[Index]
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 339, November 18, 2023
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle
Interviews schedule:
--------------------
- We have a double interview coming up on November 25th's show - Joe Ahern
& David McNally, who created the newsletter/magazine "TRS-80 Computing
(renamed "Color Computing" late in it's life) back in June 1987 as pair
of 13 year olds. It ended up running for over 4 years, expanding in size
and getting advertisers and subscribers. Joe has scanned in all 28 issues
and uploaded them to the Color Computer Archive, and they will be on talk
about their histories with the Coco, creating and running a magazine as
high schoolers, etc.
Complete run of their magazine:
https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Magazines/TRS-80%20Computing/
- December 9 we have an interview with Mike Snyder, who authored tons of
games for T&D magnazine for both the Ccoo 1/2 and the Coco 3 (some are on my
site already) between 1987 and 1991. He still has his own website if you want
to get familiar with the games he wrote and think of questions to ask him.
https://www.cocoquest.com/
- 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 November/December depending on how fast his recovery goes.
Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
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VCF SoCal: Feb 17-18, 2024 in Orange, California
Hotel Fera - Events Center
100 The City Drive, Orange, CA 92868
https://vcfsocal.com/index.html
CocoFest: May 4-5, 2024 in Carol Stream, Illinois (near Chicago)
Holiday Inn & Suites
https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
BoatFest 3: June 14-16, 2024
Social Event Space
Hurricane, WV
https://www.ticketsource.us/boatfest2024/boatfest-retro-computer-expo-2024/e-raedpb
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) George Janssen has uploaded his next 6809 assembly language episode
to his YouTube channel "GBJanssen 6809". This one goes through various
ways to handle sprites, and compares the relative speed and memory usage
between the techniques. This includes references to both Glen Hewlett's
& Paul Fiscarelli's utilities as well as George's own more traditional
blitter method, and even references our CocoTech 2 episode with the 2 Paul's:
https://youtu.be/8x3aRfW7qeY?si=nstrehnyN23cJUdC
He then released the "proper" episode 002, "Begin Again":
https://youtu.be/NRIt5bsPURI?si=l4Mi92GGltum7kKY
2) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube has another video up about his Tales
of Suburbia game project, this time about placing the rocket in the launcher:
https://youtu.be/kY_B-hEQ3-c?si=YXU9CulQ6-VI--4G
3) Ken of Canadian Retro Things (who's he?) released a video about how to
use the PALETTE command to control the 32 column text colors, the 40 and
80 column text colors, as well as changing colors for the 4 color PMODE
graphics screens:
https://youtu.be/ek5FdytHF1Y?si=h2n40C5afmRjEU91
4) Jack Chadwick has another game poll up in the Coco group on Facebook, this
time asking for favorite games for the Coco 1/2 and the Coco 3 for the music:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161036927932641/
5) Big news from Robert Gault on the Coco group on Facebook - he has made
the 6309 version of EDTASM (with Coco 3 support, Becker port support,
emulator support) available for free on the Color Computer Archive:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161034943057641/
6) Simon Jonassen is woring on a new online graphics editor for Coco graphics
modes, which allows exporting for both the Coco/Dragon and MC-10/Alice:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161034530172641/
7) Richard Kelly released "ASM SFX Routine" version 1.0. It allows one
to play ML sounds from a buffer (defaulting to using page of the graphics
screen for the sound data). The ML routine itself is in the cassette buffer
area, so it doesn't take any space away from BASIC (other than the sound
data). He is planning on an updated version:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161028702882641/
8) Michael Evenson has mentioned that he found a bug in the TFM 6309
instruction as implemented in VCC. He posted some source with sample output
to show the bug, comparing the VCC results with a real 6309 (it should be
noted that this bug only applies to a few certain TFM scenarios, not all
of them):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/366791731040411/posts/1007574306962147/
9) MrDave6309 posted a YouTube video showing the latest version of his
BASIC speedup patches for the 64K Coco 1 or 2, or a Coco 3 (warning, he
overwrites PRINT USING to do this, so make sure your program doesn't need
that command). This increases the speed of SET, PRINT, JOYSTK (not a full
read), PEEK, POKE and a new fast copy RAM command (He suggests starting
around 5:35 to show on the news). You can find the current beta DSK image
in the BASIC channel on the Coco Discord:
https://youtu.be/JMdN9wcR0Wk?si=uYWjLqzTYXFp0zh1
10) As we saw last week, Bob Emery (La Coco Strangiato) was streaming on
YouTube before, during and after last weeks show of his putting components
on Pedro (Rocky Hill on YouTube) reproduction Coco 3 motherboard. If you
want to watch the whole (or certain parts of it) thing (5&1/2 hours),
you can watch it here:
https://www.youtube.com/live/8h18PMZnpsQ?si=s38UosTYUyo6syAu
Bob - how is this coming along... are you planning on another stream to
finish it up (and/or for testing)?
11) Pedro Pena (Rocky Hill on YouTube) has posted a YouTube short showing
his Athena Coco 3 recreation motherboard version 1.2.0, which I think is
a later version than Bob Emery has been working on - it now lines up much
better to the original Coco 3:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/IoNqxNSzjd0
12) Several people from the Coco world (Boisy Pitre, Michael Furman, Sloopy
and myself) will be on a special live stream on this Wednesday (November 22)
with host Frederic (MicroHobbyist on YouTube) to discuss the 6809/6309 and
some operating systems for it. Frederic, who recently joined our Discord,
is planning on make a 6(8/3)09 based computer (he has done so with other
CPU's in the past) and put it up to his viewers what CPU to pick, and
Sloopy and I immediately hit his live stream comments section to pick one
of our CPU's... and holy cow, we won the other chatters over.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj6OAdZWUaA&ab_channel=MicroHobbyist
MC-10
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1)
Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Ciaran Anscomb posted an update in the Dragon group on Facebook which
I believe is his working on a replacement for the SAM chip (which should
thus work to replace one in a Coco 1/2 as well?):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3587949214798055/
2) Julian Brown has an update on his latest Dragon motherboard (the
expanded version) - unfortunately he found a mistake and has ordered new
boards. Details in his Facebook post:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3587541318172178/
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Jim Gerrie has re-ported a NEC PC-6001 game called "Shoplifting Boy"
(Manbiki Shounen) originally by Hiroshi Suzuki for the PET, in Micom
BASIC Magazine's 1st issue (July 1982). This is considered to be one of
the earliest "stealth" games. Jim ported this earlier, but this version
is closer to the NEC version than the PET:
https://youtu.be/FuZFlCSMVtE?si=rB1OxSYkseRY_AOd
He also ported Skiing from micomBASIC July 1982 magazine (originally in
Japanese). This game even works in 4K MC-10's and Alice's:
https://youtu.be/zXc9KnoQLaE?si=RpAmHnxLsCNtBiv0
And finally "Football Manager" originally by Kevin Toms in 1982 for the
Dragon 32:
https://youtu.be/nfSJefR__BQ?si=CGe0GvUMLJviKeX8
2) Chronologically Gaming is now covering any August 1982 releases with
no specific release dates, and there are multiple Coco and Dragon releases
(I will only show from 2 of the 4 episodes today):
Dragon:
Alcatraz II (Coco conversion)
https://youtu.be/136rZX65FJI?si=I2jGPPEQJCEeAjqw
Dragon:
Black Sanctum (Coco conversion)
Calixto Island (Coco conversion)
https://youtu.be/ZXLAivxnQ84?si=MueM7DBhPOt2u-89
Dragon:
Escape (Coco conversion)
Flag (Dragon original from Dragon themselves)
Coco:
Galax Attax from Spectral
https://youtu.be/w6miTJrfM2Y?si=C-H_oWcJeXTFtTLk
Coco:
Gangbusters (also shows C64 version)
Haunted House (Aardvark - kids adventure game)
Invaders Revenge
https://youtu.be/ZaNaQa-Pw3s?si=kruK8IrPNtZ2L3E8
Get connected with more of the CoCo, Dragon and MC-10 community here:
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https://thecoconation.com/community/