I got to go to the Atari Faire on friday, Sept. 16th. The faire started at 12:00 noon and lasted until 8:00 pm saturday. I got Denny and my father to watch the kids for me, and Tippy picked me up around 11:00.

        The faire didn't have nearly as many people there as last year's faire. I don't think friday was a particularly good day to have a computer faire, especially after school had started!

        There weren't too many things there for the 8-bits, (darned few is most like it!)but there were some things new and exciting, like a desktop program that makes the 8-bit look almost like an ST and even uses a mouse.

        Most of the other things there probably wouldn't interest you too much, as they were mainly programming aides and DOS packages.

        I found several items to spend money on, but mostly I used my visa card. A few places accepted cash as well!

        Federated was offering 1040 ST color systems at a very low cost -- compared to normal -- but I didn't buy one. I figured it would be too great a shock for you if I went that far! (Just Kidding).

        One of the most interesting things to happen at the faire were the speeches by Sig Hartmann of Atari, and someone from Federated.

        We got to hear the latest news from Atari Corp. and found out that they are not going to stop supporting us, in spite of the past two years slumps.

        Another main topic brought up mainly by the federated guy was the 'bitching on the boards' about federated computer department workers. I found this to be particularly amusing since I was one of the main instigators in the 'bitching'! I had posted on the Bookstore to get everyone's complaints about Federated so I could write an article for the PSAN about it. Andy Latino and Erik Thor were the other main 'bitchers'. I met Andy at the faire, and we were able to talk to Sig Hartmann about some of these things before he left. I'll send you a copy of the PSAN when I get it so you can read more about it.

        I also met Mike Latino and Ryan Renken at the faire. I guess it was a good thing that I went with Tippy, otherwise I never would have known who they were!

        I even won a door prize! I got 5 free public domain disks, and even got to pick out exactly which ones I wanted to have. I will be sending copies of some of them out soon along with some other stuff!

        After the Faire, I got to write up a nice article about it for the PSAN! They wanted it for the next issue, so I had to hurry and get it done.