[Coco] CoCo Fest video and chat

Mon May 8 19:21:33 EDT 2006

Tony,

I stand corrected.

Frank

On Mon, May 08, 2006 at 10:14:42PM +0000, Tony Podraza wrote:
> Minor correction, here, Frank.
> The CoCoFEST!s didn't start until May 30-31, 1992; It was sponsored by Dave and Nancy Myers.
> If you got yoour first COCo at a Fest in the 80's it was a Rainbowfest.
> Pickey , pickey me, I know, but give Lonnie credit where credit is due.
> 
> (grin) 
> 
> Tony Podraza
> 
> 
> -- Frank Pittel <fwp at deepthought.com,> wrote:
> I'm going to leave the original email intact and encourage all to read
> it again. A while ago I posted a question to the list asking what the
> people here actually did with their Cocos. Did they actually use the
> hardware or did they mostly use emulators. I was disappointed by the
> number of responses.
> 
> Before going on any further maybe I should answer the question I asked.
> These days I like to putter around on the actual hardware. ( I did get
> an emulator machine saturday so that may change a little. :-)) Mostly
> I write "toy" programs in basic and assembly as a way to remind myself
> of the "good old days" when a person could actually understand how their
> computer worked. :-)
> 
> I got my first Coco back in the late '80s. It was a Coco-3 that I got at
> a Coco-fest. As memory serves I got it there because Radio Shack was selling
> them at a reduced price at the show. I also got a tape recorder and service
> manual for it. I remember after getting the service manual that I may have
> been better off getting the source listing of the ROMS. (these days I'm glad
> I got the service manual!) Not to much later I got the assembler rom and
> learned 6809 assembly. Having recently graduated with a bsee it didn't take
> to long before I unsoldered the expansion port socket and wired in some
> ribbon cable that connected to a board with the original socket and a connector
> that had "prototype" boards available for. After showing coworkers and the
> owner of the company I worked for some of what I was doing with it. A coco
> was ordered by the company and I made the same modifications to it. The
> company was involved in industrial process control and while I worked for the
> engineering side there was a repair department that did component level
> repair of equipment. Before long I had programmed the little coco to test
> components (ram,rom,asics,etc) reprogram eproms and about anything else they
> asked for. During that time I removed the ribbon cable from my coco and
> reinstalled the expansion port connector.
> 
> After a few years the owners of the mom and pop company sold and the new owners
> were only interested in the repair department so I moved on. The next company
> I landed at was heavily involved in embedded machine control using the 68hc11.
> I spent seven years designing hardware for it and often time writing the software
> in assembly. I was surprised at how familiar the assembly instructions were and
> picked up on it quickly. By this time I was using PCs and my coco was packed up
> and moved into the back of a closet. Although I wanted to a few times I could never
> bring myself to throw it away.
> 
> Last year I was going through the closet and came across the coco that I had by then
> all forgotten about. I had fuzzy memories about being able to use disk drives with it
> as well as other hardware. A google search later landed me at coco3.com and it didn't
> take long for me to discover that there were still coco fests going on!! The best part
> was that there was one scheduled for the upcoming weekend!! (I normally find out about
> these kinds of things a week after they've happened :-( ) Of course I went and although
> the turnout was much smaller then during the heyday of the coco I was pleasantly
> surprised by how many people were there.
> 
> I bring all that up because I think that there are a lot of people that would be interested
> in going to the fest if they knew they were still going on. I know that RS sold many
> thousands of cocos in the midwest and would be willing to bet that like me a lot of them
> would consider going if they knew about the fest. It would be nice if Radio Shack would
> help in getting the word out again. It also would have been nice if you (Mark) would
> have sent out this email a month or so ago in an attempt to implore more people to go.
> 
> I do agree that it's nice to see hardware and software being sold at this years fest that
> didn't even exist last year!! I hope that the volume of sales of those products encourages
> others to create new products for the Coco for next years fest.
> 
> It is good to hear that Cloud-9 will at least resume software sales again
> in the near term. I hope that we'll be seeing a superboard for sale soon. :-)
> One thing I would ask that you do is post an update on the superboard on
> this list every few months with a status update for those of us that are
> waiting impatiently for it to be released!! Even a sentence or two every
> 3 months would be nice. I think I speak for all of the customers of cloud-9
> when I say that I don't expect you to put your life on hold getting it out
> and I certainly don't want you to put your health at risk getting it done.
> 
> It would just be nice to hear about the progress of the board. 
> 
> 
> Frank
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, May 01, 2006 at 01:34:58PM -0500, Mark Marlette wrote:
> > I'm sure there will be a fest report to follow. I would like to add, 
> > and I know I'll get flamed for this but...it is true.
> > 
> > More people need to attend this once of a year function. Without it we 
> > would have less if anything. Is it a cheap event to attend? No. Is it 
> > worth while? Without a doubt.
> > 
> > There are an endless number of excuses on why one could not make it. 
> > Some indicate money, schedule conflicts, etc. All valid at some point 
> > in time but after 25yrs, people that have never attend a fest, that 
> > means it is not a priority.
> > 
> > Money issue...Most all of being adults or seniors now :) Can plan for 
> > the once a year event. Putting a little money aside each, week month 
> > what ever gets you there. Even if you can't put away enough money to 
> > attend every year then attend every other year or what ever works.
> > 
> > Conflicts..They do happen. Glenside has done a good job scheduling 
> > these events so that they don't happen on the same weekend every year. 
> > You might not be able to attend every year but should be able to get to 
> > them, if it is a priority.
> > 
> > The web cam is OK for people overseas or the ones that don't not attend 
> > every year. It seems there is emphasis put on this technology so that 
> > people don't have to attend. Believe me the web cam is nothing like 
> > being there.
> > 
> > Glenside..Thanks again for putting on the fest again in 2006. I'm sure 
> > it is a drain on resources. You try to recover some of the costs but as 
> > indicated this year, prices are going up. This means that more people 
> > need to attend to help out the community. Another is membership. I'm 
> > not going to go over the figures that Gator announced Sunday afternoon, 
> > I'll let Glenside do that. I can say that is something to be VERY proud 
> > of! This shows that the people that are present are committed to the 
> > CoCo and the event. Hats off to all that made to Elgin and reup'd their 
> > dues.
> > 
> > Next year? Jury is still out. I can say that it was VERY enjoyable to 
> > see new products out. Roy's VGA, Chris Hawks's S-Video and CD file 
> > manager, Carl England's Backup Magic program. I bought one of each from 
> > all of the new product vendors. Many did and on the hardware side, I 
> > believe they all sold out of product.
> > 
> > Goes to show ya, there is a CoCo market. Many indicate that there 
> > isn't. Boisy and I can tell you that there is. The vendors that sold 
> > out of their products at the fest will say the same. So come on....lets 
> > see some products.
> > 
> > Cloud-9 had little sales this year at the fest do to inventory being 
> > sold out. It was like a much needed vacation this year for me. It was 
> > great to walk around and see others booths and products. Something I 
> > hardly ever get to do there. I also indicated that hardware sales would 
> > not start back up until the SuperBoard is completed. So we are in a 
> > holding pattern on hardware sales. Boisy will be updating our home page 
> > to indicate that software sales are going to resume and be handled by 
> > him. SuperBoard will continue to be developed, please don't ask, you 
> > will know, I won't be silent about... :)
> > 
> > Closing....More people need to attend, bottom line. More planning needs 
> > to go into getting people there, advertising of the event other than 
> > this list. A published event schedule prior to the fest, seminars, 
> > notable people, etc.
> > 
> > Flame me all you want, it wouldn't be the first time. In this case 
> > action of the fest attendees do speak louder than the words.......
> > 
> > Regards,
> > 
> > Mark
> > Cloud-9
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > uoting Jim Cox <jimcox at miba51.com>:
> > 
> > >Roger, Roy, Justin, and others:
> > >
> > >Thanks for putting this together for those of us who couldn't make it.
> > >
> > >-Jim
> > >http://www.miba51.com/
> > >http://www.cloudymidnights.com/
> > >
> > >On Sun, 30 Apr 2006 15:50:58 -0500
> > > Roger Taylor <webmaster at coco3.com> wrote:
> > >>Well, for the second year we've managed to pull off some last-minute 
> > >>miracles and come up with a webcam feed from the Last Annual Chicaco 
> > >>CoCo Fest.
> > >>
> > >>This year we missed Saturday alltogether due to connection problems 
> > >>but much to my surprise when I got up this morning (Sunday) there 
> > >>appeared to be some attempts from the fest at uploading cam pictures 
> > >>to the coco3.com server.  When I checked the last image out it was 
> > >>definately a shot from the fest floor, so I went to work right away 
> > >>setting up the CoCo Cafe to display these images.  For a while they 
> > >>weren't updating for long periods of time, but all of a sudden 
> > >>things started coming together.
> > >>
> > >>So, before the day was wasted we managed to build up some 14+ 
> > >>chatters at a time in the CoCo Cafe complete with an updating 
> > >>picture from the fest floor.  Ofcourse, the images had to be 
> > >>repainted over a blank background due to how the chat system 
> > >>refreshes the web page, so the fest images had to "ride along" as a 
> > >>static image on the page and get updated whenever the page did.  
> > >>Since the cam rate and the chat rate were about the same, I didn't 
> > >>bother putting in any fancy JavaScript to make the image refresh 
> > >>while the chat page was idle, but I could have. I'll save that for 
> > >>the next event that comes along with a cam feed.
> > >>
> > >>Actually, right now the cam is still going and it looks like those 
> > >>guys are cleaning up and stuff, so if you wanna catch it before they 
> > >>turn the cam off, here's the link:
> > >>
> > >>http://chat.coco3.com
> > >>
> > >>Night, all.
> > >>Cheers,
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>-- 
> > >>Roger Taylor
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>-- 
> > >>Coco mailing list
> > >>Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > >>http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> > >
> > >
> > >-- 
> > >Coco mailing list
> > >Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
> > >
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
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