[Coco] 4K Coco Basic Programming Contest

[Allen Huffman]

> On Jan 19, 2015, at 1:09 AM, Kip Koon <computerdoc at sc.rr.com> wrote:
> 
> I found a Coco 2 in storage with believe it or not just the Color Basic Rom
> in it!  I was quite surprised.  I didn't think I still had a Coco 2 with
> just Color Basic 1.2 in it.  The Color Basic Rom is soldered in and there is
> a socket for the Extended Basic Rom.  

Cool find!

> two days after finding the above mentioned Coco 2.  Come to think of it, all
> my Coco 1s have 64KB of ram in them so to get a 4K Coco 1, I'd have to CLEAR
> 0, 4095 on anything I have to get down to the 4K limit requirement of the
> contest.  So with a Coco 1 Color Basic machine with 64K limited to 4K of
> free ram, how close have I come to meeting all your criterion for the
> contest?  

Unknown, but I believe beyond using any oddity in Color BASIC 1.0 that might have been fixed in later versions, I expect it will be good. However, I do plan to find someone with a 4K CoCo to actually validate all the submissions on a "real" machine -- and hopefully I can make it to the CoCoFEST! with such a machine just for this purpose.

> The only other thing I could possibly think of doing would be to buy that
> Coco 1 4K machine on ebay which is just a bit out of reach for me since I'm
> trying to save for the CoCoFEST trip this year.  It's still a bit iffy on
> that front at this point.  

Yeah I've "Watched" that auction too. Hmmm, I wonder if Glenside has one in one of their storage tubs.

> My first computer was a Coco 1 64K Color Basic machine with what I found out
> was an F motherboard.  I bought an Extended Basic Rom from a fellow Coco
> Club member in the Spartanburg Color Computer Club.  I served as president
> of that club right before I entered the Air Force in 1986.  Well, I better
> get busy and continue working on one of my many projects.  Thanks Allen for
> getting us all thinking about what it was actually like learning to program
> our very first computer!  Take care my friend.

The irony of using the worst/lowest possibly system to get folks motivated has not been missed by me :)

I have not started on mine yet, other than several demos, but I keep telling myself "how hard can it be? ya only got 4K to fill!"

Nick M is taking a "pure BASIC" approach. Jim G has a few multi-part submissions that load in one part to generate data then a second part of the program. Simon J is doing who-knows-what with his 4K assembly demo. And I have some annoying things to try as well. It should be fun!
 
		-- A