[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 443, December 13, 2025 (Nov 29-Dec 12)

[R. Allen Murphey]

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 443, December 13, 2025 (Nov 29-Dec
12)
=============================================================================
Collected and Presented by L. Curtis Boyle and Mark Overholser


Special NOTES:
--------------
NOTE: We are planning to do a special “Coco 4” episode for January as
part of the virtual Tandy Retro Show (this hopefully gives enough time
for some of us to get our old machines up and running enough to fully
demo). These are the computers announced in the 1991-1994 time frame
that were supposed to be successors to the Coco 3. We have Joel Ewy who
has volunteered to show off their MM/1, I am going to try and get my TC-9
up and running at least enough to show it working, and Rick Ulland will
show off a Delmar System V… but we still need volunteers with TC-70’s,
Kix-20 or Kix-30, Delmar System IV, AT-306 and MM/1 B’s. Anybody still have
these machines that they would like to show off in an upcoming show? Email
me at curtisboyle at sasktel.net if you are.

For those who want to try an online BBS running on a real 512K Coco 3,
you can reach Terry Trapp’s RiBBS system here (please note that this an
active development machine so the BBS occasionally goes down when Terry
is working on hardware, etc).:
telnet ribbs.griswoldfx.com 6809


Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
As Mark Overholser mentioned on our show, the next Tandy Retro Show will
be happening January 24 and 25th, which will be a series of live YouTube
streaming presentations. He is currently taking bookings of people &
topics. Send an email to: registration at tandyretroshow.com
  https://tandyretroshow.com/

Canada is getting it's own official VCF - Montreal, January 25-26 of 2026. It
will be held at the Royal Military College outside of Montreal. At least
2 Coco speakers have been confirmed so far:
  https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/

Date for CocoFest 2026 - April 24-25, as mentioned in the Glenside meeting
this past week. And hotel rates are locked in now (see post on Glenside
website)
  https://www.glensideccc.com/

That same weekend is the first official Latin American VCF, which takes
place April 24-26 in Bahia Blanca, Argentina:
 
https://vcf-espaciotec-com-ar.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

VCF-PNW (Pacific North West) is returning after multiple years in hiatus,
and is happening May 2-3 2026 in the Tukwila Community Center in Tukwila,
Washington:
  https://www.vcfpnw.net/

NEWS:
=====

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Tom Erik Gundersen is compiling a list of Dragon games that require analog
joystick to play properly (ie won’t work well at all with a digitial
stick). If you can add to his growing list, please leave a comment to his
post in the Dragon group on Facebook:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4242930549299915/

2) Julian Brown posted about a new design video board that he is working
on, while he is waiting for an earlier version to arrive. This design does
TTL RGB (both full and half intensity):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4242668522659451/
He also posted pictures of the 2nd build of his ATX (multi-slot) Dragon
replacement motherboard system:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4246367428956227/
He also finally got boards for his upgraded NTSC board for his Rev 3
Dragon motherboard:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4246361345623502/
He later posted several updates on his external video board; one of
the latest:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4247070985552538/
He also posted some details on mapping his 16K video board into regular RAM:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4248031818789788/

3) abalore on YouTube rleased a video showing the Abatape system (which
looks like an actual cassette tape with a little screen in it) on a few
systems to show it running on a MiSTer FPGA – namely emulating the Acorn
Electron, Spectravideo SVI 328, Dragon 32, Tangerine ORIC-1 and the Sinclair
ZX Spectrum:
  https://youtu.be/3bAWke7XTDU?si=CEBYfxJWMeZZghkU

4) Chris Poacher posted in the Dragon group on Facebook some pages from
the September 1984 issue of Your Computer magazine, that had a Dragon
Disco Lights program. He hopes to type it in and getting it running over
the Christmas season:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4246600968932873/


Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) Allen Huffman posted a blog entry about the current Logiker 2025
programming contest, where one has to produce an ASCII snowflake pattern
in as small of code as possible:
 
https://subethasoftware.com/2025/12/01/do-you-want-to-build-a-snow-flake-logiker-2025/
Contest site itself:
  https://logiker.com/Vintage-Computing-Christmas-Challenge-2025
And he has his first blog post about tackling the challenge:
 
https://subethasoftware.com/2025/12/01/tackling-the-logiker-2025-vintage-computing-christmas-challenge-part-1/
He also wrote up part 3 of his blog series on Coco BASIC disk structure. This
includes a correction to a program from a previous post, and then into
granule allocation tables (GAT) and how they work:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2025/12/01/coco-disk-basic-disk-structure-part-3/
He also added part 4 to his Coco Disk BASIC Structure series, this
time covering how disk space (in granules) is allocated, and how it is
different for one large file vs. many smaller files in the order that
granules are assigned:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2025/12/08/coco-disk-basic-disk-structure-part-4/
And lastly, he did a post called “DS-69 digitizer revisited”. This even
has a program to show grey scale style output just using ASCII characters
(more meant for a printer than on screen):
  https://subethasoftware.com/2025/12/04/ds-69-digitizer-revisited/

2) TRS-80 Retro Programing put up a video showing a quick, limited graphic
calculator for the Coco 3, which he has just started learning:
  https://youtu.be/9UThQARrKPw?si=CGmBK-5Ae0kxdzJ-
He later did a video he called “Ulysses of Ithaca – Sprite Test”,
going back to his Coco 1&2 roots with a PMODE 1 demo:
  https://youtu.be/Q9P37TdsZsQ?si=m6rEb9QFsigW_V2_

3) Boisy Pitre has announced a new service for customizing your Coco cases:
  https://www.pitre.org/hydrodip

4) Robert Sieg showed some further conversions of high color images to
SG24, this time with dithering added (he added some others too that you
can find on the Coco group on Facebook):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163548837822641/
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163548751607641/

5) James Jones posted a question in the MM/1 Facebook group asking if
anyone can produce an IDENT output of the OS9Boot file from an MM/1 with
the CPU32 upgrade:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/5085339351691321/

6) Angela Owens posted the result of a ChatGPT inquiry given a picture of
Coco Cat from Rainbow… and it produced a proper knitting pattern to make
a knitted on in real life:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163562265872641/

7) Erico Monteiro put up an animated GIF into the Coco Facebook group
showing his use of Ldtk with auto map rules, based on what he showed on
our show last week:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163560289882641/

8) 8bitsinthebasement put out VLOG episode 7 for his Super Shooty Aliens
game in SG-24. This time he covers finishing his custom font and the Big
Boss Level:
  https://youtu.be/6lQsa99XvVs?si=L2s_9NjbQg_W1VrS

9) wefixstupidcomputers on YouTube did a video called “What’s inside
of a TRS-80?” (in this case meaning a Coco 1):
  https://youtube.com/shorts/TLAaJeqmtTc?si=0G56G7AxmjHjeL8T

10) felisuco on YouTube put up a video about a 4 pack set of PAL based
Coco 2B’s that were sold in Europe. It appears to be a lead in for a
future video:
  https://youtu.be/V95eyyO9wQE?si=J1Mxx05sbP4nNl-x

11) Ken Waters (Canadian Retro Things) has released the part 4 video for
the game he is working on, written in BASIC, to take advantage of the
Electronic Book (and Rick Ulland is working on recreating that hardware,
as originals are hard to find):
  https://youtu.be/hqPQKMwXuVE?si=oTWKhQWDQfN3sWzG

12) Wayne Campbell has released a 6 video series on how the internals of
BASIC09 iCode work:
  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo_QedaGeFcDIgK_r5FnHUPTBrUqHU6tY

13) Brian Blake released a new entry on his Tandy TRS-80 blog, this time
talking about “One Pretty Interesting Coco”. This Coco 2 machine has
modifications and additions in it from stock, including some rare 3rd
party stuff, that he is figuring out:
  https://tandy-trs80.com/one-pretty-interesting-coco/

14) RFI Shack (David Kroeker’s blog) wrote a blog post about programming
in assembly language on the Coco using a modern development environment,
and learning assembly from scratch using the Don & Kurt Inman book:
  https://rfishack.blogspot.com/2025/11/learning-assembly-language-on-trs.html

15) Blog “I Don’t Know What I am Doing” added another entry to his
series about Downland, called “Downland Unearthed: Ancient Artifacts”,
where he goes through how Downland uses artifact colors for game elements:
  https://www.puffweet.com/2025/12/05/downland-unearthed-ancient-artifacts/

16) Robert Sieg, with help from Simon Jonassen, converted a high color image
to the Coco 1&2 SG24 mode of a Christmas scene that looks pretty darned good:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163577374602641/

17) hirudov on YouTube did a brief video showing the Art Gallery cartridge
in action (no dialog but music – mute the tab ust in case):
  https://youtu.be/H_XoYTWKEW8?si=SOJYy79WxfLgCNGr

18) Several new coldfix releases of ugBASIC have been released (version
1.18 from December 11), that includes “fix(ed) GC string under 6809
and 6803”, which would affect Coco’s, Dragons, the MC-19 & Alice,
and other systems that use those CPU’s, plus fixing reset palette and
CLS in tex mode on a Coco 3:
  https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/main

19) YouTube channel ChewySoliloqui made a video showing standard Coco
sound output running through a multitude of guitar effects pedals:
  https://youtube.com/shorts/LVans6i2Njk?si=xR1Kh9OfzaZRadmj

20) Juan Castro released a couple of short videos showing his updated 16K
Coco ROM project:
Coco 1&2 – reversed video command added (note the bug he mentions about
backspace has been fixed):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Kk79lITq7E
Reverse video on the PMODE 4 graphics font as well:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yykajLyYG7E
If you want to download it to try, you can get it from his dropbox:
 
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/9p5ydq5hqgp4b1fbqyyif/AKnngotPgk1PLUm6kw0nn5U?rlkey=v1i86uz8ea39bo7hropzpnbto&e=1&st=8ye4k0jf

21) David Moak put up a short video playing a Christmas song clip using
his Coco 3 and Orchestra 90:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163584641262641/


MC-10
-----
1) Jay Mundy of SpriteWorx fame has made a couple of games for the MC-10
that require the MCX32-SD add-on… which only rarely show up in limited
quantities on the ZippsterZone website. Since it was designed by Darren
Atkinson and the schematic is publicly available, he decided to try and
make his own. This is the first part where he figures out how to order
circuit boards based on gerber files, where to source shipcs, etc.:
  https://youtu.be/L2NNOKxFFj8?si=UFttpWVAqqVcpXze

2) Jim Gerrie ported an old animated Christmas demo from the December
1982 issue of TRS-80 Microcomputer News (Tandy’s own magazine) from
it’s original Coco 1 source to the MC-10 with enhanced Extended BASIC
(the MCX-128 and the MCX-32SD):
  https://youtu.be/teCX3a_P230?si=F3NJgdGUcTGt20I4


Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Amigo Aaron and “The Brent” have released their special The Coco
Show holiday episode, feature Tom Mix’s Quix. It also starts with the
Coco 3 Christmas Demo that Spectral Associates did for Tandy:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/xMQih_KORhk?si=QwgAlcheMiqxt_Hl
Aaron also released a 10 minute video of game play with game sounds included
but no commentary:
  https://youtu.be/ZjLRtGIuy80?si=stmUSMdcP6fbrSQe

2) Thomas Cherryhomes put up a video showing 4 platforms playing the same
game of 5 Card Stud, with each computer shown so that one can see what
each version looks like (Atari 800, Apple II+, Tandy 1000, Coco 2):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163553828262641/
He also did one showing Battleship on the Atari 8 bit and the Coco playing
each other (and it can also add computer players, up to 4 players total):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163565472327641/

3) RetroGameCoders showed his Coco 2 testing Space Assault… but he
labelled the video as “repaird – ish” I am not sure what he means...:
  https://youtube.com/shorts/P7y0YmtX588?si=ONBR9rBZ-VKaptex

4) Noriko miyagami on YouTube release “Noriko Plays Vol. 21”, which
covers the Coco version of Wildcatting. A little different than the
adventure games she normally has covered :
  https://youtu.be/ic5cge0_qlE?si=u8hSXS12AtoqC5-c

5) Jim Gerrie ported the Sand Worm game from the 4K Coco to the MC-10, from
Rainbow magazine August 1986 (originally by Pete Meyers, written in 1985):
  https://youtu.be/YynEjpEv2jk?si=EGmSAwrUCVwnDXAI
He also ported “It’s in the Box” from the July 1985 issue of Dragon
User magazine. It’s a logic/math based game:
  https://youtu.be/b0-ZgHzuJa0?si=nb19TYLe5Z12-fZA
Also he ported an old Apple II type in text adventure game from the
January 1983 issue of Softline magazine called “The Horrible Rotten
Dancing Dragon… Strikes”, originally written by Ken Rose. This one
he fixed some bugs from the Apple original (warning: the video is a full
playthrough, so don’t watch until the end if you don’t want spoilers):
  https://youtu.be/unpZSzFufQg?si=MbHp-GItjLiZAauX

6) gamehuggers3700 on YouTube released a YouTube short of Downland
gameplay… with 3 very quick deaths in a row:
  https://youtube.com/shorts/huzAdwSm3Y8?si=-H6cg58ZmJ6G3QIk

7) Retro Arcade Gaming on YouTube released a port battles comparison
of Q*Bert clones on a variety of systems, including the Coco with Cubix
(Spectral Associates for the Coco 1&2) and Pyramix by Colorventure for
the Coco 3) (link is for the 2 Coco specific entries):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQbDSBUb6EM&t=2018s

8) Although not strictly Dragon, The Forseen Arcade channel on YouTube
showed the new game port of Bug Diver running on the Game Boy Color. This
was originally made for the Dragon 32 by Mastertronic in 1984 (and is
similar in game play to 1982’s Shark Treasure on the Coco / Dragon):
  https://youtu.be/AxZwAG4JdT4?si=id0C8HHbYYSazpXa

9) Something different – Tika Carr Music on YouTube made an AI generated
video with sound based on the Coco version of the Mindroll game by Epyx (and
sold by Tandy) in the late 198’s), as a tribute to the original game. Color
schemes are similar to the original Coco levels, and the music has been
much enhanced from the original game but still uses the same melody and bass:
  https://youtu.be/2tt0_h8O0Xc?si=KIYxHe1PmgVk6aeg


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

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-- 
R. Allen Murphey <exile at weylan-yutani.com>
Weylan-Yutani Corporation