The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 349, February 3, 2024 =================================================================== Collected by L. Curtis Boyle Special Guests today: --------------------- Glen Dahlgren Interviews schedule: -------------------- None upcoming... yet. Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people: ------------------------------------------------------------ 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 It should be mentioned that Thomas Cherryhomes will be a speaker at the show, going over Fujinet - including the Coco version that is currently a work in progress. Randy Kindig is also confirmed as a speaker now as well. Also, a couple of color computer exhibitors are now listed as well: https://www.vcfsocal.com/exhibitors 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/ The Indy Classic Computer & Gaming Expo is April 13-14 in Indianapolis. Crowne Plaza Randy Kindig of the Floppy Days podcast helps with this one - and he was our guest not too far back. https://indyclassic.org/ CocoFest: May 4-5, 2024 in Carol Stream, Illinois (near Chicago) Holiday Inn & Suites https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/ Table bookings (the main hall is completely taken up now, and 14 in the hall are available): 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) Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas - Dallas Dallas, Texas https://www.vcfsw.org/ UPDATES: Also this year they are doing "Shows within the Show", and one of those is a Tandy Assembly meetup: (scroll down on the main page) Jeff Wires (the host of Chronologically Gaming) is also one of the speakers at VCF-SW this year! Speakers list: https://www.vcfsw.org/speakers Tandy Assembly for 2024 has been announced for Sep 27-29, 2024. Courtyard by Marriott Springfield Springfield, Ohio http://www.tandyassembly.com/ Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform) ------------------------------- 1) Retro Computing Roundtable, a fairly Apple centric podcast / live stream show (but they cover everything from mainframes to microcontrollers) discussed a 6502 homebrew computer project. The person doing it wanted to eventually come up with a machine capable of running a version of Lode Runner. Surprisingly, their method wound up using the Coco 3 transcode to 6809 (since it had source available) to backport it back to the 6502, but using Coco 3 style graphics. The person making it is Eric Badger (his channel on YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/live/uHJfaoaXLrA?si=bxljXNTq1gwDgYrN&t=3605 2) Glen Hewlett did a blog entry on doing game sprite collision detection in assembly, based on a the routines he found in Robotron when he was transcoding it: https://nowhereman999.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/coco-3-game-collision-detection-routine-6809-assembly/ 3) Our very own Ken of Canadian Retro Things on YouTube put up a 1/2 hour video - doing some Digital Archeology on some Coco disks: https://youtu.be/hlMz_UvSEoI?si=qGbU3h4yXZL1mzqz 4) This years 10 line BASIC programming contest has been announced (scroll down for english): https://gkanold.wixsite.com/homeputerium/copy-of-rules 5) EJ Jaquay announced that VCC 2.1.8.3 has now been released, which adds a host of new features: - Web link in help menu to the newly updated User Guide - fixed the HDBLBA rom image so it properly will emulate an IDE controller for SuperIDE - Hard disk config can now enable/disable RTC - Debugger adds instruction decode, disassembler window - Command line auto past option - blinking text fixed on 40 and 80 column screens https://github.com/VCCE/VCC/releases/tag/vcc2.1.8.3 6) David Collins has another update on his 6309 based homebrew computer project on the 6x09 Facebook group - he now has it loading floppy disk images from it's SD card): https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3303373426622683/ 7) David Graham uploaded a new readme for the MM/1 schematics to the MM/1 Facebook group, which includes some things about them that people should be aware of (including errors, usage of parts that were for testing only and changed by the final release, etc.) https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/4382739608617969/ (I have a local copy on my desktop to share) MM1_schematics_readme_first.pdf 8) Jim Mullis posted another update video of his Super Powers game written in BASIC with the Sundog Systems GrafExpress system, which includes new characters, much wider world for horizontal scrolling (9 screens worth), and lot more (see video description for full details). NOTE: Sound for some reason did not come through on the video, and it's more jittery than it was on real hardware: https://youtu.be/HEm-_OHgL9g?si=C2wvA12dPTxs6iID 9) Henry of The Break Key channel on YouTube continues on making a new ROM for the Coco 1/2 to boot into Forth. This episode he gets the keyboard working and typing to the screen, with editing: https://youtu.be/5EjV6Muslag?si=pRXi8T7aTJ_ZdvAx 10) Bolling Holt on YouTube released a video "Reliving my 1991 10th Birthday with the Tandy DMP-133", which got at the age of 10 to use with his Coco 2. Unfortunately he didn't have a Coco compatible serial cable, so he tested it with his Tandy 1000 TL/2 instead on parallel (with Deskmate): https://youtu.be/JigW46CAgjA?si=Y-Zl59lCAhEcFBvg 11) The 6502 Show did an episode on making and programming a Compact Flash card drive/file system for the GM-68 computer - but it will work with any 6502, 680x (including 6809) based system, if you want to experiment. He also had early plans to try and port FLEX as a base OS, but abandoned it for a much simpler system: https://youtu.be/ti7coZ-yzTI?si=eEcktyN0_xQ4kJc9 12) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube did an update to his Coco Ultimate RPG game that he is working on for the Coco 1/2. Here he shows using a visual grid layout help fine tune character mapping. This can be helpful for figuring out byte aligned GET/PUT's for different modes, as well as for the DRAW he statements that he is using in this game: https://youtu.be/PEq4jEBxGMg?si=zk7LwEdLD9c2qMEY He then did a quick update video yesterday, speeding up and optimizing the BASIC code a bit, and employing the grid he worked on: https://youtu.be/3tC5BLk3Lgs?si=cOdqGJZQEL5VdOh7 13) Allen Huffman posted his first blog entry on porting Rick Adam's "Lights Out Puzzle" (that Rick is working on for the Coco 3) to the Coco 1/2. This blog entry contains a complete history of the game as a good background for the blog series: https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/30/lets-write-lights-out-in-basic-part-1/ 14) MC-10 ----- 1) Dragon 32/64 ------------ 1) Following up on the challenge of making a ray trace program from the BBC Micro run on a Coco or Dragon, Steven Goodwin took up the challenge in the Dragon Facebook group. (He had a bug in the initial photos that was fixed later in the comments). This is the same challenge Allen Huffman had worked on but didn't get as far. The Dragon CAS file is on the Dragon Facebook group.: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3635799016679741/ 2) Julian Brown posted an update about his FPGA prototype to replace the 6847 (VDG) chip - and with enhancements in the Dragon Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3636673456592297/ 3) XRoar got two quick bug fix releases (1.5.1 & 1.5.2) from the 1.5 major release last week. 1.5.1 fixes: - Include cartridge database (mostly Coco 3 32K) for convenience - Fix potential crash when cartridge loading fails - Recognize Windows Drive letters properly (ex. C:) 1.5.2 fixes: - Timer interrupt fixes for the GIME You can download it from: https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/ 4) The "Home for Obsolete Technology" channel on YouTube (he is Germany) posted part 2 of a huge retro haul he got - this part includes 4 Dragon 32's (he mentions that the Dragon is very rare in Germany)-one is heavily modified: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGC3paSpnpc&t=429s Game On news (all Coco related platforms): ========================================== 1) Darren Ottery posted an interesting question on the Coco Facebook group - what would the ONE game be that you would like to see ported t the Coco 3 (that could run within the Coco 3's hardware limits): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161140909912641/ 2) Rick Adams is working on writing a wrong with the Shanghai cartridge - when one wins the game, the original plan was to have a full screen fire breathing dragon presented to the player. Because Tandy limited how big the ROM could be, he was only able to put the head in. Using extra space that would have been possible if he had been allowed to use a 32K ROM, he has most of it in now (I noticed this morning on the Coco Discord that the whole dragon is now there, and Paul Fiscarelli is helping getting the original title screen as well): https://www.facebook.com/groups/colorcomputer/posts/907350990880634/ 3) Chronologically gaming continued through September 1982 releases this week, including multiple Coco and Dragon games: Dragon: Devils Triangle (1:09). Coco: Frog Trek (26:27), Galactic Attack (49:16) https://www.youtube.com/live/E9t9VgMHpug?si=KdzwqK97Pf6CUw2N Coco: Madam Rosa's Massage Parlor (just mentioned) (25:47), Mega-Bug (39:39) - Apple II version right before (Dung Beetles) https://www.youtube.com/live/4aonXvaIAzk?si=yvrxxhqil1f-GPg4 Coco: Microbes (0:13), Mission:Empire! (14:42), Offender (39:35). Dragon/Coco: Race Ball (57:25) https://www.youtube.com/live/P54ACzfUn88?si=MIJUGcAkQXaOE_ky Coco: Roman Checkers (24:00) https://www.youtube.com/live/mMz_lPPfu7A?si=-gRUCrAakQV4TKgB Coco: Shooting Gallery (10:47) (Atari 8 bit version shown just before), Snak Pak (38:47) https://www.youtube.com/live/WYuBKocHO1I?si=P-2ujtN-iJywjtsu 4) Jim Gerrie ported a couple more games to the MC-10. I know, I am just as surprised as all of you. ;-) "Casse-tête dans le métro/Puzzle in the Metro" is a graphical adventure game originally by Eric Ascheberg in 1985 for the Alice 32/90. Low rest graphics by Jim replace the original ones: https://youtu.be/pKzXl8kdbWo?si=m0EQsLEPrIRv2xVc "Hey Man Don't Get Angry", also known as "Ludo", was a port (and translation to English) from the original German classic board game Ludo, originally for the Laser / Dick Smith VZ-200 computer, in 1988: https://youtu.be/l32IlnV_id8?si=xrRv_RN374sajxn2 Speak your mind! Let us know what you think at: ============================================================================== feedback at TheCoCoNation.com Get connected with more of the CoCo, Dragon and MC-10 community here: ============================================================================== https://thecoconation.com/community/