On Saturday 12th October the South West Amiga Group (SWAG) will be holding its annual Workbench event.

Following the success of our first Exeter meet back in May, we return to our regular haunt of Dodington Parish Hall, Finch Road, Chipping Sodbury, Bristol, BS37 6JZ for our final event of the year, which takes place this October.



To bring SWAG's 2024 calendar to a close, we're pulling out all the stops and finishing off with one of our special "Workbench" mini events.

Those of you who've attended any of our previous Workbench dates will know that we work to make these extra special.

Our Special Guests
It wouldn't be a Workbench event without special guests, and our October meet is no exception.



The following companies or individuals have kindly agreed to give up their Saturday to attend:


Amiga Kit

The Amiga Kit team will be on hand to demonstrate their recently released A600GS system, and will be giving a talk during the afternoon discussing the new hardware in detail.



Rob Smith
Amiga programmer and hardware developer Rob Smith will be bringing his Disk Backup Station and his Disk Cleaning Machine. Rob will also be giving a talk about how he got the FloppyBridge plugin working with WinUAE (real disks in the emulator), will cover physical floppy disk protection and how he overcame that with his plugin and the limitations of his Drawbridge device.



Nick Veitch

Amiga Format's Nick Veitch has volunteered his time to attend Workbench. He’ll do a Q&A so come armed with your questions to find out about his reflections and experiences as he worked his way to top dog at the legendary Amiga magazine.

Digital Retro Bay
You may have heard of Gotek and now we have GoDRIvE. Dominik will be on hand to show off how the drive works and how you access the files.

Retronaut recently visited us and bought a GoDRivE1200 for his Amiga 500. Here you see how he installed it. See his video below
https://youtu.be/VqT3kZLN3T8?si=Fhj6H_PxNiYr9f17

Project X - Light Years
In partnership with Team17 comes a new official entry in the Project X series.

Developer MK Games will be attending Workbench where you can get your hands on the game to try it out! The Kickstarter is still running and you can find out more here!



David Pleasance
We welcome the man behind Commodore sales in the UK, who is now an established musician and author of many books detailing his time selling Amiga products back in the day. David is currently working on a new book in collaboration with David Haynie and will be with us selling and signing various merchandise. Check out https://cbmamiga.com

Amiga Addict

It wouldn't be a SWAG event without our good friends at Amiga Addict coming along for the ride. Meet some of the team, pick up back issues, folders, and various AA goodies. You don't event need to bring cash as they'll have a card reader with them!


Free Amiga Re-Capping Service

SWAG members Zeb and Scott will be offering a free Amiga re-capping service which will be running throughout the day.

We recommend you purchase caps prior to the event and bring them along with you, though Scott may have a small quantity you can purchase on the day.



Stockists of capacitors we recommend are RetroPassion (search for "capacitor kit" once on the site) and Amiga Spirit (once on the site detail what machine you need a cap kit for via the contact form)



Please note that Zeb and Scott will ONLY work on your Amiga motherboards if they have been completely removed from their cases. You will need to do this before you hand your motherboard over to them for repair.



As the re-capping service is free, there will be a tip jar at the event where you can drop in cash and notes as a little thank you for Zeb and Scott's efforts.



The Raffle

Thanks to several generous individuals donating hardware to our group we have some amazing prizes for our Workbench 2024 raffle.

100% of the proceeds from the raffle will go back into SWAG funds and will be used to either purchase kit for use at SWAG events or to subsidise the cost of running the events in an effort to keep ticket prices down. 



So, what's up for grabs? We have...

A working Amiga A500. This is the machine only.

A working boxed Amiga Impact Series II A500 hard drive from GVP which plugs on to the side of an Amiga.

A working boxed A500 HD8+ Amiga hard drive from GVP which plugs on to the side of an Amiga

The GVP hard drives are now very collectable pieces of kit, and would make fantastic additions to your collection, while the A500 is crying out for a Gotek and a Pi2HDMI mod.

Note that the above hardware is 30+ years old and as such we offer no warranties or refunds on these items should they develop faults once you have collected your prize.


Buy and Sell Area

If you have Amiga or general retro kit you want to sell then please bring it along to the event and put it in the Buy and Sell area.



We'll have a pile of sales forms available. All you need to do is take one, detail what it is you're selling, the price you're asking for and your name. Put this form on your item and if anyone attending the event wants to buy what you're selling they can track you down, so don't forget to wear your name badge!

You can pick up some absolute bargains this way.

All we ask is that, if at the end of the day you have unsold kit, please take it home with you. We don't have the space to take home unwanted items.

Thank you!


The Games Tournament

SWAG's resident Gil is busy planning October's games tournament, which this time features Hudsonsoft's Dynablaster Bomberman! Expect a lot of noise from the tournament area when this kicks off!

As always, we'll have prizes for those ranked in the top three once all matches have been completed.

Get practicing! 


Get Your Tickets now…

Tickets are on sale now and can be ordered via the SWAG web site at http://www.southwestamiga.org.uk

Please note that all adults MUST have a ticket to attend the event.

Your ticket price helps cover the room hire, your drinks and snacks plus a lunchtime buffet.

Tickets must be purchased before the date of the event and are not on sale on the door. Under 18’s accompanied by a ticket holding adult are free. We just need to know how many you’re bringing so we can cater accordingly.

Tickets are be priced at £15.

Note that all our table tickets have sold out. We only have standard visitor tickets remaining, so please don't bring kit to set up as we're full to capacity. Just bring yourself and check out the kit that's up and running at the event.