy owner sitting in front of it.

Meanwhile, the grill was fired up and with the help of Ray and Cameron, we soon had the cook out in full swing. The menu was grilled hot dogs with home made chili, cole slaw, baked beans, chips, and the works. There were plenty of deserts with sliced watermelon, chocolate ice-cream bars and orange cream pops. There was plenty of good food, good friends, and good computers. What more could one ask for?

Oh.... all right. After eating, Lyle gave a really nice midi demo using a software app he has written, as well as the midi software "Horny". (It's just a name folks, lol). He explained the finer points of midi and what makes it such a nice music format, as well as showing it's ease of use and flexibility. I look forward to more info on this in future meetings. Before the meeting was over, some of us even got to witness Bars and Pipes running on OS4 PR3. It was in it's old 68k, and not functional, but it was running. Hopefully that will result in something good in time.

All in all, it was a very nice meeting, and a really good turnout. Thanks to everyone who drove in from all over the multi state regions to join the fun, and to participate in the activities. I look forward to seeing you all again the next time.

Photos by BobC