Legend has it there is an annual Atari event each summer somewhere in the pitoresque East German mountain range named "Vogtland" - to add cream on top, this year's event is taking place for a full week Monday to Sunday this year. What? We are speaking of a heatwave with 34 degrees outside and a big hall full of more or less middle aged men and not much younger oldschool hardware running hot! And guess what, the party is crowded since day one! So let's go there before it's over - like a true hero, starting my ride at 10:40 am!
The LCC Lengenfeld carneval club is kindly providing the location for the Atari event since more than two decades. And no, it's less hot than expected.Thanks to LCC for making his little piece of Fuji paradise possible since so many years.
The annual Fujiama Atari party is taking place in Lengenfeld, Vogtland, just like the past two decades on the top of a mountain in the wonderful location "Schützenhaus". Lot's of tinkering, coding, soldering, 3d printing, gaming and talking is going on. Many highly specialized XL/XE legends are here, in case someone needs a helping hand. The Atari 8-Bit scene definitely has a special vibe, a mix of helpfulness and friendliness and professionalism and engineering mindset at the same time. We find less of a demoparty, no demo compos, rules and so on, more a friendly and intense gathering to properly get into the common Atarizone. Also few 16/32 bit demosceners are in place (Beetle, Insane, Deyta, Lastic, No, JAC! have been spotted and a few more are expected).
top left: the Atari acronym car plates are all over the parking lot (1050, 6502, 800XL, 600XL, you name it)
top center: finally - Insane instructed me on how to actually start Cream's awesome STay forever demo on real hardware!
top right: today's fun schedule
bottom: party place overview, my rough estimate is about 50 people and we are at Wednesday right now - well and there is loooooots of oldschool hardware - fantastic!
But this year is also special, as the Fujiama overlord, Helmut Weidner, is giving his final performance as a host. He has been involved in Atari 8-bit events since 1996 when he organized the famous Schreiersgrün Atari fairs and continued through the 2000 and 2010 years till today (except one year due to Covid obviously). The participants know the kind character of the 65 year old local, arranging the party in a very cosy and easy going way. He is taking care of everything so intensely in many ways, that it was always a big joy to come here. So no wonder Fujiama won more and more traction and became the main attraction of the ABBUC events. This big German Atari 8-Bit club "Atari Bit Byter User Club e.V." is celebrating its 40th birthday this year, and also here at the party - what an institution with it's about 540 members all over the world.
The Fujiama party itself has become more international, too, now with visitors from Belgium, Poland, Netherlands, Czech Republic and with Mauricio there is even a regular visitor all the way from USA (for the fourth time!). However, age pays it's tribute and always charming Helmut Weidner decided to step down from his main organizer role. Well deserved, no way to thank him enough at this point.
Currently there is one option: enjoy the event as much as possible. So let's celebrate this final of Helmut's Fujiama and hope for the best the event in the Vogtland highlands will continue in the future under a different organization team. The ABBUC is a performant club after all.
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