CoCo3.org -- The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 345, January 6, 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 345, January 6, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:
---------------------
Doug Masten, original author of The Contras
Glen Dahlgren, owner of Sundog Systems, is our guest co-interviewer

Interviews schedule:
--------------------
- January 20 Henry Gernhardt of "The Break Key" YouTube channel.

- February 3rd (NOTE DATE CHANGE) Glen Dahlgren comes back - he has the final
book in his Chaos series coming out, and possibly some further Coco stuff
as well.
 
https://mysteriumstoryworks.substack.com/p/want-a-free-copy-of-the-realm-of?r=2hpgl3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web


Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
Virtual CoCoFEST!: Jan 27
Contact Mark Overholser / CoCoTECH on Facebook, the CoCo Discord, or
via e-mail to cocotech at thecoconation.com for information or to present!

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

Interim Computer Festival: March 23-24.
This is a pre-announcement for a retro computer show in the Pacific
Northwest Area. Details (specifically where, etc.) will be coming later,
and registration will open in January.
  https://sdf.org/icf/

CocoFest: May 4-5, 2024 in Carol Stream, Illinois (near Chicago)
Holiday Inn & Suites
  https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
Table bookings:
  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, and usually
has a lot of Tandy people hanging out since that is Tandy's hometown).
Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas - Dallas
Dallas, Texas
  https://www.vcfsw.org/


Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) RichN in the Coco Discord channel general-game-posts posted a couple
of videos showing a Spy Hunter clone for the Coco 1/2 that he is working on.
He also now has a site set up for his Spy Hunter Coco project, including
sections on coding, references, MAME, etc.:
  https://sites.google.com/view/spyhuntercoco/home

2) TRS-80 Retro Programing released a video of Coco 1 graphics screen
animation that does not use PCLS/GET/PUT/PCOPY/PSET or PRESET commands,
but DRAW statements:
  https://youtu.be/NpoUYutJZIU?si=NunA14NfpHdTTMLX

3) George Janssen has posted the next episode of his Coco 3 Assembly
language series - this time covering more about the MMU including moving
code itself to other blocks. As usual, he has his sample sourcecode also
uploaded to his channel on the Coco Discord:
  https://youtu.be/3Q1dT7tVNyg?si=fdbr1Tj_aqJ3T2QW

4) Frederic (MicroHobbyist on YouTube) has uploaded his 2nd video for his
6309 project:
  https://youtu.be/0A40UXcJqhk?si=x6x7tDieegmZd0MJ

5) Retro Tech Repair has a follow up video to last weeks "yellow bar fix"
video - did an aging resistor make his Coco 2 fail?
  https://youtu.be/zAJh4tDcrCw?si=fGp91dH3vlnAN2xR

6) YouTube channel "I Didn't Buy These" put up a video about the 128K Coco
3 he got in mint condition - unused and never plugged in as far as he can
tell. He has already sold it somebody who had a Coco when they were younger
(the YouTuber himself was not that familiar with the Coco):
  https://youtu.be/GsqjL3LD5y8?si=My8qc6KvgCb8Jp12

7) Primal-Bits on YouTube did a follow up to his previous video where got
a Coco 1 - now he adds data storage via a cassette recorder:
  https://youtu.be/ABv2ry5RWU8?si=ke5CfEUKO4dKfMke

8) Tony Licari posted photos of a hardware package that was made and sold
in Australia, called Coco Connection:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161099372477641/

9) Keith Christensen posted a video to his YouTube channel showing some
video/industrial graphics and animations he did back in 1987 (for a Coco
1/2). It lasts over 5 minutes... and would make a cool screensaver:
  https://youtu.be/paPwCq7E4og?si=jS-oNkSAmpUeeG2m

10) Thomas Cherryhomes has another update to his Fujinet port to the Coco -
in particular how the weather app is going to display:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161096823467641/

11) Allen Huffman has posted part 4 of his entry for the Logiker 2023
Vintage Computing Christmas challenge:
 
https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/02/tackling-the-logiker-2023-vintage-computing-christmas-challenge-part-4/
  He also did a quick blog pos on loading get/put buffers from data
  statements... by POKEing values into the array using VARPTR instead of
  GETting it from something drawn on the screen:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/03/extended-color-basic-put-from-data/

12) Another homebrew 6309 computer project has an update this week: Dave
Collins posted an update on hackaday.io for his HB63C09M - Mini ITX 63C09
form factor computer: He has ordered a new set of boards from PCB Way for
testing, and goes into some details:
 
https://hackaday.io/project/193108-hb63c09m-mini-itx-63c09-form-factor-computer/log/226454-rev3-prototype-chipset-overview


MC-10
-----
1) Ruben Aparicio posted in the MC-10 group on Facebook that he has done
a ROM swap for an Alice 32 (that duplicates what he did with an Alice 4K)
to internationalize the keyboard:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/6885973278196102/


Dragon 32/64
------------
1) John Whitworth has put up a 3.5 minute video update for the SuperBoB
board that he posted in the Dragon group on Facebook:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3617197405206569/

2) Ciaran has some updates to his SAMx4 project (version 1.21 now), including
the build system being updated to handle multiple variants, including
Pedro's PCB shrink, and "includes extra variants you can build "for fun"
that sacrifice some ram size functions for extra video offset registers":
  https://www.6809.org.uk/dragon/samx4/
Ciaran has mentioned that the additions are more experimental and may not
stay in, but for those curious, these are the current additions:
CPLD: add optional variants with scrolling registers
    $FF3A - clear X offset register (Xoff, 5-bit)
    $FF3B - clear video base (F register, now 11-bit)
    $FF3C - left shift 0 into Xoff
    $FF3D - left shift 1 into Xoff
    $FF3E - left shift 0 into F
    $FF3F - left shift 1 into F
    Xoff added to lower VRAM address bits.
Basically you can configure video base address to any multiple of 32, then
an x offset is added to the lowest 5 bits of the video address whatever
it’s calculated to be.


Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Jim Gerrie ported "Dungeon" by Brian Sawyer, originally done in 1979 on
the Commodore PET as a "Rogue-like". He even fixed a feature of the original
that wasn't fully implemented (details in YouTube video description):
  https://youtu.be/XV0xS03RGRg?si=of8NaEipecBDY5fk
And his blogpost about his Dungeon port (and the bugfix):
  https://jimgerrie.blogspot.com/2024/01/dungeon-by-brian-sawyer-1979.html
He also ported "Othello" originally by Richard O. Duda in the October 1977
issue of BYTE magazine:
  https://youtu.be/_QAiqI_xkjA?si=dcLCuSqKFyE5KWTc

2) The Amigos have put up a video explaining their new reorganization of
their Patreon system for a variety of their shows (Atari St, Spectrum and
ARG Presents as well as The Coco Show):
  https://youtu.be/L4F5fzPtfQY?si=xTGbIhdp0U9dBhMI

3) Although he hit it a little early from my research (lumping it into
September 1982 while it's first ad was December 1992 - although I don't know
how much lead time Rainbow had back then between cover date and available
on shelves), Chronologically Gaming covering Donkey King this past week:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHbrJavMrwg&t=2911s
He also covered a Chromasette (tape magnazine) ML game called Germ Warfare:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VW0kmgJ0OA&t=2327s

4) Brian Palmer has typed in another Australian Coco magazine game -
Terminator 2 text adventure by Dennis Mellican - and uploaded it to Facebook
(and should be on the archive). The game is big enough that you have to do
a couple of POKE's before loading/running (to do the equivalent of PCLEAR 0):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161102378487641/

5) Matt Darr has done a 2nd update to his catching game- adding levels of
play (after adding color and new animations previously):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161099656167641/
He also started making a Lunar Rescue game as well:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161103656852641/

6) XperTek - the spanish YouTube channel that plays games on a real Coco
2 with an amber monitor, played Fly By this week, a game originally from
the Chromasette tape magnazine in Feb/Mar of 1983:
  https://youtu.be/hHzncF5iKEY?si=yrJaAAs5rU49hvwR&t=42

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