Autumn: Autumn 1994 was completely full of HOPE references, as it was the first issue to come out after the historic conference.
We see a whole bunch of images of things that happened - and didn't happen - during that weekend.
For one thing, there's a sign pointing to Woodstock, a reference to the 25th anniversary concert that had been taking place that same weekend with not-so-favorable reviews.
The rest of the cover shows HOPE attendees, all with unreadable nametags.
We see a person speaking at a podium, attendees with cameras and walkie-talkies, and others connecting wires together, passing documents, or sitting at a bank of computer terminals.
One girl with the name "Kate" on her shirt is rollerblading through the scene, a reference to Kate Libby from the movie Hackers, which would be released the following year. (Parts of the movie were inspired by conversations at the New York 2600 meeting and there were a number of people involved with its production at the conference.)
Out the window the Citicorp Center (where our meetings were held) is visible as well as a 2600 hot air balloon.
The just-painted 2600 phone company van also makes an appearance on the cover, as it did at the conference.
We see one person passed out from lack of sleep and some well-deserved hugs being given for all that has been accomplished.
Note the Clipper Chip near the bottom that has a lit fuse attached. At the actual HOPE conference in 1994, we really did blow up a Clipper Chip.
Again, the headband for Phiber Optik appears and this would be the last time as he would be released from prison before the next issue came out.
Over the headband you will see two hands, one labeled "L" and one labeled "R'. One may interpret that as Left and Right, but there's a little more to the story. We won't get into the particulars as we prefer to avoid drama, but this was an epic tale at the conference of someone whose first name began with "R" who tried to be nice to someone whose first name began with "L" and didn't exactly get treated the same way in return. "R" is extending two fingers as a peace sign while "L" extends only a middle finger in response. There's really no point in being any more specific than that.
Since the barcode in its usual place would have obscured a significant part of the picture, we moved it to the upper-right, which we soon found out we weren't supposed to do and we were told by distributors not to do that again.
The mini-cover is some sort of a wafer chip being placed onto circuitry.
More detail than that we cannot find.