The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 394, January 4, 2025 ============================================================= Collected by L. Curtis Boyle NOTE: This covers two weeks since we had our holiday break. So Dec. 21 to Jan. 4 Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people: ------------------------------------------------------------ "Tandy Showcase" (Ed on the TRS-80 Discord, and the person who hosts the history of Videotex on the web), posted that there is a Winter Retro Computing Meetup on Saturday, January 18th from noon to 4 PM, sponsored by DFW Retro Computing & the Vintage Computing Collective of North Texas. It takes place at Bingo Bingo in Grand Prairie (and there will be a concession stand open). Quote from Ed: "**The Winter Event for the DFW Retro Computing Group has been announced (Sat Jan 18); here's their event listing. "Anyone in/near the Dallas-Fort Worth area is encouraged to attend the free event.** *The Winter Retro Computing Meetup of 2025 will be on Saturday, January 18th. Brought to you by the DFW Retro Computing Meetup group and the Vintage Computing Collective of North Texas. Sponsored by Mouser Electronics who has, for the second year, graciously donated to cover the cost for the venue rental. The meetup will begin at 12:00pm and end at 4:00pm and is taking place at Bingo Bingo in Grand Prairie who will also have their concession stand open so please bring cash and support them for allowing us to use their venue. We encourage you to bring something for show and tell. It could be a new addition to your collection or a favorite system you've showcased before. Don't be shy – we love seeing the unique treasures our community has to offer. And if you're not quite ready to exhibit, no worries--just bring yourself and your passion for retro computing. As on prior meetups, you are welcome to bring your items for swap, sale, or giveaway. However, you must ensure that all items are removed from the venue at the end of the meetup. We cannot leave behind boxes of donation items. You are welcome to bring your family. If you bring young children, please keep an eye on them. When parking, please be careful to observe the parking lot markings, and only park in marked parking spaces. Last time, some people parked in areas intended for parking lot navigation, which can cause issues with parking lot traffic and fire/first responder access. We look forward to seeing all of you there!*" https://www.meetup.com/DFW-Retrocomputing/events/305135267/ Virtual Coco/Tandy Fest is January 25, 2025, and now has it's own website site up: Mark Overholser is the driving force for it, and can give updates on speakers, etc. https://tandyretroshow.com/ VCF-SoCal - Feb 15-16 (Hotel Fera in Orange, California. https://www.vcfsocal.com/ VCF East is April 4-6, 2025 - same facility as this year. Info Age Science Museum, Wall, NJ. https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/ CocoFest is May 2-3, 2025 (with takedown on the morning of May 4/Sunday) at the Holiday Inn & Suites in Carol Stream (Wheaton), Illinois. Hotel rooms at the special Fest rate are available now ($122/night for two queens or 1 king bed), and apply for May 2-5. You will need to use the Group Rate code of G30 to get this rate, and getting the special rate ends April 7. Bookings for tables will be going up in January. https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/ Tables go on sale January 1 at noon, Central standard time. VCF-SW in Texas has been booked with dates: June 20-22, 2025 at the Davidson Gundy Alumni Center, University of Texas, Dallas, Texas. Tables & Tickets will go on sale January 2025. $20/adult ($25 if bought at the door), $10/student ($15 at the door). 17 and under are free (with accompanying adult). Tables are $50. https://www.vcfsw.org/ BoatFest will be July 11-13 in Hurricane, WV. Tandy Assembly for 2025 dates have been announced - it will be Sept 26 to Sep 28 at the Courtyard by Marriott Springfield Downtown in Springfield, Ohio: https://www.tandyassembly.com/ Tim Lindner let me know that next year's Portland Retro Gaming Expo runs from October 17-19 in 2025 (they just had this years Sept 27-29). https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform) ------------------------------- 1) For those that downloaded VCC 2.1.9.1 the day of our last show, and use the debugging features, EJ Jaquay posted on the Coco Discord that he had to a quick update to fix a bug. So if you downloaded before the morning of Dec. 22: https://github.com/VCCE/VCC 2) The Coco Crew surprised us with a new episode of The Coco Crew (just over a year since their last episode) with episode 99: *** (There are some discussions they had - you can discuss on the panel and chat the same subjects if you wish). *** http://cococrew.org/ 3) La Coco Strangiato on YouTube (alias Bob Emery on the Coco Discord and The Coco Nation Show) released a video explain the updates he has done to the Artemis Keyboard upgrade... including his first ever firmware updates: https://youtu.be/-dg2u9QDOrA?si=2ZcWxK-0y6rFQ0TR 4) A video titled "Top 10 Things You Didn't know about the Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer" was put on YouTube on the "Mx. Victoria Rayne Havens W9JYD channel: https://youtu.be/5Rqlw-3WwRY?si=Q4wyg7SZpTNPg2dJ 5) The VintNerd on YouTube did a long video with the manufacturer of the Fujinet hardware, Brian Cox, covering where the hardware is for a multitude of platforms including the Coco. The VintNerd is also the one of the people who run VCF-SoCal: https://youtu.be/0XcsSznKbTs?si=icGYayo7H2e60mwx (Coco section): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XcsSznKbTs&t=4725s 6) Canadian Retro Things (Ken Waters) posted his final video for 2024, summarizing what he did and some of his favourite moments over the past year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51A1QvSMX6I&t=612s&pp=ygULdGFuZHkgY29sb3I%3D 7) Jason Kubin posted a short video about the Radio Shack franchise that he and another person are opening (hopefully already opened - they were shooting for January 1) in Moorefield: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162191699527641/ 8) A minor update from David Collins on his HB63C09M project - he rolled back to using HC logic for the Bill of Materials to build the 6309 based board (it was occasionally missing reads and writes using AHC logic if the 6309 was running native mode). https://www.facebook.com/groups/403922002342070/posts/478122224922047/ 9) Mauricio Matte posted a photo on Facebook of some reproduction joysticks he has made that match the original design of the CP-400 Brazilian Coco clone joysticks. And hidden in the background he has the very rare CP450 disk drives as well: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162211872462641/ MC-10 ----- 1) Jim Gerrie ported a program that originally appeared in the Triangle Sinclair User Group newsletter from it's March 1984 issue. It was originally written by Phil Kegelmeyer and is described as a domo program of some simple A.I. concepts, and is called "Edge Detection Program": https://youtu.be/UGwWoQiu57w?si=Eff06xcTI-I5cyV8 2) He also posted a Merry Christmas animation graphics program him and his sone Charlie on Christmas Eve: https://youtu.be/LZR7elOJbmY?si=QG1dSkZ-NWApLnic Dragon 32/64 ------------ 1) Tomeu Capo posted some screenshots of his Dragon 64 running OS-9 Level 1 and with an external terminal attached to the serial port (and a quick video of him logging in from the terminal): https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3904238886502418/ 2) There is a discussion on the Dragon Facebook group (started by Phil Harvey-Smith) about getting EDIT128 (an 80 column supporting text editor to use with the DragonPlus board), about different versions of the 6845 chip not working correctly, while others do. And trying to figure out how to tell if one will work or not: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3903131459946494/ Game On news (all Coco related platforms): ========================================== 1) David Mitchell of Davy's Retro Corner on YouTube produced an updated version of an old BASIC game from the Rainbow Book of BASIC Programs that was published by W.H. Smith in 1984 and was originally called Xmas. David made some updates to it (added title & instruction screens, changed the original text objects to color blocks, widened the play area, and added a count of attempts on the main gameplay screen) and renamed it Gift Drop at the same time. The object to time hitting the period key to drop a a present through the chimney on the bottom: The video of gameplay: https://youtu.be/ZBUlntH_ib4?si=ZOGwsyVhtxuWnuGr Github link to download the source: https://github.com/daftspaniel/RetroCornerRedux/tree/main/Dragon/TypeIns/GiftDrop 2) Jim Gerrie ported Evasion to the MC-10, originally a snake type game from Creative Computing in 1979. But it has a twist; you have to flee an ever growing computer controlled snake (and there is game options for jumping, too): https://youtu.be/nBqvVzPsLTM?si=z1LHUG-wjws2EW7u 3) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube released a video showing the new map feature he is adding to his Tales of Suburbia BASIC game, and also mentions that Ghost Saga is now available for download (from my games site, where it has it's own entry): https://youtu.be/RCWdTg3fJ8M?si=Z4tsc8KCLDTCDlTh 4) The Amigos did their 2024 Game of the year awards (best and worst) for all of their show, starting with the Coco Show: https://youtu.be/-a7Eb9lZDnw1 5) TGP Highscore Runs on YouTube did a bunch of gameplay videos for the Dragon 32 this past week, including: Cuthbert and the Golden Chalice Cuthbuert Goes Walkabout Crazy Painter Talking Android Attack Cosmic Clones Barmy Burgers Astro Blast (scroll to bottom of playlist for these most recent ones): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdU-q6CceuQLFFkdeZFSqSjlTeVTiJtGv 6) YouTube channel Zolaeria did a real indepth review of Rescue on Fractalus, starting with the original Atari 8 bit version. The Coco 3 version also gets a good sized review, although she isn't that impressed with it (she did have the wrong monitor type selected so the colors were completely wrong)... but she is not wrong on most of her criticism's comparing it with the Atari 8 bit original: Video link: https://youtu.be/28zEPLaHrc0?si=XbXvpgL_zToL8ivM Coco 3 port version part: https://youtu.be/28zEPLaHrc0?si=3SS0xbFCnJq9FWJL&t=2097 7) Jason Musser posted some photos of a fairly rare Coco version of the Adventure International Value Pack - a group of 3 Scott Adams adventure games (adventures 10-12 in this case: Save Island Part 1, Savage Island Part 2 and Golden Voyage). He also showed his original docs for both Donkey King and Calixto Island: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162192564352641/ Speak your mind! 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