When I planned my vacations this January, I noticed two consecutive bank holidays in May.
And two events were happening in May , GEMTOS in France and Outline in The Netherlands.
GEMTOSCONVENTION
A quick Google Maps search and NMBS International (Belgium trains) route planning showed
me that a 5 hour trip and 4 trains would get me to Saint-Juste-en-Chaussee in France.
Disaster struck when I had failed to notice that you had to make a reservation upfront to be able to attend. Since the deadline had passed, I emailed the organiser “Manu” and about
a week later he got back to me that a spot had become available. Ouf
So on Saturday the 4th of May at 06:00 AM my trip to France started.
Saint-Juste-en-Chaussee is situated in the Oisy region , about 100 km above Paris and 50 km below Amiens.
It is lovely region (a picture I took on the last stop before arriving at GEMTOS - Longeau )
and around 11:00 AM I arrived in this nice little village.
So I walked to my AirBNB booking which was convienently about a 5 minute walk from the train station, met up with the owner, had a lovely chat, took the keys and off I went to
the “Salles Des Fetes” where GEMTOS is hosted.
Walking up the stairs to the 1st floor, I was greeted at the entrance by Manu and his wife Séverine who handed me my enveloppe containing food vouchers/questionaire and a pin-up badge.
I had made a reservation including food on Saturday and Sunday and as such I quickly setup my Atari 520ST
and then it was 12:00 so I went and picked up my sandwich with pate and sat down with the other participants for lunch.
Over the 2 days there was a Midi-Maze contest with 4 Atari ST/TT’s
and a 2 computer Lotus Turbo contest.
Also unknown to those participating , there was a suprise game-contest , getting the highest score on Galaxian on the Atari 7800.
Later Saturday afternoon LordKraken (who attented all the way from Sweden) and Fadest (Yastuna Games) showed their GEMTOS exclusive new Lynx game, I have a picture of it and a sticker but I will not reveal it, I didn’t get a chance to glimpse at the game even with the amount of people gathered around the developers.
Here is the link on AtariAge AA
I had a nice chat with Ninjabba who was a Dutch guy developing for Yastuna Games on the Lynx and Jaguar.
Indeed 2 Dutch people and a Belgian couple.
Georges aka Shadow272 , a nice fellow Belgian from Charleroi , was present and we had quite an interesting chat.
He showed me his extensive Atari collection at home and invited me to Atari Nancy Days , another convention in France.
Some of his boxes were displayed on stage.
I was so happy to finally meet another Belgian Atari interested person, thanks for the invite Georges, and we will keep in touch !
A lot of Jaguar and Lynx related things at GEMTOS.
A lot of people visited my 520ST , we talked about Wimodems, Telnet BBSes, the RTS keyboard upgrade that my 520ST has , the SideCart , my mini-Gotek and well nostalgia in General.
Everybody was super friendly and stoked at the event, I got invited to another event in France, ShadowParty.
Somebody ( I forgot your pseudo) complimented me on my UltraSyd t-shirt and shared his memories
of UltraSyd and told me/invited me to go to Revision in Germany (next year since it has already passed).
Some people were busy programming in GFA , some people were busy on their laptops I guess in Assembler/C.
The person next to me was upgrading his Falcon and helping another fellow Frenchmen upgrade his Falcon too.
Somebody was helping installing an RTC kit for ST’s.
One person had a whole soldering/desoldering station with him and was repairing machines.
There was a lot of systems around, not only Ataris.
DMA-SC has a really nice yellow STe.
Time went by so fast , group pictures were taken and at 19:30 we had dinner (pizza).
The winners of the tombola were decided by an innocent hand.
Around 21:00 2 French guys graced the stage with their amazing music setup.
I had seen them busy earlier connecting everything and setting it up.
They , (theotherdays.net) , basically have FPGA versions of most soundchips and a
live composing/mixing set of various known songs.
YOUTUBE
I did tell them on Sunday they should look into POKEY as well and the newer RMT releases by VinsCool.
After this really nice concert , there was a 16 person game of TRON on the new Atari VCS.
Impressive to say the least.
All looked fine at the start but then
in just 2 seconds everybody collapsed
It took some people several rounds to get the hang of this
Around 23:00 I decided to call it a day and start my 15 minute walk back to the AirBNB.
Sunday morning at 09:00 AM I arrived again, some people who slept at the venue were still
in desperate need of coffee and so was I .
Again a really nice breakfast was provided by Manu and Séverine and all the local volunteers.
In the morning I took the oppurtunity to have a closer look at some of the other computers.
Still a lot of interested people came by me and I showed them the Wimodem PRO, the SideCart, Telnet BBSes as well as other hardware projects they were unaware off.
Around 14:00 the winners of the competition entries were announced , the winners of the
game competitions (Midi-Maze/LotusTurbo/Galaxian) , one person won an Atari VCS ,the other
an Atari SpeakerHat.
There was a presentation of the new W.I.P of the game MiracleBoy in Dragonland given by
DMA-SC.
He showcased part of the 4 new levels but since he is mainly responsible for the FX and music , we will have to wait on a new update by Samuel Blanchard aka Samoteph here MBIDL
We had a nice Apero , and a lot of people had already left or were in the final stages
of packing everything and getting ready to leave.
I almost had the oppurtunity to upgrade my ST ROMS to an German TOS (I have an UK TOS with a German keyboard) but sadly time ran out.
So I started packing also around 15:00-16:00 and helped out with cleaning up the venue until 18:00.
Since my train was leaving at 19:00 back on a 5 hour trip to Belgium, I thanked the organisers for this wonderfull weekend, said my goodbyes to the last remaining people
and went to the train station.
I grabbed dinner there and hopped on the first of 4 trains bringing me back to Belgium.
At 23:15 I arrived at home, tired but overwhelmed with joy from this very nice experience.
La France, I thank you for your hospitality and everybody present at GEMTOS see you in the
near future somewhere in France or DEFINITELY at GEMTOS 2025!