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Hype
If you're going to talk about the Konix Multi-system, you have to mention hype. A dictionary definition of hype could be "promotional publicity of an extravagant or contrived kind". Hype to me seems to be used when a product or piece of work won't be attractive enough in its own right without having to be talked up.
I think the Multi-system wasn't so much hyped as talked to death. The application of the word hype is for me too casual and not accurate enough.
I'm sure that the iconic pictures published in the magazines of the
Slipstream controller alone was enough to attract the attention of most
people. It's not that people hadn't seen a steering wheel peripheral for home
computers before, but the idea of a 'Transformers' like adaptable controller
that offered bike and plane controls too was enough to get most people's
attention.
Add to this pictures or videos of ATD's spinning cube wire frame demo with
the independent actions happening on the faces of the cube, all spinning at
high speed then you'll already have pricked up the ears of most. The wealth
of coverage the press gave the Multi-system wasn't an effort to make it sound better - just
to report how good it actually sounded in the first place.
I've been told by people who know Wyn Holloway personally that he was great at knocking on doors and getting the attention of people. Also, no matter how hardened a Journalist you may be, looking back with 20-20 hindsight, you can't deny that the majority of the press were very interested to see what became of this machine. It was only really when it all started going sour that the cynicism started to creep in and the 'Told you so's' started to fly around.
To some extent, the machine sold itself and needed little promotion - the machine would have started conversations and could have been a talking point in it's own right without impressive technical demos, a larger than life charismatic Welsh man with child-like enthusiasm for his product that had an uncontrollable urge to tweak, improve and theorize about how it could be better still if it just had this next great feature.