The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 332, September 30, 2023 =================================================================== Collected by L. Curtis Boyle - The interview with Doug Masten (author of The Contras) with co-interviewee Glen Dahlgren of Sundogs Systems that was originally going to happen on August 19 is being postponed, due to a fairly major surgery. We are shooting for around October/November depending on doctor's orders. Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people: ************************************************************ Tandy Assembly 2023: Springfield, Ohio U.S.A. *** ON NOW *** SEP29-OCT01, 2023 http://www.tandyassembly.com/ Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown and Gameroom Expo *** ON NOW *** https://www.pinballshowdown.com/index.html Pinball and classic video games - sent in by James Diffendaffer -=- The Interim Computer Festival -=- *** ON NOW *** Seattle, Washington U.S.A. SEP30-OCT01, 2023 https://sdf.org/icf/ Dragon MeetUP 2023 : NOTE: THE LOCATION OF THIS HAS MOVED DOWN THE ROAD TO THE CAMBRIDGE MUSEUM OF TECHNOLOGY, RATHER THAN THE CENTRE OF COMPUTING HISTORY: https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/71156/Dragon-Meetup-7th-8th-October-2023/ (They were doing roof repairs but they fell behind schedule and won't be fixed in time for the meet up). OCT 07-08, 2023 https://www.facebook.com/events/225011523831254 Portland Retro Gaming Expo: Portland, Oregon U.S.A. OCT 15-18, 2023 https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform) ------------------------------- 1) First up is the success of our first Beta episode of CocoTECH (sneaking it in just before #SepTandy ends, and already over 200 views on YouTube alone!). We tried a dual approach, with some software and some hardware. We also got some comments on the show and suggestions for format changes, etc. Lets go through the ones mentioned on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/live/-BUERUCbgXM?si=8KP8xXiS-mFJ1V2y (personal observation - since we do want it live and interactive, I don't think we can limit every one to 30 minutes. But we can also have pre-recorded episodes of fixed length if the presenter so wishes. I agree with cutting the "chatty banter" down - this is the TECH show after all - and that may be more easily handled by having less people on the live panel (they can be in chat instead). Maybe 1 person per project and a "moderator" who can change the camera views and keep things on the rails as a maximum? And 2 projects maximum... maybe just one per episode would be better? An exception might be if we do a live "class" style episode - people following along with and doing a hardware upgrade, or going through software or programming? 2) CocoTown has started his second series about resurrecting the Moon Patrol clone he started in his teens. The previous series covered all the routines he had done back in the day as a teenager. Now, he starts on bug fixes and improvements, including changing the loader program from BASIC to assembly, amongst other things. And bugs. Lots of bugs: https://youtu.be/OLKpE-wkw0w?si=lEWhO9Uqs3ffX3PH 2) David Mitchell of Davy's Retro Corner fixed up his SG-Edit (and even has links to the source on his Github). You can use this to design screens for the Coco, MC-10, Dragon and all of their clones. It's an interactive web app: Blog announcement: https://davysretrocorner.blogspot.com/2023/09/oops-and-grid.html He later did an update where you can four-way scroll the screen you are editing on: https://davysretrocorner.blogspot.com/2023/09/we-are-scrolling.html Web app link: https://cheerful-cajeta-f5df82.netlify.app/ 3) La Coco Strangiato on YouTube (aka Bob Emery) put up a video of him trying to figure out how to get an SVI-CAS to work on his Coco (this is a virtual cassette recorder replacement for retro computers from Australia): https://youtu.be/pDE4cZge6-Y?si=1RqbbG4f9cLLQdJ6 4) TRS-80 Retro Programing posted a video of some changes of how he is going to do his Coco Ultimate, including switching to PMODE 1 (to save RAM and to get 4 colors on the screen at once). https://youtu.be/GQfHxVrL5gk?si=Xe5CeiISc3wly6pH He added another part about Coco Ultimate, adding player health bars: https://youtu.be/naAcbsDYgEo?si=MPeCv12WcplAgIB6 He also did something different - Part 1 of creating a cursor based navigable menu in Color BASIC that uses the arrow keys: https://youtu.be/z6kxZZE6p-s?si=FlcKUPeGRFt4JPqS 5) Chris's Retro Tech Channel put up a video for SepTandy showing the Coco 1 he picked up in a "Mega Haul" earlier this summer. He just shows what it looks like and the condition it is in, and wondered out loud if it would work with either/both of an RCA to Coax adapter (I tried one here awhile ago and it seemed to work, but I was going to a flat screen TV with a tuner built in), or if a TI-99 RF modulator would work: https://youtu.be/Z-WWbNIyvV4?si=nEPi_28EoLwfCK3G He did a follow up video a couple of days later, where is does have it going to the TV. It's Color Basic 1.1, no extended. Don't know the RAM yet, but I suspect 16K: https://youtu.be/Sga8RjIsMZc?si=Smt4BGxegkCeufbl 6) Terry Stewart (tezza) of New Zealand on YouTube goes through the Coco 1 in his collection. He mentions that this is a re-upload to fix bad audio in a previous release; not sure if that is a recent or much older version of this video: https://youtu.be/qXaxodHVsyo?si=j4Kwi5aSl7-tvl4- 7) Veronica Explains on YouTube did her summary of VCF-MW (she is one of the guest spots in the 6502 song by Taylor and Amy that we covered last week), and it shows Ken and his Coco table a few times. She even mentions in the video description that Ken may have convinced her that she may need to get a Coco 3... way to go, Ken! https://youtu.be/ImKZb7Ych38?si=QtC8aXTwa9hqspfl 8) Ken of Canadian Retro Things has another #SepTandy video himself, based on a special Coco 2 I donated to him from an ex-Coco user here in Saskatoon. It has multiple upgrades - including a composite upgrade that doesn't seem to be producing colour. Will he figure it out? https://youtu.be/fcCqUoXR1MY?si=n4uEEyiNFGKodwS0 9) TJBChris on YouTube has put up Part IV (and the final one) of his SepTandy "TEC" (Tandy Education Connection) series, this time covering educational software of TRS-80 Model 1/3/4 and the Coco: https://youtu.be/8h-YqOdRMtA?si=-ZjvEaTBfWO4PeC8 10) Geek with Social Skills put up his last SepTandy for this year, doing a memory upgrade on his Coco 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrLytiCyJX8 11) MrDave6309 has released a new video showing his sprite engine, showing backgrounds and foregrounds that sprites can go behind or in front of and using double buffering. He plans on tweaking it a bit more, and then extending it to make it easy to call from BASIC: https://youtu.be/INmlGb9bx_I?si=0lPnQxgWcQHUVd5s 12) Justin D. Morgan did a 3rd try at fixing up/upgrading his Coco 2. While it's still not 100%, he did reduce the yellow bar size by quite a bit (and out of the active display area), and did get the 6309 installed: https://www.youtube.com/live/MEojIu9M4s8?si=hvQ5KyTKMq37QZAl 13) Danniielle O'Connor posted a photo of the PONG game by Nick & Richard Kelly running on her Coco D (Coco 3 in a Model 4 case). She is hoping to have the Coco D completed by the end of SepTandy (today): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160928838567641/ 14) For those of you who watch the show "This Week in Retro", they are asking people to submit Tandy related (Coco, TRS-80 B&W models, Tandy 1000-5000, etc.) stories to their sub-reddit for this weeks question to viewers. Current episode SepTandy part: https://youtu.be/mQtQ9RPzwgM?si=DoW-7_CbO0rQ5A6l Their sub-reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/thisweekinretro/ MC-10 ----- 1) Dillon Teagan posted in the MC-10 group on Facebook that someone has developed a 2 port multipack, with 2 joystick ports and a special ROM Card socket for game cartridges for the Alice (4K/32/90K). If that is correct, it should work on the MC-10 as well (Alice 4K is a clone of it). Unfortunately, it looks like it wouldn't work with either of the MCX cards currently out (the 128K RAM upgrade, or the 32K RAM/SD cards reader one). https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/6531827416944025/ The original posts in French, including photos: https://forum.system-cfg.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=14636&start=60& 2) Johan Koelman announced the availability of the beta of a new MC-10 emulator that runs on a ZX Spectrum: https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/6526653437461423/ Dragon 32/64 ------------ 1) Game On news (all Coco related platforms): ========================================== 1) Jim ported Solitaire (a single player card game, but not common Klondike style that most people know) to the MC-10 from Compute! magazine January 1986, originally from the IBM PC by Ben Elizer and Kevin Mykytyn. The video is over 15 minutes long, as it shows a complete game played right through to a win: https://youtu.be/ja2nuASkWhg?si=NDakc-pBY-kPO492 He also updated his low res Dig Dug clone for the MC-10, including some music by Carlos Camacho. He added a timer, enemies turn white and can travel through rock, minor speedups and adjustments to the timer length based on level of play have been added as well: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160935619772641/ Video of the new game play: https://youtu.be/RFqWvESkHbg?si=7ZjYApyGoGLe-X1c 2) Chronologically Gaming did his first coverage of a Coco specific magazine (having covered several video game magazines as well Atari specific magazines, etc.) on Monday's episode. He covered the July 1982 Rainbow - their first anniversary and the first time Lonnie considered it a "full magazine" - full color cover, typesetting, etc.): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8oHJD8dw5c&t=1913s 3) Retro Gaming Nook continues their SepTandy with another Coco game review - this time Super Pitfall on a Coco 3. This is a longer video - almost 45 minutes: https://youtu.be/EnhZDx2gGak?si=1xDQreHpe5cG-IXJ 4) ExperTek (Spanish channel with an amber monitor that we have shown before) showed Britt Monk's / Avalon Hill's 3-D Brickaway: https://youtu.be/nkdWcKL4LXs?si=2s2JsoGGUkny3Qvr 5) Bruno Aubin on YouTube released video gameplay of the Inufuto games for the MC-10: https://www.youtube.com/@Neotenien/videos 6) The Wargaming Scribe (it's been awhile since we have covered his website!) has added game #111 to his "all computer wargames" page, which is Waterloo by Ark Royal Games on the Coco, released at the end of 1983. He does not think highly of it: https://zeitgame.net/archives/10995 Also, I think I missed one he did back in December around Christmas time, Bomber Command also by Ark Royal Games: https://zeitgame.net/archives/7888 7) For the Amigos SepTandy contribution, Aaron hosts a 1 & 3/4 hour special on "The Games of Nick Marentes". As much as Nick would like me to play the whole thing here on the show, I will just play a clip, and y'all can go watch the full video and leave comments on their YouTube channel (it covers most of Nick's Coco games... but not all) (Nick recommends showing a clip at 1:01 - Gunstar): https://youtu.be/F6t_x89Vtmg?si=F-T-3qR8LJXVoyl5 8) Brian Palmer has another game typed in from Australian Coco magazines - Pendant of Death originally by Wayne Kelly. A text adventure game with a few graphics pictures thrown in. He wants some testers to play it and see if he had any typing mistakes, and you can download the DSK image from the Coco group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160935507127641/ And another from Australian Coco - Dragon Lord originally by Dennis Mellican - also available in the Coco group on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160927200917641/ 9) Richard Kelly has uploaded BASIC Pong version 1.11 "Retro Rick Edition" (this you will remember was started by Nick Marentes a couple of weeks ago) to the Coco Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160930290822641/ Get connected with more of the CoCo, Dragon and MC-10 community here: ======================================= https://thecoconation.com/community/