The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 357, March 30, 2024 =================================================================== Collected by L. Curtis Boyle Special Guests today: --------------------- >From the Pixels Addict magazine, we have 3 guests today: Paul Monaghan (editor) Ian Griffiths (writer) Tom Williamson (writer) Interview schedule: -------------------- Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people: ------------------------------------------------------------ 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-West looks to be happening August 2-3 (Fri-Sat) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California. This year they are a full partner with the museum, so that admission for both the museum and VCF can be done with one purchase, and the are taking people booking to be speakers/presenters now as well. CHM (Computer History Museum) 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd. Mountain View, CA https://vcfed.org/2024/03/14/vcf-west/ 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) ------------------------------- A) (If David Ladd is on, have him give an update on getting the BlueSCSI and hard drive images working, and some of the quirks found). It looks like David Graham also uploaded the March 1992 MM/1 ROM images. 1) Ron Klein posted an updated for the Coco-Pi project, including an installer version that is available for the first time to the public: https://coco-pi.com/coco-pi-project-update-2024-03-27/ 2) Ciaran Anscomb posted a short but deep dive into how the NTSC Coco 3's composite signal works (note - this is from the 1987 edition of the GIME; there may be small differences compared to the 1986 GIME, but hasn't got one of those to test): https://www.6809.org.uk/dragon/coco3-cmp.shtml 3) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube put up a video going back to his Tales of Suburbia game, showing him debugging the Hobby shop scene: https://youtu.be/rW_21pBT6bo?si=HttKQKj6bsw5zPjA He also put up a little "side project" program for rotating globes in BASIC. Warning - he has neighbor rant early in the video, and the project isn't completed yet: https://youtu.be/jaLX0kaZ_w0?si=Ow2e7KsVaXD2aQjv 4) Todd Wallace posted some screenshots in the Coco group on Facebook showing further progress on his Apple II emulator for the 6309 Coco 3 - this time he has high res graphics (with artifacting) and floppy drive emulation (currently read only). It is quite slow, but it works to the point that it can boot DOS 3.3. No new release yet - but he is hoping by sometime in April (so before the Fest!): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161228127392641/ 5) Carlos Camacho put a post up asking (in a hypothetical world) what some of other color sets would have been best for making games on the VDG, given the restriction of 4 colors on the screen at once. In the comments, Paul Shoemaker put up the raw RGB values (8 bits per), and shows that orange was an odd one, and suggests that black would have been better (and I mentioned that would basically match one the IBM PC CGA color sets). But Paul mentioned something I didn't know - the "pastel" color set actually looks quite good on a monochrome monitor: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161226144482641/ 6) For those on Facebook, Jack Chadwick started a new public group devoted to Tom Mix Software - both on the Coco and the Dragon: https://www.facebook.com/groups/773263327604888/ 7) Thomas Cherryhomes put up a video showing him using an 8 bit Atari terminal program that emulates Videotex / VidTex, based on a demo server for Videotex written by Tim Lindner (based on the Coco terminal program and actual console): https://youtu.be/HpeaYuWS94o?si=CwkBhavu9Uw8Iy-D 8) Neil Cherry is working on porting Peter Stark's HUMBUG debugging tool for the 6800 (he later ported it to the Coco and 6809, I believe). On the same Github that he has for HUMBUG is a copy of other utilities, and also Microware's very first OS - RT/68MX - a real time OS for the 6800 that came out in 1977 while Ken Kaplan was still in University (and it was because of this OS that Motorola worked directly with Microware on making the 6809 and the BASIC09 programming language for it): Post about HUMBUG: https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3337406853219340/ Github readme: https://github.com/linuxha/RT68mx/blob/main/README.md 9) Ciaran Anscomb released version 1.5.5 of XRoar, which when tied with a bugfix to SDL 2.29.3 for Windows, should hopefully smooth out some of the audio glitches that Windows (and Mac) users have reported: Announcement on worldofdragon forums: https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11152 Ciaran's site with download link: https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/ 10) Allen Huffman delved into Steve Bjork's TRS-80 Model 1 software in his blog, including 2 videos we showed last week (Space Ball and Soft Music Editor), both from 1980. He mentions in the blog that there is a Space Ball 2, which was basically the same Circus type game, but with an added countdown timer before the next ball drops. He also found a screen shot of Galactic Fighter. Allen notes that in an interview that Steve game in 1997, Steve said that his game came out about 3 months before the arcade smash Galaxian (which played similarly and came out in the U.S. in November of 1979), but Roger hasn't transferred that one over yet (and it sounds like he has to be extra careful with that one). Also found were 2 Model 1 BASIC programs (one of which we will talk about shortly, as Jim Gerrie ported it to the MC-10): Perpetual Calendar and Bio-Rhythm, as well as his light pen software extensions for BASIC: https://subethasoftware.com/2024/03/26/steve-bjorks-trs-80-model-1-days/ 11) Marco Spedaletti has released a new version of ugBASIC (microBASIC) - version 1.16. This update affects all the computers it runs on, but particular attention was made to the Ccoo 1/2 and Coco 3: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161232434407641/ MC-10 ----- 1) Jim Gerrie ported "Planets" originally by Gordon Speer for Computronics magzine issue #28 (1980) to the MC-10, adding some color to the original TRS-80 Model 1/3 program. This shows the relative locations of the Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn around the sun, showing their different speeds in orbit: https://youtu.be/g3nLz-M2dDE?si=Rc10IMaC9K5QA_ct 2) Jim also ported an early Calendar program originally written by Steve Bjork to the MC-10: https://youtu.be/Fo_O0Jb0Yyo?si=I39z2-UJpZAmRVvG 3) He also pored "Testamour" which is a program to test the users knowledge of BASIC, originally published by the editorial team in the April 1985 issue of the french Micro 7 Magazine. Looks a bit buggy at the moment: https://youtu.be/LSDfcshWD1k?si=1s-00NQkOwTU7391 Dragon 32/64 ------------ 1) Phil Harvey-Smith in the Dragon Facebook group, has also been playing with his 3D printer - And posted some photos: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3674562179470091/ 2) Julian Brown has started working on little sound chip daughterboards for his Dragon 32 repro project, and posted a photo of one he started 2 years ago, and a very recent one: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3674434182816224/ 3) John Whitworth of DragonPlus Electronics has posted a PDF document that compares his replacement power supply board for the Dragon, with a Spanish made one based on an MP1584 made by Ant Goffart. There is also comments between Ant and John on the original Facebook post: Facebook post: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3673993559526953/ PDF direct download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iOR5R4TVqRTpUlpOZOgE_RQ0JS-tueJo/view Game On news (all Coco related platforms): ========================================== 1) Jim Gerrie converted Nanochess's 10 liner BASIC program Tentris to the MC-10 (it was originally for GW BASIC on an IBM PC). Jim did have to expand it to 20 lines to work on the MC-10. Jim's version, because of the way it uses SET/RESET to draw, has an interesting effect as each piece moves down: https://youtu.be/u03S6GKk_9Q?si=K3DXud1KLWbTLh9L 2) Renga in Blue (the Interactive Fiction All the Adventures text adventure game site) did a review of the text adventure ENO from PAL Creations from 1982 (using the Dragon version): https://bluerenga.blog/2024/03/22/eno-1982/ 3) The Russian game playing YouTuber we showed a few weeks ago has added some more Dragon and Coco gameplay content this past week: Laser Run for the Dragon by Blaby Computer Games: https://youtu.be/NJAWYo8jX5s?si=jSHmFkolPqU6VCN3 Return of the Jet-I from Thundervision on the Coco": https://youtu.be/iyWi9s_sSpw?si=zUQvd4ZXiHkxCVyD 4) Tim & AJ on episode 128 of Sibling Rivalry take on one of Dave Die's earliest games - Fight Pilot - on the Coco: https://youtu.be/ia9QJE8aXJE?si=97AcMEaEhdWI-9Up 5) Pere Serrat has released the Supersprite FM+ required AGD games pack #10, featuring 4 new games: Astronaut Labyrinth Doom Pit Part I Doom Pit Part II Doom Pit Part III http://www.retrowiki.es/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=200040290 (not on worldofdragon.org yet; Pere couldn't upload) Speak your mind! 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