The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 304, March 11 2023 =============================================================== Collected by L. Curtis Boyle Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform) ------------------------------- 1) Allen Huffman dig a blog post deep diving into how tokenized lines are stored in BASIC and how much memory they take. He even includes a BASIC subroutine that can report on the BASIC program it is merged with. There is also a sequel blog hinted at at the end of the article as well: https://subethasoftware.com/2023/03/07/color-basic-program-line-info-dump-program/ 2) James Diffendaffer posted both a screenshot and listing of a port to the Coco 1/2 of a Colonial Viper from the original Battlestar Galactica TV series, that was originally written by Monty McGraw in 2000 for a Tek 4052 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160514688972641/ (See playable video in the comments by Paul Shoemaker showing a Cylon in sites - animated on the Coco). 3) The 64 bits or less Retro Gaming Festival is taking place at the Benton County Fair Grounds in Corvallis, Oregon (and is sponsored by the Portland Retro Gaming Expo) that takes place on June 3-4. They mention the consoles, light gun based systems and home computers that will be out for people try, including the Coco. I should also mention that Tim and AJ will be attending from the Sibling Rivalry show: https://www.64bitsorless.com/ 4) TRS-80 Retro Programming uploaded a video about doing reverse masking with PUT in Extended BASIC, which we may cover ourselves later in the show: https://youtu.be/F3j9BY2j1mM 5) Thanks to Alderson Retro Computing for pointing this out: Darren Atkinson released an update (firmware version 127 and SDC-DOS version 1.75) for the CocoSDC on February 27, which you can download at http://cocosdc.blogspot.com. This includes fixes to CRC error reporting and and when it is inserted in sector ID fields when formatting, and Deleted Data Address Marks (DAM). I believe these are related to his working with Carl England on making the SDF image handling more robust (mostly for copy protected disk images). Other updates: - added command to switch to specific image in a Disk Set - added option for 8 bit transfers in the Write Logical Sector command (so we can use TFM if you have a 6309). He warns that it has NOT been tested for reliability at 1.78 MHz on a Coco 3 - added options for creating/mounting files that aren't necessarily disk images. These can only be accesses using LBA sector commands or the STREAM command - Creating/modification dates - instead of the old generic very old date, the CocoSDC will now set the date/times to midnight on the build date of the firmware (Feb 27, 2023 for this latest version, but it will change on newer builds in the future. SDC-DOS 1.75 update adds the following enhancements: - Added ability to change the step rate for any REAL drives hooked up: DEF STEP=r (r can be 6,12,20,30 (ms)) - BACKUP command has been changed to not erase the current program and variables from memory. - DSKINI command has been changed to not erase the current program and variables from memory, and also will tolerate up to 6 granules of that contain bad sectors before aborting. If any are found, they are marked as Allocated in the File Allocation Table (ie it won't let you use them). - Sector I/O code has been rewritten to use Status polling rather than HALT and NMI "infinite loop" method. This prevents problems that can happen on Coco 1 or 2 machines due to a lack of pull up resistors on the address bus and Read/Write lines (he notes particularly if a 6809 was replaced with a 6309). MC-10 ----- 1) Brendan Donahe posted both on the Coco Discord and the MC-10 Facebook group that he has the wired USB keyboard/Atari joystick adapter working well on the MC-10, and that he is now working on a new 3D printed spacer to fit between the two halves of the MC-10 case to have room for the ports. He also mentions that one should be able to have both this upgrade AND the CocoVGA installed at the same time and fit within this case spacer: https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/5882187338574706/ Dragon 32/64 ------------ 1) Chris Poacher posted in his "Microdeal - The 8 bit years" Facebook group a pretty interesting historical document from Microdeal - their 2nd price list which shows all of their available software with prices, for ALL the systems they supported at the time. It also includes an ad for Buzzard Bait, and the top 10 list for the Dragon (Chris thinks it was made in late 1984 or early 1985): https://www.facebook.com/groups/204334613785733/posts/1197636294455555/ He also showed some alternate early tapes that Microdeal sold - black cassettes instead of the more standard white they usually used: https://www.facebook.com/groups/204334613785733/posts/1195281361357715/ 2) Ciaran posted in the Dragon Facebook group about some hidden options in the "cvbs" branch of the Linux source for XRoar, which has some extra options, with more options for video artifacting colors, and including extra controls for brightness, contrast, hue and various filter pipeline options. You will have to recompile from this branch to get these options, but for those of you for whom Linux is your native OS and development system, this is definitely worth taking a look at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3412645708995074/ 3) Varun Khanna in the Dragon Facebook group is taking a survey of peoples favorite Dragon 32 games as part of research for a project he is working on for the group. Get your votes in! https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3411630652429913/ 4) Spanish YouTube channel ParcelaDigital, el blog de Manuel Llaca, does an almost 40 minute tour of the computer museum at the University of Zaragoza, which covers a ton of retro computing (and even earlier), including the Dragon 32. (in spanish, so turn CC on and change auto-translate under settings to English): https://youtu.be/LDVUwdrlZ9U?t=770 5) YouTube channel "The only way is OLED display" put up a video called "Dragon User 40th Anniversary" to celebrate the fact that 2023 is 40th anniversary of the launch of "Dragon User" magazine: https://youtu.be/GFf01PM0Tgc Game On news (all Coco related platforms): ========================================== 1) TRS-80 Computer Programming on YouTube shows some further updates to his Ghost Saga BASIC game that he is working on, including a new player position/sprite and shows some of the adventure style elements that he is adding to the game: https://youtu.be/ZMa_sdpCELk 2) Jim Gerrie posted "Dr. Who Adventure" originally for the Atari 400/800 from the magazine called "Computer & Video Games", March 1983 issue. He even fixed a bug from the original code (GOSUB's without proper RETURN's): https://youtu.be/BcX-sgNgZDE