How have u been? Once again, my brother and I trek to the MacWorld expo. This year we brave the punishing and relentless Bay Area drizzle, the early setting of the sun, and (*gulp*) public transportation. So far we have explored one of two football-field-sized exhibit rooms, during a single day.

Bungie's booth was well-packed with drooling gamers gleefully slaughtering each other in networked Myth on six impressive PowerMacs (wait a minute... six?). Last year, a couple of Bungie old-timers minced me in no time flat on an early demo of Myth. This year, I dared not even approach the throngs of seasoned military professionals campaigning at the booth. Bungie seemed to be primarily showcasing Myth this day, with the Marathon saga receiving sadly little attention. The Infinity Box Set was proudly displayed for sale, though I saw no one playing it.

Doug Zartman confirmed that the original Marathon poster is out of print. *sob* He said something to the effect of, "I think I have two of those at home. I might be coaxed into parting with one for the right price... <evil grin> $300."

Other interesting rumours and tidbits -- Bungie now numbers approximately 25 people, with far more artists than programmers, though the staff in sales, marketting, and tech-support seems to outnumber artists and programmers combined... Oh look how our little Bungie has grown! There were claims that Bungie is working on a new game that has nothing to do with Marathon, but the only lowdown I could get was that it was not a 3D-action diet guide on CD-ROM. And finally, there is a new web master who promises to be even more biting than the previous one. Who, pray tell, might it be?

MacSoft had a sizable booth full of game boxes and macs to play on. While they were selling Quake, they mentioned that they are not sure if they will get the Quake 2 contract. The original publishers are supposedly looking for a Rhapsody-only port, and MacSoft is trying to convince them that a MacOS port is a better idea.

Speaking of Rhapsody, Apple had quite a number of small booths devoted to showcasing Rhapsody features and applications (spreadsheets, telecomm, etc). Apple also had a huge separate area devoted to evangelizing new technologies, including QuickTime 3.0, the G3 Macs, and the Apple Store (custom order a computer on the web -- hey, what a concept!). I caught a glimpse of the latest and greatest MS Word at their G3 presentation -- looks like the Mac version is finally caught up to the PC version, and it launched in a zippy four seconds or so.

That was one half of the expo.

My brother is actually out exploring the other half as we speak, but I had to stay today to prepare a presentation for an upcoming research retreat. Six days of snowboarding at this retreat, but no mac! Bah! Where's a G3 PowerBook when you need one...

Take care,

Eylon Caspi
eylon@eecs.berkeley.edu
Wed, 7 Jan 1998