The Amiga ’91 Cologne Show! With almost 200 exhibitors in four halls and over 75,000 Amiga fans attending over four days, the show easily lived up to its advanced billing as the largest Amiga show in the world. More than half the booths were devoted to European-developed productivity software and hardware products, with desktop video, music applications, RAM boards, and disk drives in the lead. Game vendors filled only one of the four halls. The largest crowds collected around the Commodore booth, the largest of the show, where many .Amiga fans got their first look at CDTV, the A3000T Tower and the A50Q Plus. Commodore now boasts more than 100 available CDTV titles. The biggest attraction of the show, also at the Commodore booth, was a new and still somewhat experimental Amiga- based product called “Virtuality,” a virtu- al-reality simulation product from the British company W. Industries. Virtual it)' is a combination of "wearware” and software driven bv an A3000. The wearware V consists of a space-age helmet containing dual miniature LCD displays, stereo headphones, and a motion sensor. The Amiga generates a virtual space of stereo sound and three-dimensional images that “move” as the wearer turns his head, creating an uncanny sensation of being inside the computer-generated scene. Additional sensors, attached to the arm and lingers, permit the wearer to reach for and manipulate virtual objects in virtual space. While the displayed graphics are still somewhat simplistic, and the software did little more than demonstrate the features of the hardware, Virtuality demonstrates die great potential of the Amiga in futuristic simulation and game applications. Fhe other star attraction was a driving simulator, based on an Amiga, that is built into a real automobile, a Toledo sport model from the Spanish car maker, Seat. With special sensors attached to the steering, accelerator, and brakes of the car, and with the moving scenery projected onto a large screen in front of the driver, the simulator creates realistic driving situations. The simulator drew much attention, but the emphasis was on the car’s capabilities, not the Amiga. (Too bad it wasn’t a Ferrari!) New American products introduced at the show included SupraTurbo 25 and Continued on p. 16. England Swings for Amiga LONDON, UK "Mad! Bad! And In Your Face!" That's how the ad for Ocean's new WrestleMania game read on the back of AmiEXPO's World of Commodore show guide. And that is how the event appeared at least to this statesider, accustomed to the more sedate US shows. Of course, bad means good, but mad is mad and there's no doubt that the British market is mad for Amiga! The four-day show opened Thursday, November 14. On Saturday, the queue to get in stretched 50 yards out of the Earl's Court 2 convention center. Once inside, the 38,000 attendees were welcomed by show sponsor Future Publishing, which prints four Amiga magazines in England. Although there were plenty of hardware and productivity manufacturers to be found, resellers and entertainment developers dominated the show. Flanking the To locate the vendors of products mentioned, see the "Manufacturers' Distributors' Addresses" list on p. 112. Future Publishing booth were Electronic Arts and Mindscape. EA boasted Populous II, Birds of Prey (a flight simulator), and several other entertainment titles. In addition, folks crowded around to see Detuxe- Paint IV, demonstrated on Sunday by renowned14-year-old cartoonist Chris Blackwell. Chris and his dad Mike run the nonprofit Harry Project, helping kids overcome their fear of hospitals by way of comic strips. During the show, Commodore agreed to donate an Amiga to every hospital in England, and EA joined in by promising Dpaint copies for each. These donations will allow hospitals to customize the Harry cartoons for young patients.