[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 356, March 23, 2024

Sun Mar 24 08:23:57 EDT 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 356, March 23, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:
---------------------
NONE.

Interview schedule:
--------------------
March 30 - not a full interview, but 3 guests that are involved with Pixel
Addict magazine - editor Paul Monaghan, writer Ian Griffiths and writer
Tom Williamson - 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: On this weekend!
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 Southeast Michigan Vintage Computer Club is having a meeting/swap meet
at their April 6 meeting (12 pm - 4 pm). No admission fee. Ran by Adam
(Commodore Chronicles) and sponsored by Retro Rewind.
Grace Chapel's Gymnasium
2515 N. Williams Lake Rd.
Waterford Twp, MI

https://semichiganvcc.blogspot.com/2024/01/semvcc-ver-311-updated-swap-meet-april.html

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

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------

1) Some sad news - Bruce Isted (who worked on the Tomcat's, the Eliminator
and other hardware/software projects for Frank Hogg Labs, and was also
an integral part of the team that was behind the Version 3 OS-9 Level II
upgrade (he did the serial mouse drivers amongst _many_ other things),
has passed away:
  https://mhfh.com/tribute/details/45646/Bruce-Isted/obituary.html

2) Frederic (MicroHobbyist on YouTube) released his 4th video of his "6309
Unleashed" project series. As he showed us last week live, this include a
6551 serial chip added and software that allows a terminal program to hook
up to it and talk back and forth (and sneak peeks at the monitor program
he also has been working on):
  https://youtu.be/njnaJyZcJGA?si=V2lmpxDDkIcvJoN0

3) Allen Huffman did a followup blog post to his port of Factory TNT that
he originally wrote on his first computer (VIC-20) to the Coco, and that
he plans on finishing up soon, extending his tile font to include letters
and numbers for on screen scoring, etc.:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2024/03/19/my-vic-20-factory-tnt-for-coco/
And while not strictly Coco, Allen also got some of Steve Bjork's earliest
commercial programs (for the TRS-80 Model 1/3) running in an emulator,
so that we can see them running:
Space Ball (1980):
  https://youtu.be/QcaVxxMhCHs?si=nDuifEUWCSWIu10E
Soft Music Editor (1980):
  https://youtu.be/XyOhTVrNwBs?si=l2cq0nc9I_IdmuuF

4) Coco Town (on YouTube) has come out with an extra length (~45 minutes)
part 7 of his Coco 1/2 assembly language sound series, titled "6 Unanswered
Questions... ANSWERED!" (I think that is his most click-baity title yet!":
  https://youtu.be/aKpZpn6m-rc?si=eAZdkEwqqkhgF0wW

5) Forgotten Machines on YouTube released a video showing him testing
heating up a floppy disk with creases in it, to see if that will make it
able to read bad sectors that even a flux reader can't read:
  https://youtu.be/vqeFimyAR88?si=lW__v6xPU4n3XffF

6) Tech Guy Life put up a video on YouTube showing a Coco 1 (and on an
older motherboard) getting a power transformer replacement:
  https://youtu.be/ZGjDB6iZN8U?si=EXhRLptHgn14bQx3

7) Roger Taylor has posted more things that he found in the Steve Bjork
collection - including some SuperScripsit Model 3/4 text files talking about
the Deluxe Color Computer. One seems to be questions inserted into a post
about the Deluxe early on, and the other is Steve reviewing it. There is
speculation as to whether the first file is somebody else asking questions
to Steve, or Steve asking questions to the original poster; from my
remembering the Coco forums on Compuserve at during this time (1983/1984),
I believe it was the latter, as that is how they recorded such forum banter
(like when the Coco 3 was announced a few years later). It is worth noting
that a price is shown in the second document ($399) and that the BASIC is a
little different from what we have on the pre-release ROM's (a SING command
instead of TONE, although I think just the command name was changed), as
well as noting some things that we had not found yet while disassembling
the ROM's, like RESTORE <line #> for DATA statements (similar to BASIC09):
  https://www.patreon.com/posts/deluxe-100769774
He also posted a version of Zaxxon that he found, that was labelled as Zaxxon
for the Coco 3 (both on the physical disk and on the title screen). This
is not an older version of Z-89, but appears to be an RGB patched version
that runs at full double speed and states that it is a Coco 3 version on
the splash screen:
  https://www.patreon.com/posts/zaxxon-for-coco-100701156
Roger also released a video showing some of Steve's graphic and map tools
that Steve wrote to make his games:
  https://www.patreon.com/posts/bjorks-secret-100512264
If you are a member of Roger's Patreon already, there are other things
that you also get access to. One release this week is version 1.01 of his
Netmate high speed, fully ANSI terminal program (that you can use to get
onto modern BBS's through the internet nowadays).

If you want to support Roger in his recovery work (and to help cover the
large cost he had to get as much of Steve's stuff as he could), and/or
want access to all of his other special Coco projects, please think about
supporting his Patreon:
  https://www.patreon.com/rogertaylor

8) Paul Shoemaker has added more screens, animation and sound to finish
his Karateka intro demo (based on the Apple II original):
  https://youtu.be/BVsK-EF0mvs?si=8HF2jIKe7sLk2TCL

9) Joe Lowe posted in the original Coco Facebook group a video showing
him using Ed Snider's (ZippsterZone) CocoSDC media player playing an old
Ramones song, Blitzkrieg Bop, which sounds pretty awesome (it's in 6309
mode on an Orchestra-90 for full 8 bit sound, and stereo I presume):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161217683772641/

10) Boisy Pitre released a couple of quick videos to demonstrate the speed
difference in booting up the F256 Jr in OS9 Level II when using the slow
and high speed SD card reader modes:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161215717392641/

11) Brian Blake posted a quick video showing his new translucent blue
keyboard bezel for his HJL-57 keyboard on his 64K Coco 2, to the Coco DFE
Facebook group:
  https://www.facebook.com/reel/1058808428750710

12) David Collins has an update on his homebrew 6309 based computer -
he now has it booting successfully from an SD card:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3333128503647175/

13) Romeo Cat Computers on YouTube did a short <2 minute video showing
a Coco 3 that he fixed fairly easily (reseating RAM, mainly) that he had
received from Brady Zimmel. He runs a few of the test programs from the
"Introducing Your Color Computer 3" booklet:
  https://youtu.be/M-xvsjEPqk8?si=30oRdDoE56EXtjCX

14) RetroAndGaming, a YouTube channel from Norway, gets a Coco 1 working
again that he just received:
  https://youtu.be/JxIlmqtq-9Q?si=ZjdKE5ug-KoLGttr

MC-10
-----
1) James Diffendaffer posted an update to the Chess game he has been porting
to the MC-10; the compiler he is using treats true/false differently than
the compiler the original version was for, which has slowed him down but
hopefully will be fixable now:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/7190895881037172/

2) Jim Gerrie is seeking some help - he wants to be able to upload playable
MC-10 files to the Internet Archive, by using it's built in MAME/MESS
emulator. But he hasn't been able to get it to work. If anybody on the
panel or watching knows how to do that, please contact Jim or us for
pointers on how to do it:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/7186874314772662/

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Ciaran Anscomb (of XRoar fame) got his SAMX4 256K RAM Banker board
working in his Dragon 64 new motherboard, and posted about it in the World
of Dragon forums:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11158

2) Morgan Hetherington, as we mentioned last episode, has been making
multi-colour 3D prints for retro computers and retro games for other retro
platforms, and has started making ones for the Dragon. He know has photos
and prices for some that he has ready now that he posted to the Dragon group
on Facebook. (There are multiple posts from people who ordered some of these
and already received them. The Dragon 32 one in particular is a popular one):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3671092326483743/

3) Matt Kaye has posted something along the same line - a classic game from
the Dragon but on a coffee mug instead. He mentions that he is updating
his website for it, but unfortunately didn't post a link (yet):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3671040813155561/

4) Julian Brown has a further update on his Dragon 32 PAL daughterboard; he
is working on shrinking the modulator and amp sections and refining traces:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3669544009971908/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Sure enough - Jim Gerrie ported Andrew Hubble's "BustDown" Breakout
clone from the January 1982 issue of CCN (Color Computer News) to the MC-10
the same day we talked about it on the show - and his copy works! 4K BASIC
Breakout clone.
  https://youtu.be/MZ6F7B6c0F0?si=Wu0LqDnD__i5Dicx
He also converted the game "Minidam" originally by Christian Garaud in
1985 for the French Micro7 magazine, April 1985 issue (and translated it
to English at the same time). Jim mentioned in a Facebook post that the
object is swap all of the blue and red pieces from left <-> right. He
hasn't been able to win it yet, and doesn't even know if it is solvable:
  https://youtu.be/tVU2czPog5s?si=k62viEfPr2Ky54Xx

2) Its been awhile, but Pere Serrat has uploaded AGD games pack #62 for
both the Coco and the Dragon. This pack includes:
Javi Pómez y la Cámara no secreta ("Javi Pómez and the non-secret
Chamber")
Lil Ninja
NightAir B&B
Psyqo Santa
The Last Escape
Ziona Quest
Downloads and screenshots available at the World of Dragon Archive:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11159

3) A Gaming channel (by LRU) on YouTube, who records gameplay videos for a
variety of consoles and home computers to achieve high scores to submit,
did one of Spectral Associates Froggie this past week. Unfortunately he
had the artifact colors reversed:
  https://youtu.be/gZmHg00Bzdg?si=KcBuwfpT-DsrHQWn

4) Nebulous on YouTube (a new channel just started on March 11, 2024) put
up an almost 10 minute video showing Glen Hewlett's transcode of Joust for
a 512K Coco 3, playing on real hardware (and a real floppy!) Unfortunately
his camera does terrible autofocus, but he is a good player - he made it
wave 10 on his first try:
  https://youtu.be/tYQPnhhlJlA?si=1GbuXnK70wCYZVmL

5) Chronologically Gaming (currently doing October of 1982 games) covered
a few Coco / Dragon games this past week:
Earthquake (from Aardvark) - He found the ad for it for the Coco, but like
me, we can't find the actual game for the Coco. But he did find the Vic-20
version, which would have played basically the same (Same author & company):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHkI3QJ27qk&t=61s&ab_channel=ChronologicallyGaming
El Diablero (from Computerware for the Coco, and licensed to Dragon Data
themselves for the Dragon). I will show the Dragon portion a bit here,
since they actually have the manual and it looks pretty cool:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/kHkI3QJ27qk?si=HTO9fgD_LXNqeY8f&t=696

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

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Weylan-Yutani Corporation