A Visit from Wired Magazine by Robert Bernardo "O.K., I want you to lie in the middle of the road." I looked incredulously at Chris Beck, the Wired photographer who had come from New York City. "O.K.!" I replied, and I obeyed his order. From my sitting position on the asphalt, I lay down full-length upon the cold, slightly damp asphalt of the street. Ah, the things I do to promote Commodore! It all started back on October 2 and 3 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. I was attending the Vintage Computer Festival, manning a table there for the Fresno Commodore User Group. With me on that first day were Ed Hart, president of the Fremont-Union City-Newark-Hayward User Group, and Todd Elliott, programmer of demos, utilities, and GEOS enhancements. It was the first time that we had a table at the show, and I had come with many things to demonstrate in front of the crowd -- Wheels, the SuperCPU, Loadstar, various European demos, and various magazines/newsletters, like GO64!, Commodore Scene, Commodore Zone, the Interface, and C= Voyages. I had brought a C128D set-up, a C64 set-up, a European Plus/4 set-up, and a European C128D. Todd had brought his high-powered C128D system, complete with CMD HD, FD-4000, RAMLink, and SuperCPU, while Ed had brought various disks and a SX-64. Morning discussion sessions were held in the meeting rooms upstairs, and when they were over, then the doors of our "flea market" room would be opened. When the doors finally opened at 2 p.m., to our surprise, hundreds of people poured through. We had the enviable position of being the first table by the door, and everyone seemed to stop at ours first. Overwhelmed, Todd, Ed, and I tried to answer all of the questions of the people who were lining up. "What's that?" "That's a SuperCPU. It's a 20 mhz. accelerator for the Commodore." "Could I buy one here?" "Uh, sorry... you'll have to buy it from Creative Micro Designs. We're just a demonstration table. ...But here's their catalog, and here's a membership application for our club." "What's that?" "It's a hard drive for the Commodore." "I didn't know there were hard drives for the Commodore. Can I buy it?" "Uh, sorry... you'll have to buy it from Creative Micro Designs. We're just a demonstration table. ...But here's their catalog, and here's a membership application for our club." "What's that? It looks like the Amiga desktop or Atari desktop." "It's Wheels for the Commodore 64/128. It's the operating system upgrade for GEOS 64/128." "Could I buy it here?" "Uh, sorry... you'll have to buy it from Maurice Randall, the creator of it. We're just a demonstration table. ...But here's his address, and here's a membership application for our club." "What's that?" "That's a SX-64. It's a transportable C64, disk drive, and monitor." "We didn't know that was made. Can we buy it?" "You'll have to talk to Ed over there. That's his machine." "What's that?" "That's CAD-M, a multi-color CAD program for the Commodore 64." "Is it for sale here?" "Uh, sorry... you'll have to buy it from Loadstar. It was on issue #150. We're just a demonstration table. ...But here's Fender Tucker's address, and here's a membership application for our club." Along with the slew of interested new and veteran fans came the reporters. A reporter and video cameraman from the magazine, Dr. Dobb's Journal. A reporter and photographer from Shift magazine. A reporter from Wired magazine. Dr. Dobb's was first up... "Look straight at the camera. What made you come to the Vintage Computer Festival?" "We came to promote Commodore 8-bit computing to the public. ...That we're still around. ...That our club is the strongest in the South San Joaquin Valley." "No, don't look at me. Look at the camera. Why do you still use a Commodore?" The questions kept coming. Then a little while later came the Shift reporter. "Why did you come to the Vintage Computer Festival?" I gave the same answer that was given to Dr. Dobb's Journal. "Why are you still into Commodore gaming?" Huh, a new question! And one that I wasn't prepared for. "Well, it brings back a time when things were more innocent, when all you had to do was..." I was reaching for answers off the top of my head. I wasn't really an intense gamer, but the reporter kept asking me gaming questions. Looking for a way out, I finally sent her off to Ed. (Sorry, Ed!) The Shift photographer took out his Hasseblad and wanted a few pictures of me. Well, at least, I thought it was going to be a few. "Put your arms down to the side. Look at the camera. O.K., good. Now look over the camera. O.K.. Now look to the left. Good. Now look to the right. O.K.. Don't smile. Look serious. Good. Now cross your arms. Look straight at the camera..." Ay-yi-yi, he took more and more. Finally, he finished and went on his way to photograph other attendees at the show. The Wired reporter was last. Basically, he had the same questions as the other reporters, and I gave him the same answers, well-practiced by now. Satisfied, he departed, and I breathed a sigh of relief that the reporters had gone. Now I go back to demoing the software/hardware to the crowd and talk a bit more to Ed and Todd before they left for the day. Sunday was quieter. About half as many people came into the flea market room as the previous day. Clark Murphy from FUNHUG had come to help me out that day, Ed having gone to attend some other computer show and Todd having to return to Southern California. The Shift photographer was still buzzing around. "Haven't I seen you before?" he joked with me, but he didn't stay and went in search of fresh fodder. The other newspeople were long gone. After that weekend, I thought I was finished with being in the limelight. I had given my answers to the reporters. I would be troubled no more. Wrong! A few weeks later a Shift editor called all the way from Toronto, Canada in order to confirm a few things, e.g., how was my name exactly spelled, how many members were in the club, what was the motto of the club? I duly answered all the questions and again thought that was the end of that. Wrong! Mark Frauenfelder, the Wired reporter who had gone to VCF, e-mailed, saying that he wanted to come to one of our meetings to do a follow-up. Well, this was a big deal, and I telephoned as many members as possible to come to the December meeting so that we show our Commodore solidarity. I planned an exciting, jam-packed meeting in order to show him the interesting things we did. Mark was a no-show. I thought that was the end of that. Wrong! Wired called again, this time wanting verification of certain points (how do you spell your name, how many members in the club, what is the motto of the club, etc.) and wanting a time to set up a photo shoot. Skeptical, I voiced my complaints about Mark not showing up at our meeting and my doubts whether such a shoot was really true. Carolyn, the editor, assured me that this was true and that they wanted to photograph me the first week of January. Well, that would be after my Christmas vacation; I'd be back to work by then. We mutually agreed on Friday, January 7, 3:30 p.m., after school let out. I had some Commodores in the classroom, but I wanted to show off the home C128D with multiple drives, SuperCPU, and 20-inch monitor. I decided I would set up the home system in the classroom. The photographer would have to be satisfied with that. January 7 arrived. The classroom was ready. The equipment was set up. The photographer was late. From his cell phone, he confirmed the directions to the school, and I told him that he was still an hour away. Finally, he rolled in, a bit before 5 o'clock. Chris and his assistant, Kyoko, immediately started pulling equipment out of the Ford Explorer. "We're losing the light," he told me. "Is there a sign on the road that says 'school' around here?" "There's one by Fremont School a couple of blocks from here." "Great. Let's go." Surprised that he wasn't going to film me in the classroom, I obediently walked with him and K yoko, showing him where the word, school, had been painted in yellow on the street. Looking at the site, he took a minute to scan the scene with his photographer's eyes. Then he knew what to do. "I want you to sit on the street, right there by where it says school." Here I was in my good school clothes... and he wanted me to sit in the street? Without protest, I did what he said. He took out a Mamiya RZ67 and adjusted the focus while Kyoko took the light readings. "O.K., cross your legs and look at the camera. O.K., purse your lips but smile. Purse them tighter. Oh, you can give a better smile than that. O.K., now just put your legs out straight. Look at the camera. Look over here to the side." Roll after roll was shot. Car after car passed by. Fortunately, Kyoko diverted the traffic while the shoot was going on. "Bernardo!" screamed some former student as he drove by. Another teacher and his wife drove by and parked at their house just a few doors away, all the time staring at the activity going on in their street. I thought, "Oh, boy!" Nearly 6 o'clock... daylight was nearly gone. Streetlights glinted through the trees. We'd have to go indoors by now, right? Wrong! "Hmm, o.k., sit up now and look directly into the headlights of the my car." This was Chris' idea? I stared at the lights just 10 feet away from me as he set up the camera, as Kyoko took the light readings, and as he starting firing away again. At last, he was finished. "Let's go back to the classroom and take some more shots." The day wasn't over for me yet! "No, I don't like the computer there. Can you move it?" I moved the entire system to another table. "I don't like the photos on the wall. Can you cover them with those posters there?" I hid the student photos. "O.K., increase the brightness of the screen." I turned up the brightness and contrast of the monitor until it was glaringly bright. "Put a game on the computer and play with it." I disappointingly removed Wheels and loaded up Super Mario Bros.. Many shots later, he was finished. While he and Kyoko packed away their equipment and helped me with my equipment, I told them the way to some restaurants. "Aren't there any good, non-chain restaurants in this town?" "Uh, not here in Corcoran. Why don't you follow me to Visalia? There are some trendy restaurants along Main Street." We drove off with me leading the way in my car. We found a nice California/Italian restaurant, and Chris treated me to dinner, while we talked about computers, photography, and travel. ...And he had called me, "Baby", only once during the entire photo shoot... (The above news articles mentioned can be found in the November 1999 issue of Shift magazine (www.shift.com) and in the March 2000 issue of Wired magazine (www.wired.com). Commodore is also mentioned in the December 1999 issue of Maximum PC magazine (www.maximumpc.com) in the article concerning platform emulation. Contact these magazine companies for ordering back issues.) (Originally published in The Interface newsletter of Fresno Commodore User Group; via the Commodore Information Center http://home.att.net/~rmestel/commodore.html)