This was my first ever visit to Pianeta Amiga and only my third ever public Amiga show despite being a committed Amiga enthusiast for almost 20 years. The other 2 were the last Amiga show at London’s Earls Court where the Walker design was displayed and the BB3 in Peterborough. Pianeta Amiga was quite a different affair. Apparently 10 years ago there were ~4,000 attendees, this show probably had between 200/300. However, I was quite surprised by the quality, enthusiasm and youth of the vast majority of the attendees (yours truly excluded).

Pianeta Amiga is held in the provincial town of Empoli which is situated in Italy’s beautiful Tuscany region. The town sits between Florence and Pisa and is surrounded by a rich fertile landscape of green vineyards spotted with red tiled villas and medieval villages. Nearby is the village of Vinci which is the birthplace of the incredible Leonardo da Vinci which to me makes Empoli a fitting place to hold an Amiga convention.

I won’t attempt to describe all of the people, exhibits and equipment that were on display as that has been covered in detail in other posts. I thought I would give you my own personal impression of someone who has never attended Pianeta Amiga or visited this part of Italy before.

As this is predominantly a show for Italian Amigans, as you would expect all of the presentations were in Italian. Being a typical Brit I can just about order a beer and a pizza in Italian so I didn’t attend many of the technical presentation, preferring to concentrate of the exhibits and exhibitors.

For me personally ACube’s Sam board took pride of place although there were a number of other very interesting exhibitors and presentation.

@Swisso was there with his long suffering wife having survived a 24 hour drive from Bournemouth (England). He demonstrated his repaired A1-XE which included the new CPU which he sourced himself and which was skilfully installed into his A1-XE by ACube
He also had a few classic bit & pieces for sales and I relived him of an AmigaLoadsFaster3 SCSI controller.

@AmiKit (Jan) survived a 13 hour bus journey from the Czech Republic and was selling copies of his new AmiKit 1.4 CD in a nicely presented case for 5 euros (the production costs). Apparently on the bus back home he discovered they sold beer and after a few bottles managed to sleep through most of the journey.

Michael Battilana of Cloanto addressed the show and also gave a brief update on the work being performed for the next release of the excellent Amiga Forever package. He showed some preliminary outlines for a new one touch download & play classic Amiga games player. He also had with him a Minimig which was passed around the audience and showed a Workbench 1.3 replacement project.

Matthew from AmigaKit displayed a selection of his Amiga wares and despite selling a fair amount of kit, ended up carrying back more than he bought.

The A-Cube partners displayed their various wares and I managed to purchase a copy of Robin Hood to run on my Pegasos 2. However for me the actual availability of Sam boards for sale has got to be one of the most exciting developments for a long time in the Amiga world. I managed to get a private viewing of the “Red One” being put through its paces. I was very excited by what I saw. Unfortunately I am sworn to secrecy under the threat of finding half an A1-XE board in my bed (you tease did I hear someone say!) I did managed obtain an empty Amiga OS4.0 box for my sins.

There were also a number of Macs and an Efika board running Crux Linux for the PPC and I believe they managed to get Crux running on a Sam board by the end of the show?

I had a long chat with Evert of Hyperion and am hopeful that we will see Amiga OS4.0 released for classic PPC enabled Amigas in the near future.

At the end of the first day I attended the traditional Pianeta Amiga dinner which consists of consuming a lot of local wine and traditional Italian food. We started with a “little” antipasti followed by an extremely good “small” pasta first plate. The pride of place went the main meat dish which consisted of “large” plate of Bistecca alla Fiorentina (Florentine Style Steak) which is a delicacy of the region. With apologies to any vegetarians it is served extremely rare with blood oozing over the plate. I must admit I am not a great fan of rare steak and this was the rarest I have ever seen (and I have lived in Texas!) However, I have to admit it was delicious and I managed to clear my plate. Several other Brits let the side down by sending the meat back to be cooked properly! You know who you are (Matthew and Swisso) The food was washed down with vast quantities of local Chianti (but no falva beans). I crawled back to my bed looking and feeling about 4 months pregnant.

The Sunday was a much quieter affair, which is very traditional for the Pianeta show. I was able to wander around the various exhibits and spend a lot of time talking with other enthusiasts about the current plight of the Amiga market. Yaris, the genial manager of the show venue offered to take me and a couple of other attendees (Tony and Andreas) on a tour of the stunning local countryside. We visited Da Vinci’s birthplace, took in a local vineyard and bought some of the wine that we had been drinking the night before. Afterwards we travelled back to the show for the inevitable wind down and the traditional Sunday afternoon post show lunch at a local restaurant. This lasts about 4 hours and consists of eating and drinking yourself slowly into a stupor with excellent local meat, pasta, bread and more wine. We toasted with the biggest bottle of limocello I have ever seen. These Italians certainly know had to live well! After this feast I decided I was definitely pregnant and decided name the growing mass in my stomach Sam in honour of the ACube board.

I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Empoli and the cheap Ryan Air flight from London Stansted certainly made the trip affordable. The show was well organised and it was good to put faces to many of the names I regularly see posting on AmigaWorld. Will I be back next year? A most definite yes!

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No, I don't need no reason, I'm just breezin'

@TrevorDick

Wow, great report!!!

I'm really happy you enjoyed so much your trip in italy, it was a pleasure to meet you and all the other italian and non-italian fellow amigans!

Pianeta Amiga is becoming more and more, year after year, an excuse to meet people and not only an event to speak about computers.

Hope to see you soon again!

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Stefano Guidetti
AmigaOS 4 Translator & Betatester

AmigaOneXE G4@1Ghz 2GB RAM Radeon 9000 PRO 128MB
Sam460ex@1,1GHz 2GB RAM Radeon X1550 PRO PCI-E
Both running AmigaOS 4.1 Update 6 (BETA)

@TrevorDick

Thanks for a most enjoyable read, sounds like you had a good time. Would love to visit Italy myself some day.

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Hate tends to make you look stupid...

@TrevorDick

Heh! All I requested was a little writeup.
You really went overboard. Thanks for doing this!

#6

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This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@TrevorDick


Argh. What a pity that i cannot be present at the dinner. Rumors say that Enrico has eaten the "Fiorentina" steak just as if he bite a Dinosaur. Someone has told me that he had the eyes injected of blood. He didn't taste, but it felt him snarl when, at the end of the meat, he has polished what remained of the piece of bone of the "Fiorentina" steak. Someone else seems to have seen him to stick the bone as if it were a necklace. I don't know what Libero and Max have done at the dinner, as well as what Nicola and the others have eaten, but i'm quite sure that while I was observing the reflex of the candid moon in the silver waters of the Arno river, in Florence, i've heard the howls of a flock of hungry wolves coming from the countries of Empoli.

This is the story

I hope i can meet you next year, TD

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retired

@TrevorDick

Thanks for the report, glad to hear you had a good time while you were there. I'd have liked to have gone myself but funds are a bit tight and I don't have a current passport, maybe next year.

I think the best things about these shows is the people you get to meet and the chance to see new products and talk to the developers and re-sellers too. At last years Big Bash I was talking to Jens Schoenfeld about a few ideas I had that revolved around the Keyrah. OliHD was telling me about the trials and tribulations of developing classic hardware as a hobby, also had a chat about cars and engine builds.

Craig of GP2X.co.uk had some really good story to share about his business and the recklass days of his youth.

There's always stuff you get to see and hear at these show that you don't just get from looking at pictures and reading the reports. I recommend that anyone that has never been to a show to make their best effort to go to their next nearest one.

@TrevorDick

I can't wait for our next social get together to catch up with all the latest gossip

Last edited by sicky on 24-Sep-2007 at 11:23 PM.

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SAM 460 with 2GB or RAM, 1000GB HD, 4 port SATA, DVDRW drive and Radeon HD 4650 GFX card.

@Number6

Your wish is my command!

@All thanks for your positive comments.

I apologise to all the other exhibitors I did not mention, but they have been covered in better detail in other Pianeta Amiga threads.

TrevorDick

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No, I don't need no reason, I'm just breezin'

@TrevorDick

Another personal view of the show, this time from the perspective of a presenter:

http://arosshow.blogspot.com/2007/09/pianeta-amiga-2007-report-from-paolo.html

#6

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This posting, in its entirety, represents solely the perspective of the author.
*Secrecy has served us so well*

@TrevorDick

Very nice report glad you enjoyed it, judging from what you ate I think you should have walked home

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Everything is proceeding as I have foreseen

Some people are like slinkies. Not really good for anything but they bring a smile to your face when pushed down the stairs.

@TrevorDick

Fancy doing a joint effort trip next year, the food and drink and the company sounds amazing!

Rude!

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2017 Camaro 2SS

@TrevorDick

Thanks for the report. Much appreciated.

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Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

@Rudei

Quote:

Fancy doing a joint effort trip next year

Sounds like a plan!

@elwood & @ajs

Thanks, your welcome!

TrevorDick

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No, I don't need no reason, I'm just breezin'

@TrevorDick

Thank for your contribution and for the perfect report on PA 2007...

Do you still have "all" those amigas ??


EDIT: typos....

Last edited by Zender on 25-Sep-2007 at 07:12 PM.

@TrevorDick

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the report, thanks.

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4000T/BFG9060
CD32/Elsat ProModule, TF360
CD32/ Edu's CD32 <> A1200 Adapter, Vampire V2
CD32/ FMV Module

@Zender

Quote:

Do you still have "all" those amigas ??

Yes!

@ Akiko

Glad you enjoyed my report.

TrevorDick

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No, I don't need no reason, I'm just breezin'

@TrevorDick

Thanks for the writeup, makes me want to come along next year too!

How's teh new A4000T settling into your collection? (I was ready to bid up to £600, but the end price was WAY above my funds )

Regards


Rich

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Troll - n., A disenfranchised former potential customer who remains interested enough to stay informed and express critical opinions.
opp., the vast majority who voted silently with their feet.

@TrevorDick

Thanks ! Very good and nice report. It makes me think I should visit Italy some day.

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Rock lobster bit me. My Workbench has always preferences. X1000 + AmigaOS4.1 FE
"Anyone can build a fast CPU. The trick is to build a fast system." -Seymour Cray

@Boot_WB

Thanks Rich. Sorry about the A4000T. The machine is in pretty good condition. Just trying to track down a set of A4000T specific OS3.1 disks for it now.

Trevor

@Tomppeli

Maybe next year's Pianeta Amiga?

Last edited by TrevorDick on 26-Sep-2007 at 10:12 AM.
Last edited by TrevorDick on 26-Sep-2007 at 08:57 AM.

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No, I don't need no reason, I'm just breezin'

@TrevorDick


very nice report!

hope to see you there next year again :)