[Index]
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 373, August 3, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle
Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Furman & Henry Strickland are at VCF West right now. Michael uploaded
a raw/unedited video to show a bit of the show, last night. He met up with
Henry and they talk about RT/68 - the real time operating system that Ken
Kaplan and one other person wrote for the 6800 CPU while in university. It
was because of this that they developed a relationship with Motorola,
and got hired to make BASIC09 (and eventually OS9 to host it) while the
6809 was being developed (starts at 49:10). And later about the CoPiCo
(Tom Shanks) & CocoIO (Rick Ulland's) with Henry as well (1:17:55):
https://youtu.be/ST_qDWVt7MA?si=YMw0J-PgICCCX1U5
Henry Strickland added some photos as well:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/Sa6M8Cg6LMeEAQbj9
New England Classic Gaming is having an Electronics & Computer Retro Swap
Meet on Aug. 24 starting at 9 AM CST, at the Norfolk Public Library in
Norfolk, Massachusetts (2 Liberty Lane):
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557290357725
VCF-Midwest has moved (slightly) again to the 50,000 square foot "Convention
North" space (they sold out of table space with the original "Exploration
Hall" area which was 33,000 square feet at the Renaissance Schaumburg
Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL. Sept 7-8, 2024 (Sept 6 evening (Friday)
is reserved for vendors, etc to set up). They have added multiple hotels
which people can book into, as the original sold out quickly.
https://vcfmw.org/
The World of Retro Computing 2024 is September 14-15 in Kitchener,
Ontario, Canada (west of Toronto). This year it is located in the old
Goudies Department Store, 8 Queen Street North. Free admission, and this
covers all kinds of retro computers. Some people in the Coco community are
planning on going, and I believe that Stacy Vetzal from the Coco Facebook
group is planning on having a booth:
https://worldofretrocomputing.com/2024-worc-expo
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/
The Dragon Meetup will be October 12-13, 2024 at the Museum of Technology
in Cambridge, England:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11179&start=10
Retro Computer Festival 2024: November 9-10, 2024
Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England
In the early stages of planning for this year, this is (I believe) the
largest general retro computing show in the UK (it's their VCF style show),
covering all retro machines. Tickets can be ordered online for individual
days or both days.
All of their events (including separate entries for both days) at the
bottom of this page:
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/30677/What-s-On/
The Saturday event specifically:
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/
VCF East dates for next year have been confirmed April 25-27, 2025 -
same facility as this year. Info Age Science Museum, Wall, NJ.
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) Coco Town posted Game Revolutions 16 - where he adds "squishy tires"
to his Moon Rover in his Moon Patrol style game:
https://youtu.be/sVL7iAsRFUc?si=e8CkwvwNCTbWK8SB
He also decided to try our Semigraphics 24 from Extended BASIC tricks -
and how to fix it to fully run properly on a T1 VDG:
https://youtu.be/3e-cAwXRfWg?si=rC9YIxQZR1ENnCAt
2) Henry Strickland posted a short (3&1/2 minute) video showing the Rescue
facility (and how to use it) of the Axiom ROM Code that is part of the
Frobio software that is used with Rick Ulland's CocoIO network card. This
will actually rescue the ROM itself:
https://youtu.be/1sscHkU8k5c?si=r7y5--FtNz-lpkbO
3) TRS-80 Retro Programing posted a video of him making his PMODE 1 Luigi
character jump (and constructing a 2nd level):
https://youtu.be/Rz2AwiafBc8?si=jo77NV0UQK9AGMXJ
He also did a quick update on his progress with no commentary:
https://youtu.be/JjdktJt_BYg?si=VBYMynZnLmZVXEvt
4) TJBChris has released his video of getting a Tandy Network 3 controller
working with the Coco (with a TRS-80 Model 12 as a host). He implemented
this promised but never released functionality using the DLOAD protocol
that the Coco 1/2 has built into the ROM. This includes sharing a drive
amongst the Coco's, and to print to a shared printer:
https://youtu.be/HYpXNBna7wU?si=-c-8Xyfvud-zchXe
5) Pedro Pana on his Rocky Hill YouTube channel showed him installing Bob
Emery's VDG breakout board on an MC-10:
https://youtu.be/Vlx6dmu4q0k?si=bP9Zsla6Oe_C7m0g
6) Glen Hewlett has been posting bug fixes and is mentioning some
enhancements he wants to do to his new BASIC cross-compiler. To keep up
with the latest, check the 'basiccompilers' channel (under Programming
and Development) on the Coco Discord.
There is a video of a sort program running side by side in Extended BASIC
(on the right) and with the compiler on the left (by Jamie Lee Cho):
(load local file 'sort (glen hewlett compiler).mov')
7) micro games basic (ugBASIC) has updates on both the main branch and
the beta branches as well:
Main branch (coco related: BELL instruction fied on Coco 3, improved CLS
color for all Coco's, several bug fixes):
https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/main
Beta branch (cpu_jump_indirect under 6809 added):
https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/beta
8) Jamie Elliott posted some photos of a 64K Coco 1 he recently received -
that has a lot of home hacked modifications:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161474243157641/
9) David Collins announced that he finally got his homebrew HB63C09M board
down to SBC size... so he is close to releasing design files so others
can build it:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3427170434242981/
MC-10
-----
1) Jim Gerrie ported "Salesman" originally by Keith and Steven Brain from
their 1984 book "Artificial Intelligence" for the Commodore 64 (Jim mentions
"with some help from their other book for the Dragon 32). It attempts to
simulate a computer salesperson:
https://youtu.be/gPdEbRer5-s?si=2CaJQMhePZE5z5Nc
Dragon 32/64
------------
1) The TVRDb channel on YouTube put up a television commercial from 1984
for INPUT magazine, a cross platform programming magazine that included
the Dragon 32 (and even some Tandy Color Computer) listings:
https://youtu.be/4xi56hitd-Y?si=epOAd2Wz29kGGkmd
2) Steven Goodwin posted a photo from his Mandelbrot set renderer that
he wrote for the Dragon in C, and it uses fixed point (10.6) to further
increase the speed. His render took under an hour; by comparison, Tony
Jewell wrote one in BASIC takes up to a day (he posted a link to the source
in the comments):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3767538043505837/
He also uploaded a video (he says without rate limiting, so I assume it
is running much faster than normal?):
https://youtu.be/ZyyQU0R3sSc?si=zo4jxANxjB2MKnhs
And he has his CMOC source code available:
https://github.com/MarquisdeGeek/DragonDocker/tree/main/dragon/src/c/mandelbrot
3) Julian Brown posted thqt he has received Issue 2 of his SRAM boards -
but he is still waiting for some parts:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3767382286854746/
He also posted about his replacement VDG project in the Dragon forums
at worldofdragon.org:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11185
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Jim Gerrie updated his MC-10 port of the game "Ark Royal" (originally
for the Sinclair ZX-81 that appeared in the December 1981 issue of Your
Computer magazine), where he has added some instructions, added a 2nd
difficulty level, and changed the canopy from cyan to white to make it
easier to see on real hardware:
https://youtu.be/lkdfXckUdm4?si=jSqzBUAvROhgg3sx
He also updated his "Moon Rover Patrol" - his own version of Moon Patrol. He
added a few new speedup techniques, and Greg Dionne's key input routine
to this version from his original 2020 version:
https://youtu.be/smwJN0BCWdI?si=qlv7xRnAbuRbBCN5
He also published "Softball" - an entry from Jim for the upcoming 10-Liner
BASIC programming competition. Loosely based on a softball game on the
Sharp MZ-700 computer:
https://youtu.be/RNM03cuYLIA?si=TegxuGbRrGFFlhY-
He also updated his game Tunnel Jumper that he originally did in 2013 to
use Greg Dionne's newer key input routines & a better inverse text routine:
https://youtu.be/4E8hSezumrg?si=mob0T5kxJSxREeE1
2) Wayne Campbell has put up a page explaining the history and features of
both his Super Extended BASIC (SECB) and OS9/BASIC09 versions of Sokoban -
which includes 80 levels from the various Japanese & American releases:
https://wayneca.neocities.org/Sokoban/Sokoban_CoCo3
3) Jim Mullis has added animations for 4 more heroes that can be played in
his Super Friends game (currently in development in BASIC and GrafExpress
2.0):
The Flash:
https://youtu.be/dGAjEPLF-fk?si=Yng246yvYrgclkh2
Robin:
https://youtu.be/EOvPJjo4avg?si=ifnEb3XfkMGPV3mu
Batman:
https://youtu.be/sIs7skrPSd4?si=Sk3F7Y1SKO3RoGSi
Aquaman:
https://youtu.be/UxlImrfNnew
4) TRS-80 Retro Programing has released an update video to his Tales
of Suburbia game (which is almost ready for release). This covers some
improvements he has made on what will be the final screen in the game:
https://youtu.be/e1gJWsevlR0?si=V8rwqV0lI-ajNI8q
5) NostalgiaVault on YouTube (which does gameplay videos on a wide variety
of platforms) did multiple Coco games this week:
Scrambled Eggs (a counting game aimed at young kids, I believe):
https://youtu.be/UzBWh5bCCFg?si=-LJ-k3rtFExb3R_y
Talking Ghostbusters by Jeff Beckerman (it sounds like Computize's Speak
Up! program):
https://youtu.be/nkxjE-3tn3I?si=KxCTDMyNoQH3nEGF
Rocky's Boots (sold by Tandy):
https://youtu.be/8im6C0Vaaak?si=84IVygybj8CJV9TJ
Frogger (unfortunately with composite/RGB colors mixed up):
https://youtu.be/cSYMFcx2myA?si=87zV3HiCu3s-JYJ5
Amphibia (by Nick Bradbury from the August 1985 Rainbow, but programmed
in 1983):
https://youtu.be/faMGCFRk4xA?si=BgqDM5kZb1xDvouy
Popcorn by Steve Bjork:
https://youtu.be/HSL4dGhJhHo?si=ZBk8u5r8HNf3cJg6
PacMan transcode by Glen Hewlett:
https://youtu.be/0sGJbhUmlfA?si=kcq2czzNQM6Ucix_
6) XperTek released a Coco 2/amber monitor gameplay video featuring
Donkey King:
https://youtu.be/Yrb-JRZ7Iz0?si=0VLf18C1A7GsgjrR
7) Davy Mitchell has released a new Coco / Dragon 32 game called Lucky Egg,
including source code. He has a quick blog entry about it on his blog:
https://davysretrocorner.blogspot.com/2024/08/new-game-lucky-egg.html
Video of gameplay:
https://youtu.be/cXaWRmWL4bI?si=L0elSJRcIMCP2hcE
And source code (in BASIC) is on his github:
https://github.com/daftspaniel/RetroCornerRedux/tree/main/Dragon/Originals/LuckyEgg
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