[Index]
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 422, July 19,2025 (July 12-July 18)
=============================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle
Special NOTES:
--------------
For those who want to try an online BBS running on a real 512K Coco
3, you can reach Terry Trapp’s RiBBS system here (please note that
this an active development machine so the BBS occasionally goes down
when Terry is working on hardware, etc).:
telnet ribbs.griswoldfx.com 6809
Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
VCF West at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California is
August 1-2, from 10 am-6 pm Friday and 9 am-5 pm Saturday. There are
usually some Coco people at the show (both attendees and exhibitors),
and we have had walkthroughs before that show it to be a fun show
with a lot of history since it is in Silicon Valley:
https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/
VCF-Midwest (the largest retro show in North America, I believe) is
September 13-14 at the Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg,
Illinois. This year is the 20th anniversary of this show, and there is
a lot of collaboration between CocoFest and VCF-MW, so expect a large
number of Coco and Glenside people at the show! Still free admission,
and hotel booking is open already.
https://www.vcfmw.org/
That same weekend, Retro World Expo will be held September 12-14 at
the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Connecticut. Tickets
and vendor applications aren't quite ready yet but will be soon. This
is a gaming oriented retro show (including tournaments) but also
includes things like wrestling:
https://retroworldexpo.com/
Also that same weekend, for Canadians and anyone wanting to travel
up to Canada, the WoRC (World of Retro Computing) show is September
13-14 at the old Goudies Department Store location at 8 Queen Street
North, Kitchener,ON, Canada (West of Toronto, and right beside The
Museum). This is a general retro show with a bunch of gaming and home
computer platforms, vendors, seminars, LAN parties, workshops, door
prizes & raffles and is sponsored by Retro Rewind. Admission is free,
and it runs noon to 5 pm Eastern on both Saturday and Sunday:
https://worldofretrocomputing.com/
Tandy Assembly for 2025 is Sept 26 to Sep 28 at the Courtyard by
Marriott Springfield Downtown in Springfield, Ohio. NOTE 1: If you
attended CocoFest this year, bring your badge to Tandy Assembly, and
you will get in for FREE! NOTE 2: Peter Cetinski issued an update on
May 13 - all tables are officially sold out:
https://www.tandyassembly.com/
And they have some exhibitors already (click Exhibitors link)
This year's Portland Retro Gaming Expo runs from October 17-19 in
2025 (they just had this years Sept 27-29). Oregon Convention Center,
Portland, Oregon.
https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/
Canada is getting it's own official VCF - Montreal, January 25-26
of 2026. It will be held at the Royal Military College outside of
Montreal, but I don't have any more details (the venue, for example)
yet:
https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/
Tentative date for CocoFest 2026 - April 24-25, as mentioned in the
Glenside meeting this past week. Not 100% confirmed, but sounded
pretty solid.
**** NEW NEWS ORDER TO HELP OUR LIVE EUROPEAN VIEWERS ****
NOTE: We are planning to do a special “Coco 4” episode in the
future, which will included all the computers that were announced in
the 1991-1994 time frame that were supposed to be successors to the
Coco 3. We have Joel Ewy who has volunteered to show off their MM/1,
I am going to try and get my TC-9 up and running at least enough
to show it working, and Rick Ulland will show off a Delmar System
V… but we still need volunteers with TC-70’s, Kix-20 or Kix-30,
Delmar System IV, AT-306 and MM/1 B’s. Anybody still have these
machines that they would like to show off in an upcoming show? Email
me at curtisboyle at sasktel.net if you are.
Dragon 32/64
------------
1) bluearcus on the World of Dragon forums has uploaded a link to a
utility called VDK2DSK on his github, which will convert VDK disk
images to the JVC/DSK format, including options to control header
output. This is the native Dragon format with extended info (like
and SDF or DMK) to the simpler JVC format which is basically just
the readable part of sector data.
Github link:
https://github.com/bluearcus/vdk2dsk
2) Tom Erik Gundersen (regular live viewer of the show) has uploaded
a ZIP file of variety of Dragon games in DSK format for use with the
MiSTer FPGA and it’s Dragon emulation. You can down them from the
Dragon group on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4093949664198005/
3) Gary Moulton posted a video showing the production test software
used by Dragon Data, running a Dragon 32. As Gary notes, normally
this was interrupt driven, but he is doing it manually so there are
pauses that would not have shown up in production testing:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4092798740979764/
4) Julian Brown posted an updated – he has the CPLD programming
timing for the 6847 (VDG) chip basically working now:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4090743664518605/
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) Spanish YouTube channel ‘felisuco’ posted a video showing a
European PAL Coco 2 getting unboxed, and that’s some history about
the Coco (7:14 shows the “haul” that was found):
https://youtu.be/RCNQn_cRgtI?si=qci7nJqnZrOXxhhb
2) Dave Bernazzani on the Coco Facebook group posted that he has
released version 1.1 of his Nintendo DS Coco ˝ and Dragon emulator,
fixing most bugs and allowing more of the cassette, disk and cartridge
libraries to work. OS9 Level 1 programs are still not running properly
yet, due to timing in the emulated disk controller:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162960163512641/
3) Antonio Caballero released a video showing his latest “Tower
of Power” cartridge (and now) and SD card holders. He also gives
links to thingiverse that allows one to make their own with their
own 3D printer:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162957459082641/
4) Erico Monteiro released an animated GIF showing an artifacted cat
character traveling between screens – possibly an upcoming game?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162951530892641/
5) Website leadedsolder.com has an article on making a composite
modifiactio for a Coco 1… and a Mattel Aquarius:
https://www.leadedsolder.com/2025/07/15/tandy-trs80-coco-composite-mod-aquarius.html
6) Adam Behrendt posted a picture of his dad’s Coco 1 (with Super
Pro keyboard from Mark Data Products), and mentioned that his did
was one of the co-authors of the Intracolor games, including Colorpede:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162963019482641/
7) Mark Casteleijn posted a photo of a Coco 3 from the Canberra VCF
going on this weekend in Canberra, Australia:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162962734022641/
8) Alex Comber posted a photo of his Coco 1 system from the Wisconsin
Computer Club show that happened last night:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162962488197641/
MC-10
-----
1)
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) I missed this last week, for Sibling Rivalry last week played the
Coco 3 version of Lunar Lander (By Jeff Donze):
https://youtu.be/YUag5uXn44s?si=rP-FR5p-TMB_wqxe
2) Paul Shoemaker has released his next Coco 1/2/3 and MC-10 arcade
style game, this time porting Paku Paku (originally by Kenta Cho
of ABA games). This is a single line/row of dots version of PacMan,
with one ghost and one power pellet with screen wraparound. Videos
of both the Coco and MC-10 versions:
Coco 1/2/3 version:
https://youtu.be/Vz-en9-oNLg?si=spm3U8ENJn0DVXST
MC-10 version:
https://youtu.be/HRBoEwLvu4E?si=9MRPPizNo8LwoXQw
Free download link for both from his itch.io page:
https://pshoemaker70.itch.io/paku-paku
He even got a mention on the website Vintage is the New Old:
https://vitno.org/2025/07/15/paku-paku-tandy-trs-80-color-computer/
3) YouTuber Attempts: A Gaming channel by LRU did another high score
attempt video this past week, this time taking on Screaming Abdabs
with a score of 3,210:
https://youtu.be/hysm-_epsGI?si=SFLGFvPuByjNcIos
He also played Ugh! With a score of 37,875:
https://youtu.be/MxDYamB8Mrg?si=q0N37u8YnlaXe3jm
4) Marlin Lee seems to be making up for lost time. After return
to Coco gameplay videos (or any videos, for that matter) in years,
he has 2 weeks in a row with multiple videos:
Planet Raider by Aardvark:
https://youtu.be/xgdzhvf66wg?si=l04Vlk8ucGxrJw91
Coco Croaker from a series of articles in Hot Coco magazine:
https://youtu.be/pu4l8DGbRVk?si=0utOFCl4QIYaKn7y
Fighter Pilot from Saguaro Software:
https://youtu.be/7MeW3Bc7oVU?si=tBr6voQbwFfeBKbP
Sea Dragon:
https://youtu.be/4XsTSyO46Ao?si=7sj5iKvMI88Bv2BW
Shooting Gallery:
https://youtu.be/1BVyEXYcEnI?si=BTh3xXx4zGU9uhG6
5) Jim Gerrie ported Family (sort of a game or simulation), using
genetics to determine what later generations will look like),
originally by Andy Gamble for the Commodore PET from the March 1982
issue of COMPUTE! Magazine:
https://youtu.be/ElFQAtOK3uA?si=SoddaYA1muliCXxZ
He also ported CHKSRUN2 originally for the TRS-80 Model 1 by an
unknown author in the early 1980’s. Jim notes that this Checkers
style game end may be a bit buggy:
https://youtu.be/vyBHk0NeLnY?si=Aj-klld2YYDsVLQc
6) XperTek continues on Disk 7 of his old Coco games collections. This
time around he covers:
Pirate (another of the Tandy Card Games collection) originally by
James Garon:
https://youtu.be/751aFbbU_IQ?si=0kaNt-HdrDV8PM9k
7) Paranoid Cactus (not sure who that is) has released Spooks – a
Halloween game that bears some resemblance to Lode Runner, but with
more complex enemies and treasure gathering. The DSK image can be
found in the #general-gme-discord channel on the Coco Discord:
8) pw_32x on the Coco Discord put up a new work in progress video
showing Downland game play. His description of the current version:
“Re: Downland for 3DO. Current progress on the port. Player
still needs the squashed animation and the regen effect. Still
need to display hud text and lives icons. Encountered the
touch-treasure-and-die bug once again.
Speak your mind! Let us know what you think at:
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