WORKBENCH 2022 – Chipping Sodbury – May 21st
We are finally putting final preparations for the Workbench event in May and tickets will be available this Sunday from 7pm. Previously we have sold out of tickets within 4 hours which for a small group like us is an amazing achievement and we had some fantastic gatherings and also helped many projects showcase themselves.
The Booking Page will open Sunday the 3rd of April 19:00 BST.
We did manage to have a Workbench before the dreaded virus took hold, which was a success and we did raise money for both ourselves and the Museum of Computing in Swindon. Keith from the Digital Orphanage will be taking the small stage once again as he will present a line-up of talks and short presentations, like last time we were teaming up with the Museum and shall be doing the same again by raising money with a raffle and presenting it later on in the day.
Retro Games Ltd have been working on the A500 mini, which is a smaller version of the Amiga that first blew away the competition back in the late 80s, it is a solution for those who require an Amiga but doesn’t want all the problems associated with getting it running on a modern TV, it is a straight out of the box solution that also comes with preconfigured games and it is now possible to load onto the unit your own backup games. You will be able to see the A500 mini which will be on show on the table at Workbench if you’re undecided about ordering one and they will be doing a presentation during the day.
We been working with Steven Fletcher now for the last few meets, himself (and with the help of the Retro Shed team) have been filming and interviewing *you* To be included in the Kickstarter that he launched about Amiga today, after the success of the Commodore Story, he brings us ‘Amiga: Alive and Kicking’ which talks about why we are looking back at the old computer today and how it shaped some of our futures.
We had a lot of raffle prizes in the past and this time with no exception and this is going to be a fantastic raffle, we got donations from Steve Jones who has donated a new and complete A1500 Plus Checkmate case that came from the original Kickstarter run, this allows you to make your A500 (or other system) look like A3000. The Museum of Computing is also donating a Amiga 500 which is still a favourite for many people and also a boobie prize, more to be revealed. Other donations will be announced shortly including items from ourselves and Retro Lemon and if you want to donate something then please message us.
Later on in the day, we will be doing the first ever PT1210 DJ Battle between two well known Amiga enthusiasts DJ’s H0ffman and Formula (Retro Ravi mostly known from the Retro Hour) and we will see who will not make any mistakes and keep us entertained ! Most DJ’s today use modern equipment like a laptop but back in the day we had turntables made by Technics called the SL1210, a software project that H0ffman took on called PT1210 allows you to beatmap and mix Amiga music using the Amiga and it’s fantastic sampling capabilities.
