In the northern hemisphere we're being treated to increasing daylight hours as Springtime prepares to step into centre stage with daffodils and other eager flowering plants starting to make their presence known.  

That also means we've just had the first SWAG (South West Amiga Group) event of the year, held in Chipping Sodbury just outside Bristol.

I always enjoy going to these events with my eldest as an opportunity to play some classic games, catch up with old friends whilst also making some new ones.

This event in particular I got chatting with quite a lot of new people, mostly due to me showcasing the HDD Synth in public for the first time 

I felt blessed to happen into conversations with a number of people who were able to offer their expertise for the project. Such as Derek who sells the PicoGUS on his online store and was able to point me in the right direction to get a custom metal bracket for the rear of the card with cut outs to address the SD card, volume control and action button.

Another fortunate meeting occurred when I stumbled across someone playing Syndicate (one of my favourites) and got chatting. It turned out that the friendly chap called Mark was a freelance audio director who had some very relevant experience and was up to collaborating on creating the HDD mechanical audio samples. Fantastic! 

A real morale boost came when a lovely chap called Jakub was taking a look at the HDD Synth and told me how he'd been waiting for such a project to exist after the HDD Clicker was created. This was exactly the inspiration for me creating this device, so it was really heart warming to find someone else who felt the same way

I managed to find a little time to play some D Generation which I first came across on my Compaq 286 EGA PC as a kid. It was just as devilishly difficult as it ever was with the same lingering sense of unease and dread

I particularly enjoyed the for sale table at this event with a number of items that were fascinating to hold and look at in person. I've already got a whole museums worth of goodies, so I really don't need anything else - however I always enjoy to see new things in person

I don't think I'd ever seen a Commodore Plus 4 in person before. It's certainly not as sought after as the C64 due to it's relative lack of gaming abilities, however it's a unique device that's had some interesting homebrew games developed for it in recent years.

Flicking through a box of floppy disks always brings back happy memories. I remember my Dad having a collection of cover disks he'd amassed over time which I'd always pick through for any potential games.

That's how I first discovered Commander Keen 1 on a disk boasting it had cartoon quality animation

Overall another great event. Thanks to all the organisers for their continued efforts