This year's Bytefest was again held in Toulcův dvůr (“Toulc’s farmstead”), which has good facilities in the form of a canteen and a hostel. This is very nice especially for people from outside of Prague, it simplifies the situation.
Ferry and I loaded up my hardware and junk destined for the giveaway and raffle. I took a bit more of it this year. I made a goal to have more joysticks on the set than the company that will be selling them. On site I helped Ferry with the tables and unpacked my gear. Not too many people have come yet, however BF hasn't even started. I’m going to bed at night, prime time is yet to come.
I saw the 60's teletype and the Bad Apple demo on PMD.
Played Multijoy with four of us and also demoed the new Slicks game for the Atari VCS. However, we found out that the cartridge can't be inserted into my sixer. Fortunately, a binary was available, so the flash cart saved the day. A very nice bird's eye view two player racing game, one I've never played on the VCS before.
At this time the hall wasn't too full yet, but a nice group of us had already gathered. We also played the new Amiga shooter "Reshoot Proxima R 3". Can't fail to mention Lara Croft as cashier and receptionist. She was organizer’s acquaintance who is into cosplay. It was possible to have your picture taken with her.
I got into a conversation with the Sinclairite at the next table about analog to HDMI converters. I pointed him to FLOP magazine where I described several converters for composite.
I played "Binary Parasite" on my 800XE and then organized a game for Multijoy. Eventually 13 people gathered and we played "Worms 2", "Shoot them all" and "Sheep". Unfortunately the wiring of the two multiplexers through the HUB had dropouts, probably a bad contact.
After that we played "Sails of doom" and "Mashed turtles" with seven people.
This was followed by playing "Reshoot Proxima R 3" for the top score for prizes.
After that, I unpacked 4 Gameboys with a hub, on which we played "F1 Race".
In the evening, the other Atarians arrived and brought Lipo.
Aki presented the best demos for the Amiga 500 in 4 years.
The raffle was extremely cheerful as always, I donated a number of items myself.
Saturday is traditionally a time for visits. Thanks to them I played on VCS "Warlords" in four players.
Most of the tables were already occupied by participants. There were computers both familiar and rather exotic, such as a 386 with a plasma display.
PCs in general were well represented this year. After all, they also have a long and wild history. I lent Ethernet adapters for the parallel port for networking, so it was possible to run an FTP server on a portable 386.
There were also old Czechoslovakian computers on display, such as the SAPI-1 and PMD with mouse. Atarians had the standard XE/XL and ST. R0ger demonstrated an engine for 3d glasses on his 800 XL. At recent conventions Atarians usually play games with infinite lives and a map. True, finishing some titles is really insane, but I would prefer something multiplayer at conventions.
I was organising a game on Multijoy again and one of the multiplexers went on strike. Later Krupkaj lent me another multiplexer and hub, then everything worked. I'll have to re-diagnose mine at home. I tried everything before BF and the problem didn't manifest itself, so this is unfortunate for me.
As for the lectures, I've only been to one where Aki described making AY music for the ZX Spectrum.
I prefer to be at the venue and talk to people I don't get a chance to meet at other times.
I met a group of people organizing a gaming events called Exgame (site at exgame.cz), where I was also invited. They also brought an Atari VCS light sixer, along with a Commodore 64, to which they had a Multijoy equivalent called Inception attached.
They played a lot multiplayer games, it was a pity that the other Atari players present were clearly not enjoying Multijoy anymore. I read somewhere that computer games impair long-term memory, but improve short-term memory. Perhaps that's why I don't remember much of the next part, I have only one remark from that time "absolute game party".
More people came to play on my 800 XE, I met Game Archaeologist while competing in "Spy vs Spy" and "Archon". https://herniarcheolog.blogspot.com
In the evening there was a very nice quiz moderated by Wotnau, with the aim of finding the error in the game screenshots. For me, Ryu from SF2 without the headband was the most tricky one. This was followed by a second raffle, the highlight of which was the deer sculpture.
Everything comes to an end and I'm caught up in the sentiment, as I am every year. I would like to live in the same house with the participants, but it is futile to dream. I was still helping with cleaning tables and chairs (the more helpers, the lighter the burden).
Then we said goodbye to the participants and packed up. BF was great again, thank you to the organizers for the event!
Mr.Holub
in this article mentioned "Game Archaeologist" is WWW site/person mapping situation about old games created in former Czechoslovakia Republic, later Czech and Slovakia ones.
Up to date that site is only in Czech language, so it may be somehow problem for interested foreigner people.