[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 362, May 11, 2024

Sun May 12 10:07:21 EDT 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 362, May 11, 2024
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Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:
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None.

Interview schedule:
--------------------
Look out for the Robert Kilgus interview from Ken on his Canadian Retro
Things YouTube channel once editing is done!

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
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The Festival of Portable Computing: May 18-19, 2024
Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England
This show is dedicated to portable computers. With Frank Swygert, Taylor
& Amy, and now portacoco.com, we actually have portable Coco's and
MC-10's... we should qualify for this show, right? :-)
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72231/The-Festival-of-Portable-Computing-18th-19th-May-2024/

The next Bay Area (San Francisco) Tandy Assembly meetup has been
announced. June 15 from 1-5 pm at San Franciso State University. There
is an online signup sheet to join the event, and they have announced that
Bill Hogue of Big Five Software fame is the Special Guest speaker:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc9ZDlEGBrd6okI9xIoKPjwLb4kHmdVFPvNog4lOUPEe5NaLQ/viewform

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

Retro-Computing Expo '24 is from 11 am until 7 pm at Anvil Center in New
Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. It is actually 2 shows in one:
the Retro-Computing Expo and the Retro-Gaming Expo. They already several
presenters lined up, including 4 people to talk about the NABU, including
Leo Binkowski who was an engineer at NABU. George Philips, the author of
the TRS-80GP emulator and a regular on the TRS-80 Trash Talk podcast is
also presenting, amongst others. This is supported by the Chilliwack Retro
Computing Club, which has it's own Facebook Group:
  (show the copy of the "poster" that I was sent from my local desktop -
  "Retro-Computing_Expo_24.jpg").
Facebook group:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/ChilliwackRetro/

VCF-West looks to be happening August 2-3 (Fri-Sat) at the Computer History
Museum in Mountain View, California. This year they are a full partner with
the museum, so that admission for both the museum and VCF can be done with
one purchase, and the are taking people booking to be speakers/presenters
now as well.
CHM (Computer History Museum)
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA
  https://vcfed.org/2024/03/14/vcf-west/

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, etc
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. UPDATE:
THEY HAVE STARTED POSTING EXHIBITORS ON THEIR WEBSITE
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
  http://www.tandyassembly.com/

Retro Computer Festival 2024: November 9-10, 2024
Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England
In the early stages of planning for this year, this is (I believe) the
largest general retro computing show in the UK (it's their VCF style show),
covering all retro machines. NOTE: thanks to Randy Kindig, it is confirmed
that it is a 2 day show.

https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/

COCOFEST!
---------
1) A bit of confusion in that live streaming of the show floor was done
via The Coco Nation channels on Twitch and YouTube, but the seminars were
on the Glenside Color Computer Club's YouTube stream. We will make this
more clear (and in advance!) next year. But you can watch replays of all
4 seminars as well as the auction on the Glenside YouTube channel:
  https://www.youtube.com/@glensideccc/streams
And the show floor livestream on The Coco Nation channel:
  https://www.youtube.com/@The_CoCo_Nation/streams

2) Some summary videos are already popping up, to, including:
Bob Emery (La Coco Strangiato) (he actually has bit of our jam session too):
  https://youtu.be/KvywZMwFTS8?si=NKUEMJ0ZhtO4sX5i
Obscu:RE (9B's channel) (even includes Coco multi-voice generated music
as a background):
  https://youtu.be/WPwjmiTxU2M?si=E9_YX7tQTFMSzQMw
Computer Hobbyists:
  https://youtu.be/5F9mYRFUa9g?si=4skFmDOwvpXyADm_

3) There are also numerous groups of photos, from Glenside, Jim Brain,
Ron Delvaux, etc. on Facebook.
(I can find some if people on the show don't already have a ton. I will
show my Robert Kilgus signing the Dino Wars poster)

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) Coco Town released Game revolutions cycle 9 of his project of finishing
a Moon Patrol style game from his youth, this time investigating why the
scrolling speed in the previous episode started fluctuating:
  https://youtu.be/FO1SetsLCbQ?si=w_UA3zLeVkjfczLT

2) While not a Coco related video, Taylor & Amy's latest episode (covering
an 8085 based homebrew computer - the same CPU as the Tandy Model 100/102)
did mention that they were sorry that they missed CocoFest, and to watch
The Coco Nation. Thanks for the shoutout!
  https://youtu.be/3qrhPROKYrU?si=5--CPfcCiCbBrvbL

3) Tim and AJ posted a time lapse video showing an entire recording day of
their Sibling Rivalry show, "behind the scenes". Since they record 4 shows in
a single day, they actually do costume and hair changes between each machine:
  https://youtu.be/iWcYIbtcYl0?si=xRFIE64pedHrQEpx

4) TRS-80 Retro Programing posted a video taking an in depth look using
the flashlight in his Tales of Suburbia game that he is getting close
to finishing:
  https://youtu.be/rEPSmnAIG84?si=qOqkIL3n7fNuJwP1
He also did a video on random graphics, based on a listing in the BASIC
manuals, and includes some shortcuts for some graphics commands:
  https://youtu.be/fArb0Rz993c?si=BNfqLtgvd8rx-uTx

5) Henry Gernhardt posted a video (just before CocoFest, where he
demonstrated this live, as well as his FORTH ROM) about getting the latest
Fujinet hardware going (including assembly), and what he discovered along the
way. This is the version that is a cartridge and doesn't need separate power:
  https://youtu.be/5ZLF359y6DE?si=TaVZwZd1Yg8LsHCf

6) Alderson Retro Computing put up a short video on YouTube showing a
small demo program for the Coco 3, and showing how to type the code in
a text editor in Windows, and then copying/pasting the code into current
versions of VCC directly:
  https://youtu.be/D4eyEpaECNo?si=FriybMWa_5wi3klM

7) RetroAndGaming posted a video about upgrading a Coco CPU from the
Motorola 6809 to the Hitachi 6309, and using some tips from my comments
on his previous video to test color and and sound on his Coco 1:
  https://youtu.be/TRcOYjvvE_U?si=AgQzm3iS2wemLPXa

8) Mike Kadolph posted on the Coco group on Facebook that after 5 months,
he has "completed my remake of my 1980's project and have a working 2
meter ham radio repeater, using his Coco 2:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161300032417641/

9) Thomas Cherryhomes is asking the Coco programming community for some
help in porting some cross platform turn based games, including Poker,
Yahtzee, trivia games, etc. to run with Fujinet, allowing players to play
against each other over the internet and across different 8 bit platforms
in the same game:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161289097527641/

10) At the same time as CocoFest last weekend, Brazil was also having
their 13th RetroSC retro computing show, including their wide variety of
Coco clones, in Blumenau, SC, Brazil. Luciano Scharf put up some photos
from the show in the Coco group on Facebook:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161288870922641/

11) Rick Adams released a re-imagining of game he wrote decades ago
called Omnistar. Turns out he recently found a printed source listing of
his original (previously presumed lost) half completed version of the game,
and found that it was actually planned to be more expansive than the release
he did recently. So he and others are thinking of ways to try and OCR the
listing, and maybe complete the original vision of the game:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/colorcomputer/posts/960484908900575/

12) The TRS-80 Trash Talk podcast was live last Saturday during CocoFest
as well (and were asking if anybody could pop on from the Fest floor to do
a report - which I passed along on the previous weeks show and mentioned
again Saturday morning to a few people, but I don't think anybody had time
- I know I didn't. I haven't had time to watch the whole show to see if
there is any Coco related stuff in the episode yet, but I hope to pop on
their next episode to talk about the Fest:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/WuxD8z4bTSg?si=h2_F6azerE7L8CAh

MC-10
-----
1) Olipix on YouTube put up an almost hour video (in French) going through
the Alice (one can translate with close captioning) and it's history,
including the original agreements between Tandy and Matra. Also included
is deep dives into the hardware with all versions of the Alice. He also
includes some sample games for the various versions of the Alice:
  https://youtu.be/du5enAwBLow?si=ZCy09NqOj6gfoBW4

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) RoboNuggie on YouTube posted a video about his finding and experience
on revisiting the Dragon 32 of his youth via Ciaran Anscomb's XRoar on
his FreeBSD machine. He goes through the various menus in XRoar as well,
and then demos a few games:
  https://youtu.be/rnuf_bAeYh8?si=f2ME8k6ImVK1EwxW

2) Polish YouTube channel Tomasz Ogarnia posted a half hour video (in Polish,
but with no translate available, unfortunately) about his making a dual Atari
joystick adaptor for his Dragon 32, and then testing it with numerous games:
  https://youtu.be/KRxzFqrp1Sg?si=66aqqmwsJJBCsyYM

3) Julian Brown has posted many updates to his Dragon PAL daughterboard
design, and other things, to the point that I have been losing
track. Hopefully he is in the chat to give us a proper update!
Latest photo update:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3705951122997863/
He is also working on a 4 slot multipak type product for the Dragon as well:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3705153339744308/

4) Phil Harvey-Smith posted files for a redesigned top for a Gotek/Dragon
Drive, allowing the addition of a 0.96" 128x64 OLED display:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3702494710010171/
And a picture of it installed and in action:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3701074746818834/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Chronologically Gaming is back - and on Thursday he covered Number
Gulper for the Dragon 32, an educational game:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/T1iqvfz97p8?si=kJr7-R2c0td3tEqi

2) Tim and AJ played the game Climb (written by Andrew Pakerski for
Chromasette magnazine) on the latest episode of Sibling Rivalry. This is
one of my favourites by Andrew - with great sound effects and fun game play:
  https://youtu.be/VXmGaoVbogY?si=a3laCICWnYU3vxkA

3) YouTube channel RetroGamerDiaries did a 45 minute video detailing
the history of game Hunchback, and includes the Dragon 32 version in it
(Dragon starts around 20:00):
  https://youtu.be/sW5upytIV0w?si=xQhtmYA4lcSV-7-a

4) Erico Monteiro put up a gameplay video for his new semigraphics game
The Savage Sword of Cocon, on his FUED YouTube channel (written in ugBASIC)
(may have to mute music?):
  https://youtu.be/Ybq48xGIWs0?si=EMxK4UxV7CaVW3A-
His game was also featured running on a Codimex Coco Clone at the Brazilian
RetroSC show last weekend:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161288804827641/

5) Jim Gerrie released Success Mansion for the MC-10, ported from the Coco
original by Paul Ruby Jr. in 1986, which actually used the SSP to speak
the game out loud:
  https://youtu.be/K0aFaqhu24E?si=NMGcww3mbeR37C0c
Also, a big announcement: Jim now has a new home for all of his programs,
which his own Internet Archive set of pages:
  https://archive.org/details/@james_gerrie

6) XperTek released two more game play videos on a real Coco 2 with an
amber monitor:
Fury by Computer Shack / Michtron:
  https://youtu.be/Q37NXlsiqFU?si=KC2vhfK6xNR2T4lY
Project Nebula by Robert Arnstein (sold by Tandy):
  https://youtu.be/SlpnLAwDguI?si=lOUOdF5DSYtbvD_0

7) The Coco Show's latest episode was recorded at the same time CocoFest
was on, featuring Nick Marentes 2000 game, Gate Crasher:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/IVjnqSVtN4I?si=GqlEwG4LbCeUnhcR

8) Glen Dahlgren posted a newspaper article from way back where he and
another school student created a fantasy game... which was the inspiration
for his Coco 3 graphic adventure game "In Quest of the Star Lord" some
years later:

https://www.facebook.com/glen.dahlgren/posts/pfbid0TfmeeNCR1TEZPTZ4P4hqcyeiT4334axEzf7KsfeJigmopb9oL4Mo6V6LhfCdFcVKl

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