The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 356, March 23, 2024 =================================================================== Collected by L. Curtis Boyle Special Guests today: --------------------- NONE. Interview schedule: -------------------- March 30 - not a full interview, but 3 guests that are involved with Pixel Addict magazine - editor Paul Monaghan, writer Ian Griffiths and writer Tom Williamson - will be on to talk about both the current issue #19 (Tandy cover story) and Pixel Addict in general. Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people: ------------------------------------------------------------ Interim Computer Festival: On this weekend! Intraspace 3100 Airport Way South, Seattle, Washington This is a pre-announcement for a retro computer show in the Pacific Northwest Area. https://sdf.org/icf/ The Southeast Michigan Vintage Computer Club is having a meeting/swap meet at their April 6 meeting (12 pm - 4 pm). No admission fee. Ran by Adam (Commodore Chronicles) and sponsored by Retro Rewind. Grace Chapel's Gymnasium 2515 N. Williams Lake Rd. Waterford Twp, MI https://semichiganvcc.blogspot.com/2024/01/semvcc-ver-311-updated-swap-meet-april.html 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/ VCF-East: InfoAge Science and History Museums in Wall, New Jersey April 12-14 https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/ 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 5 of the extra overflow tables have now been sold): 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, which includes a separate hall for just Tandy machines. The main hall is already sold out for tables, and as of March 6, only 2 of 21 tables in the Tandy hall were still available: (scroll down on the main page) Jeff Wires (the host of Chronologically Gaming) and Boisy Pitre are both speakers this year. Speakers list: https://www.vcfsw.org/speakers VCF-Midwest has finally announced their new, larger venue for this year (#19) - the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL. Sept 7-8, 2024 (Sept 6 evening (Friday) is reserved for vendors, et.c to set up). Unfortunately, their original block of rooms already sold out in 3 hours after they announced yesterday. VCF is working with the hotel to get more, but that won't happen until Monday) https://vcfmw.org/ Tandy Assembly for 2024 has been announced for Sep 27-29, 2024. UPDATE: THEY HAVE STARTED POSTING EXHIBITORS ON THEIR WEBSITE Courtyard by Marriott Springfield Springfield, Ohio http://www.tandyassembly.com/ Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform) ------------------------------- 1) Some sad news - Bruce Isted (who worked on the Tomcat's, the Eliminator and other hardware/software projects for Frank Hogg Labs, and was also an integral part of the team that was behind the Version 3 OS-9 Level II upgrade (he did the serial mouse drivers amongst _many_ other things), has passed away: https://mhfh.com/tribute/details/45646/Bruce-Isted/obituary.html 2) Frederic (MicroHobbyist on YouTube) released his 4th video of his "6309 Unleashed" project series. As he showed us last week live, this include a 6551 serial chip added and software that allows a terminal program to hook up to it and talk back and forth (and sneak peeks at the monitor program he also has been working on): https://youtu.be/njnaJyZcJGA?si=V2lmpxDDkIcvJoN0 3) Allen Huffman did a followup blog post to his port of Factory TNT that he originally wrote on his first computer (VIC-20) to the Coco, and that he plans on finishing up soon, extending his tile font to include letters and numbers for on screen scoring, etc.: https://subethasoftware.com/2024/03/19/my-vic-20-factory-tnt-for-coco/ And while not strictly Coco, Allen also got some of Steve Bjork's earliest commercial programs (for the TRS-80 Model 1/3) running in an emulator, so that we can see them running: Space Ball (1980): https://youtu.be/QcaVxxMhCHs?si=nDuifEUWCSWIu10E Soft Music Editor (1980): https://youtu.be/XyOhTVrNwBs?si=l2cq0nc9I_IdmuuF 4) Coco Town (on YouTube) has come out with an extra length (~45 minutes) part 7 of his Coco 1/2 assembly language sound series, titled "6 Unanswered Questions... ANSWERED!" (I think that is his most click-baity title yet!": https://youtu.be/aKpZpn6m-rc?si=eAZdkEwqqkhgF0wW 5) Forgotten Machines on YouTube released a video showing him testing heating up a floppy disk with creases in it, to see if that will make it able to read bad sectors that even a flux reader can't read: https://youtu.be/vqeFimyAR88?si=lW__v6xPU4n3XffF 6) Tech Guy Life put up a video on YouTube showing a Coco 1 (and on an older motherboard) getting a power transformer replacement: https://youtu.be/ZGjDB6iZN8U?si=EXhRLptHgn14bQx3 7) Roger Taylor has posted more things that he found in the Steve Bjork collection - including some SuperScripsit Model 3/4 text files talking about the Deluxe Color Computer. One seems to be questions inserted into a post about the Deluxe early on, and the other is Steve reviewing it. There is speculation as to whether the first file is somebody else asking questions to Steve, or Steve asking questions to the original poster; from my remembering the Coco forums on Compuserve at during this time (1983/1984), I believe it was the latter, as that is how they recorded such forum banter (like when the Coco 3 was announced a few years later). It is worth noting that a price is shown in the second document ($399) and that the BASIC is a little different from what we have on the pre-release ROM's (a SING command instead of TONE, although I think just the command name was changed), as well as noting some things that we had not found yet while disassembling the ROM's, like RESTORE for DATA statements (similar to BASIC09): https://www.patreon.com/posts/deluxe-100769774 He also posted a version of Zaxxon that he found, that was labelled as Zaxxon for the Coco 3 (both on the physical disk and on the title screen). This is not an older version of Z-89, but appears to be an RGB patched version that runs at full double speed and states that it is a Coco 3 version on the splash screen: https://www.patreon.com/posts/zaxxon-for-coco-100701156 Roger also released a video showing some of Steve's graphic and map tools that Steve wrote to make his games: https://www.patreon.com/posts/bjorks-secret-100512264 If you are a member of Roger's Patreon already, there are other things that you also get access to. One release this week is version 1.01 of his Netmate high speed, fully ANSI terminal program (that you can use to get onto modern BBS's through the internet nowadays). If you want to support Roger in his recovery work (and to help cover the large cost he had to get as much of Steve's stuff as he could), and/or want access to all of his other special Coco projects, please think about supporting his Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/rogertaylor 8) Paul Shoemaker has added more screens, animation and sound to finish his Karateka intro demo (based on the Apple II original): https://youtu.be/BVsK-EF0mvs?si=8HF2jIKe7sLk2TCL 9) Joe Lowe posted in the original Coco Facebook group a video showing him using Ed Snider's (ZippsterZone) CocoSDC media player playing an old Ramones song, Blitzkrieg Bop, which sounds pretty awesome (it's in 6309 mode on an Orchestra-90 for full 8 bit sound, and stereo I presume): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161217683772641/ 10) Boisy Pitre released a couple of quick videos to demonstrate the speed difference in booting up the F256 Jr in OS9 Level II when using the slow and high speed SD card reader modes: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161215717392641/ 11) Brian Blake posted a quick video showing his new translucent blue keyboard bezel for his HJL-57 keyboard on his 64K Coco 2, to the Coco DFE Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1058808428750710 12) David Collins has an update on his homebrew 6309 based computer - he now has it booting successfully from an SD card: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3333128503647175/ 13) Romeo Cat Computers on YouTube did a short <2 minute video showing a Coco 3 that he fixed fairly easily (reseating RAM, mainly) that he had received from Brady Zimmel. He runs a few of the test programs from the "Introducing Your Color Computer 3" booklet: https://youtu.be/M-xvsjEPqk8?si=30oRdDoE56EXtjCX 14) RetroAndGaming, a YouTube channel from Norway, gets a Coco 1 working again that he just received: https://youtu.be/JxIlmqtq-9Q?si=ZjdKE5ug-KoLGttr MC-10 ----- 1) James Diffendaffer posted an update to the Chess game he has been porting to the MC-10; the compiler he is using treats true/false differently than the compiler the original version was for, which has slowed him down but hopefully will be fixable now: https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/7190895881037172/ 2) Jim Gerrie is seeking some help - he wants to be able to upload playable MC-10 files to the Internet Archive, by using it's built in MAME/MESS emulator. But he hasn't been able to get it to work. If anybody on the panel or watching knows how to do that, please contact Jim or us for pointers on how to do it: https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/7186874314772662/ Dragon 32/64 ------------ 1) Ciaran Anscomb (of XRoar fame) got his SAMX4 256K RAM Banker board working in his Dragon 64 new motherboard, and posted about it in the World of Dragon forums: https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11158 2) Morgan Hetherington, as we mentioned last episode, has been making multi-colour 3D prints for retro computers and retro games for other retro platforms, and has started making ones for the Dragon. He know has photos and prices for some that he has ready now that he posted to the Dragon group on Facebook. (There are multiple posts from people who ordered some of these and already received them. The Dragon 32 one in particular is a popular one): https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3671092326483743/ 3) Matt Kaye has posted something along the same line - a classic game from the Dragon but on a coffee mug instead. He mentions that he is updating his website for it, but unfortunately didn't post a link (yet): https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3671040813155561/ 4) Julian Brown has a further update on his Dragon 32 PAL daughterboard; he is working on shrinking the modulator and amp sections and refining traces: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3669544009971908/ Game On news (all Coco related platforms): ========================================== 1) Sure enough - Jim Gerrie ported Andrew Hubble's "BustDown" Breakout clone from the January 1982 issue of CCN (Color Computer News) to the MC-10 the same day we talked about it on the show - and his copy works! 4K BASIC Breakout clone. https://youtu.be/MZ6F7B6c0F0?si=Wu0LqDnD__i5Dicx He also converted the game "Minidam" originally by Christian Garaud in 1985 for the French Micro7 magazine, April 1985 issue (and translated it to English at the same time). Jim mentioned in a Facebook post that the object is swap all of the blue and red pieces from left <-> right. He hasn't been able to win it yet, and doesn't even know if it is solvable: https://youtu.be/tVU2czPog5s?si=k62viEfPr2Ky54Xx 2) Its been awhile, but Pere Serrat has uploaded AGD games pack #62 for both the Coco and the Dragon. This pack includes: Javi Pómez y la Cámara no secreta ("Javi Pómez and the non-secret Chamber") Lil Ninja NightAir B&B Psyqo Santa The Last Escape Ziona Quest Downloads and screenshots available at the World of Dragon Archive: https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11159 3) A Gaming channel (by LRU) on YouTube, who records gameplay videos for a variety of consoles and home computers to achieve high scores to submit, did one of Spectral Associates Froggie this past week. Unfortunately he had the artifact colors reversed: https://youtu.be/gZmHg00Bzdg?si=KcBuwfpT-DsrHQWn 4) Nebulous on YouTube (a new channel just started on March 11, 2024) put up an almost 10 minute video showing Glen Hewlett's transcode of Joust for a 512K Coco 3, playing on real hardware (and a real floppy!) Unfortunately his camera does terrible autofocus, but he is a good player - he made it wave 10 on his first try: https://youtu.be/tYQPnhhlJlA?si=1GbuXnK70wCYZVmL 5) Chronologically Gaming (currently doing October of 1982 games) covered a few Coco / Dragon games this past week: Earthquake (from Aardvark) - He found the ad for it for the Coco, but like me, we can't find the actual game for the Coco. But he did find the Vic-20 version, which would have played basically the same (Same author & company): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHkI3QJ27qk&t=61s&ab_channel=ChronologicallyGaming El Diablero (from Computerware for the Coco, and licensed to Dragon Data themselves for the Dragon). I will show the Dragon portion a bit here, since they actually have the manual and it looks pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/live/kHkI3QJ27qk?si=HTO9fgD_LXNqeY8f&t=696 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/