[Coco] Young programmers....

[Aaron Banerjee]

All,
    My 8 year old son has taken to BASIC programming on the COCO.   
He's got the Coco 2 set up in his room, and we've got the Coco 3  
downstairs.  While going through the Coco 3 manual, he noticed a grid  
worksheet for the 64x32 text mode.  I thought we just had 32, 40, and  
80 columns on the Coco 3.  He was wondering why "WIDTH 64" did not  
work.  I'm assuming the 64x32 is just the set/reset (that uses text  
characters and is therefore a text mode), but it never really says  
that.  There isn't some weird or "Easter Egg" text mode on the Coco 3  
(analogous to some of the Coco 1/2 semigraphics modes) is there?
    This actually gave me an idea for the next Cocofest.  Job  
permitting, I'd like to set up a booth and have a "kids corner" where  
our younger members could play coco games or write programs.  I'd like  
to reward any kid who writes a program with a US Savings Bond  
(provided that the US Treasury does not go bankrupt or experience the  
"Zimbabwe Effect").  Anyone who is a kid at heart, but not a younger  
programmer would of course be able to write programs too, but please  
understand that I haven't got enough money to finance a bond for  
everyone....just the kids...).
    Does anyone think we could muster up enough kids to make this  
happen?  So far, I can think of only one.
                      - Aaron