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Mad Butscher/Foundation Two reports from the ABBUC Annual General Meeting, called Jahreshauptversammlung (JHV) in German, held in Herten, deep in the heart of the Ruhrpott, on 28th October 1998...

Around 100 people of the greatest Atari club in Germany and the world attended. First there was the report by the club officials. The number of members remains pretty much constant between 450-500 and the financial situation also remains good. Next followed reports from the regional groups.

First up were the Hannover ABBUC Regionalgruppe (HAR) - only first because they bribed club officials with a home made Atari tie -damn slimers! The HAR presented a new OS for the XF 551 floppy and a preview of a 512Kb ROM disk in a normal small module based on flash RAM technology. Naturally these new projects drove the crowd wild.

Next up were Regionale ABBUC gruppe Frankfurt (RAF). They presented their almost famous SIO2PC interface which enables the connection of an 8-bit to a PC or ST and the Digital Volt Meter (DVM).

We, the incredible Suedwest Atari Team (SWAT), were next to report. I intended to present the report but as I sat in front of the crowd I even forgot the names of the other member of SWAT team - sh*t happens eh? Oh well, it left more time to talk about my latest game, Bembel Wo, which I released at the meeting. Finally there seems to be a new Diskmag called XE/XL (cool name).

After SWAT the Vogtland ABBUC Gruppe (VAG) announced there will be another Schreiersgruen fair on the 20/03/1999 and I'm looking forward to visiting our newly colonised friends again. Miko (I've forgotten this surname) presented a new version of the B.o.s.s. desktop system for the XE/XL - it's still not very useful, but Windows on XL now has a MauMau game.

The Dutch regional group (don't panic The Netherlands aren't part of Germany - yet! - I've tried this joke before but they don't seem to see the funny side [Ed: don't mention the war]). They finished the Pool Disk 2 - it's now a double CD with over 5600 Disks for the 8-bit and some additional stuff including home pages. People can't believe there's enough stuff to fill 2 CD's!

Next several dealers explained their plans. Sascha Roeber produced a new hint book for some more adventures in co-operation with the Atari public domain service Hamburg. Finally Beetle of the United Nightmares of Osnabrueck (UNO) mentioned he saw a preview of the old Atari classic Centipede at the CeBit home for the PC.

Then followed the buying, selling, talking, flaming, some more flaming, and collecting. I spent a lot of money, but I acquired some rare items.
I was joined by friends from Paderborn who gave me their Falcon, software, a 800XL, a 1050 and a 1029 printer all in exchange for a crate of German beer (thanks again Dorry and Marc [Ed: And Hi from me too]) - I spread the goodies around later.

Stefan Pollock put in an appearance (he programs Blum and Mr.Boomer for the ST/Falcon ) and sold me some copies of Jurassic Park II from Satantronic for the XE/XL. The game was made in 1995 and looks good (according to Gambler/SWAT).

After the meeting closed we naturally proceeded in convoy to some strange Schnittzel restaurant. The food wasn't very good and the service was worse. I sat next to Creature XL/HAR and Beetle/UNO and we had an informative chat and we may co-operate to release some new games. Beetle joins Foundation Two so now I'm looking forward to the future.

After the Schreiersgruen Fair the next event in 1999 is the Dresden (Error Line 99 April 2nd to 4th). I hope a lot of 8-bit enthusiasts attend (Poland and Czechia are nearby)...