[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 355, March 16, 2024

Sun Mar 17 09:24:18 EDT 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 355, March 16, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:
---------------------

Interviews schedule:
--------------------
March 30 - not a full interview, but 2 guests that are involved with
Pixel Addict magazine - editor Paul Monaghan and writer Ian Griffiths -
will be on to talk about both the current issue #19 (Tandy cover story)
and Pixel Addict in general.

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
Interim Computer Festival: March 23-24.
Intraspace
3100 Airport Way South, Seattle, Washington
This is a pre-announcement for a retro computer show in the Pacific
Northwest Area.
  https://sdf.org/icf/

The Indy Classic Computer & Gaming Expo is April 13-14 in Indianapolis.
Crowne Plaza
Randy Kindig of the Floppy Days podcast helps with this one - and he was
our guest not too far back.
  https://indyclassic.org/

VCF-East: InfoAge Science and History Museums in Wall, New Jersey
April 12-14
  https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/

CocoFest: May 4-5, 2024 in Carol Stream, Illinois (near Chicago)
Holiday Inn & Suites
  https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
Table bookings (the main hall is completely taken up now, and 5 of the
extra overflow tables have now been sold):
  https://www.tandylist.com/

BoatFest 3: June 14-16, 2024
Social Event Space
Hurricane, WV

https://www.ticketsource.us/boatfest2024/boatfest-retro-computer-expo-2024/e-raedpb

VCF SouthWest: June 14-16, 2024 (same weekend as BoatFest)
Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas - Dallas
Dallas, Texas
  https://www.vcfsw.org/
UPDATES:
Also this year they are doing "Shows within the Show", and one of those
is a Tandy Assembly meetup, which includes a separate hall for just Tandy
machines. The main hall is already sold out for tables, and as of March 6,
only 2 of 21 tables in the Tandy hall were still available:
  (scroll down on the main page)
Jeff Wires (the host of Chronologically Gaming) and Boisy Pitre are both
speakers this year.
Speakers list:
  https://www.vcfsw.org/speakers

VCF-Midwest has finally announced their new, larger venue for this year
(#19) - the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg,
IL. Sept 7-8, 2024 (Sept 6 evening (Friday) is reserved for vendors, et.c
to set up). Unfortunately, their original block of rooms already sold out
in 3 hours after they announced yesterday. VCF is working with the hotel
to get more, but that won't happen until Monday)
  https://vcfmw.org/

Tandy Assembly for 2024 has been announced for Sep 27-29, 2024.
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
  http://www.tandyassembly.com/

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) Pixel Addict magazine (in the UK, and ran by some friends of the Amigos)
is a real print magazine (or digital if one prefers) that covers retro
computing and retro gaming in general. The current issue (#19), that just
came out last week, has as their cover story the story of Tandy:

https://www.pixel.addict.media/shop/current-issue-and-subscriptions/pixel-addict-magazine
NOTE: We will have two of the people involved with the magazine on our
March 30th show. Paul Monaghan is the editor of the magazine, and Ian
Griffiths (@PixelsAtDawn for those familiar with Amigos shows) who is one
of their writers (he is one of the main people for it's sister magazine,
Amiga Addict).

2) George Janssen has released lesson 10 (Graphics screens Parts 1 and 2)
of his Coco 3 assembly language series. He goes through a variety of the
available graphics screens modes, including ones not supported by BASIC,
and writes a BASIC/ML combo program to quickly demo how to set 4 of them
up - some the same as BASIC HSCREEN's, some not:
Part 1:
  https://youtu.be/OrncM85aFsI?si=W8RjUGcyj9lQdQl6
Part 2:
  https://youtu.be/P_jRNpxBhss?si=_WBY-VeaSuo5rSvk
As usual, he also has put the sourcecode for the lesson up on the Coco
Discord.

3) Pierre Sarrazin has release version 0.1.86 of his CMOC C-compiler for
the Coco (both DECB and OS9). New features in this version:
-minor bug fixes, improvements and optimizations
-new command line option --mc6839, which adds a single precision floating
point library, namely the MC6839 math routine ROM from Motorola. This means
BASIC does not need to be around for floating point as in previous versions.
-Added strspn, strcspn, strtok, strpbrk, strrchr
-Added sbrk and sbrkmax for OS-9
  http://perso.b2b2c.ca/~sarrazip/dev/cmoc.html

4) And in a kind of follow up to Pierre's incorporating the Motorola ROM
code, Sean Conner posted on the Coco maltedmedia list a link to his blog,
where he compared the speed of Microsoft BASIC's floating point to the
Motorola / IEEE code - and the Microsoft one is around twice as fast:
  https://boston.conman.org/2024/03/01.1
It should be mentioned that has other good deep dive blog entries about
the Coco... well worth checking his blog out (he discusses other completely
unrelated things as well).

5) Coco Town released part 6 of assembly language sound series for the
Coco 1/2/3 - this time he does multi-voice background sound while BASIC
program with graphics is running. With lots of bugs along the way:
  https://youtu.be/6A1DRN2sCyY?si=kHm1d4e1Bk5UFUlc

6) Allen Huffman posted on his Sub-Etha Software blog a story that originally
appear in Mary Kramer's CocoNuts! newsletter back in May 2007, about the
discovery of the first Coco 3 prototype found at Microware:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2024/03/11/the-color-computer-3-prototype/
Allen also released part 7 of his blog on converting Rick Adam's Lights
Out Coco 3 to plain old Color BASIC, and even a Vic-20 port:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2024/03/12/lets-write-lights-out-in-basic-part-7/
He also put up a blog about the Super Pitfall II sourcecode that Roger
Taylor posted about:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2024/03/13/super-pitfall-2/
Roger's original blog, which shows the first pages of multiple commercial
programs by Steve. Again, if you can help via his Patreon to cover the large
costs Roger took on to get all of this stuff, please think about doing so:
  https://www.patreon.com/posts/here-we-go-100273449
Allen later added a post on Facebook about Roger finding the possible
earlier version of the bouncing ball demo he later did for the Coco 1/2
under OS9 Level 1, but this one is 1) in DECB, and 2) the drawing of the
ball frames is in BASIC:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161207966642641/
Roger released the video of it in action on his Mr CoCo YouTube page (Note:
some of the BASIC stuff is sped up in the emulator):
  https://youtu.be/MDFdWYAecy0?si=q7IjOJYIq4WX6Kez

7) TRS-80 Retro Programming did another Coco Ultimate update, where he
has added the player getting hit and getting the REPEL spell working:
  https://youtu.be/r3_NbmZwbi4?si=BRV6D_TqMYR_fN8B

8) Michael Pittsley sent me a message after seeing our mention of his
videos using the Dorsett courseware multi-media programs on the Coco 1,
where he explains some pretty interesting details on how they work. To quote:
"Soon I'll be putting up another library that I found. But I wanted to let
you know how they are designed in the event you don't know 100%. I load a
main program with cloadm. This program can be used with almost any of the
Dorsette courseware tapes.  This program reads the data on the cassette.
to load graphics and do the motor and audio on and offs.  The program also
keeps track of the score of the correct and incorrect answers you have
made to display at the end.  The graphics are loaded as the tape is read.
Now this is pretty neat as even if there is a bad spot in the tape and
certain graphics cannot be loaded, the program still continues without error.
The graphics on that page may be jumbled a bit, but upon reading the next
bit of code / graphics on the tape, everything will go back to normal.
I can load this program from the Spelling course and run one tape.. then
I can pop in a math tape and not even have to load another program.  Heck,
I'm willing to bet I can pop out a spelling tape midway through and stick
a different tape in and it will continue like nothing happened."

9) La Coco Strangiato (Bob Emery) tried putting in a modern WDC 65C21
chip to replace a 68B21, having heard that it would work, but would have
"side effects". He made a video that uses Nick's Jumping Joey game to test
and show the differences:
  https://youtu.be/C5Lg_ROCu7s?si=DUQdOkxMIAguBbSw

10) Henry of "The Break Key" channel on YouTube has released the next
video blog of his FORTH on ROM project for the Coco, where he now has
output working:
  https://youtu.be/VOCDsbKEw_c?si=O434LkntnhCk8jIP

11) David Ladd has managed to get his MM/1 with 8 MB upgrade
working, although he doesn't have an XT keyboard to use on the machine
locally. However, he was able to log through the RS232 and got his Gotek
to work with 1.44 MB floppy drive files, and his OSK 2.4 is up and running
(login video in the comments):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/4416904168534846/

12) Primal-Bits on YouTube has his follow up Coco 2 video; after fixing
the keyboard in the first one (that we showed a few weeks ago) he is now
performing upgrades to both RAM and ROM:
  https://youtu.be/bYZXofB0Jcs?si=Mqx66KQFV3fbq12K

13) Conrad Hoffman did a brief (<2 minutes) Coco 3 overview on YouTube:
  https://youtu.be/k9iqDZL43e8?si=pcvdLYtSTo-vjTsO

14) YouTube channel THSBIAJKK (Jim Mullis) put up a couple of videos
relating to Sundog Systems GrafExpress utility, showing a lot of it's
features and capabilities in action. Unfortunately it does have some sound
issues due to it's being run in XRoar (I have encountered those myself),
but the graphics run fine:
INTRO.BAS - this gives more information than the regular demo program that
we have shown before:
  https://youtu.be/YdcNl86UjnY?si=J9Zi9rKV36-Fi2uA
He then put up a video showing his experiments with horizontal scrolling -
in this video's case, 8 pixel increments, double buffered, 256x192 scroll
window using the COPY command:
  https://youtu.be/wQabrE9u2BU?si=UPjXK4nvv5tBetf5

15) Mike Miller posted a screenshot of him getting Flex and the programming
language PL/9 running under an SWTPC emulator. His next steps are to change
interrupts, etc. to allow him to move them to the Dragon and the Coco. He
also got the Tracer module working as well.
  (show local copy of screen shot "flex-pl9.png"

MC-10
-----
1) YOUR MC-10 EXPLOITS HERE

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Julian Brown figured out why one of his PAL daughterboards was not
working - a faulty 74LS32 chip and fuse:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3666401916952784/
He also posted about a further refinement to his upgraded Rev 3 board -
he removed the 3rd PIA in favor of an AY compatible sound chip:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3663984037194572/

2) If there is enough interest, reply to Morgan Hetherington's post in
the Dragon Facebook group about making some 3D printed color versions of
the Dragon 32 logo:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3664089933850649/
Morgan also posted about 3D printed tributes that he has made for other
retro computers and games:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3662645750661734/

3) Helen Osborne posted a video of the Dragon 32 Demonstration Cart running
(Unfortunately, her monitor (and camera) seem to have some issues... but
the Dragon and it's demo run fine. I believe this is a BASIC program:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3663493883910254/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Jim Gerrie typed in "Adventure" from "Let's Compute" magazine (it spanned
5 issues from March-July of 1991). Problem is... the magazine was cancelled
before the program was completed. So Jim is asking for help/suggestions
in finishing the game off (see details in the description):
  https://youtu.be/dAEga45aLHs?si=QVBR13y1Zt-eQEgs
... and then later this week he made a version with the story completed by
himself, and added a title page (NOTE: requires the 16K RAM pack or higher):
  https://youtu.be/42F7Sho20Ek?si=SfsT-ZWiIdTsb9ej

2) Paul Shoemaker made a demo of he introduction screens to the Apple II
hit game Karateka. He doesn't plan on finishing it at this point, he just
wanted to show what it may have looked like:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161203012972641/

3) Of historical note, the YouTube channel "The 6502 Show" managed to
rescue some text games from an archive of FLEX disks originally 6800 and
6809 systems:
  https://youtu.be/jAsjbxfmhEI?si=TzW-DRkAIES4p4lK

4) The Wargaming Scribe hooked me up with a Russian site that is covering
all official and unofficial Star Wars (or Star Wars related) games, and
he has covered a few Coco ones recently:

https://dtf-ru.translate.goog/retro/2539533-igry-po-star-wars-s-drevnih-vremen-do-nashih-dnei-chast-50-trs-80-coco?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

5) Tim and AJ of THE My Drunk Sibling YouTube channel return to the Coco
with episode 126 of Sibling Rivalry, this time feature the Tandy/Radio
Shack cartridge game Slay the Nereis by Spectral Associate. With their
traditional humour, of course:
  https://youtu.be/R0U9lQeZKeg?si=w4LC5fQvkf5hVMcN

6) Marco Spedaletti has posted the link to his game ACME, Inc.to the Coco
Facebook group. This is part of the BASIC 10 liner contest, and he wrote
it in ugBASIC:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161203632027641/
Direct link to his itch.io page, which has versions of it (all written in
ugBASIC) for the Atari 8 bits, Coco 1/2 and Olivetti Prodest PC128:
  https://spotlessmind1975.itch.io/acme-inc-10-liner

==============================================================================

Speak your mind! Let us know what you think at:
    feedback at TheCoCoNation.com

If replying on a mailing list, please trim replies to the specific items.

Get connected with more of the CoCo, Dragon and MC-10 community here:
    https://thecoconation.com/community/

-- 
Robert "Exile In Paradise" Murphey <exile at weylan-yutani.com>
Weylan-Yutani Corporation