The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 430, September 13,2025 (Sep 6-Sep 12) ============================================================================= 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: ------------------------------------------------------------ Thundercon (A Comic Con at the Canadian Lakehead Exhibition Grounds in Thunder Bay, Ontario) is September 20-21. Ken Waters (Canadian Retro Things) will be hosting his Tandy display along with the Thunder Bay Retro Computer Club on the 2nd day (Sunday, September 21). If you are in the area, pop by! https://thundercon.ca/event/thundercon-2025/ 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 at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon. https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/ This year’s RetroSC (a general retro show in Brazil, with a lot of Coco and Coco clones present) is November 15, 2025 in Florianopolis, SC, Brazil. Native Portuguese site: https://retrosc.org/ Google translate to english version: https://retrosc-org.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp 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. And hotel rates are locked in now (see post on Glenside website) https://www.glensideccc.com/ That same weekend is the first official Latin American VCF, which takes place April 24-26 in Bahia Blanca, Argentina: https://vcf-espaciotec-com-ar.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp **** 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) Julian Brown posted an update to his controller prorotype on the Dragon Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4153161824943455/ Julian also posted an update to his RGB output for the NTSC color set, and posted a photo showing the up to 4096 colors that it can generate: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4149967385262899/ 2) The Dragon Data Archive posted on Facebook about the scanning of another Dragon programming book – “Dragon 32 Machine Code for Beginners” by Compudat (I think this is Richard Harding?): Post about the scan: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0kM6ob636oXDmxEJgbiTcAiFfJMBJYkoc12UYjQpzsiekKcG8e5PRaGGMQqYKJXvel&id=61559577723302 Direct download link for the PDF manual: http://www.dragondata.co.uk/DROPBOX/D32_Machine_Code_for_Beginners.pdf 3) And related to the above manual being scanned – David Linsley went down a rabbit hole based on that post, finding the issue of Dragon User magazine where the book was mentioned (December 1986 for those interested), which also had a review for a 3D isometric game called The Curse of Carmac. He posted a magazine screen shot showing the game, but it is one that no copy has been found. It was reviewed twice, so it definitely did exist. Does anyone listening have a copy of this game? UPDATE: In the comments, we found out that there *is* a copy of it on the archive, published by P.S.E. computers: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4148959355363702/ 4) Federico Achaerandio on YouTube posted a video showing a bouncing ball demo that he ran on his real Dragon 64, with the CocoSDC installed and running on a VGA monitor with the Dragon AV cable and a SCART to HDMI/VGA adapter: https://youtu.be/m3IDLN6ZkRg?si=gUI6y0TvC8k-lR87 Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform) ------------------------------- 1) CMOC version 0.1.94 has been released. It has multiple additions/fixes: - atoi, atoui()strtof() and atoff() now support eating leading “white space” characters - printf() and sprintf() now accept minimum field widths for INT values as well as left or right justification - a new command line option has been added to enable/disable warnings for array size of 0 - minor optimizations. CMOC can generate both DECB and OS9 programs, and can be found here: http://gvlsywt.cluster051.hosting.ovh.net/dev/cmoc.html UPDATE: VERSION 1.96 WAS RELEASED LAST NIGHT AS WELL: - There was a 1.95 released earlier this week, which updated printf() to support minimum field lengths for long variables, and fixed some bugs. 1.96 fixed a printf bug. 2) La Coco Strangiato (Bob Emery) on YouTube put up a 20+ minute video on how to remove the SALT chip from a Coco 2 with basic tools: https://youtu.be/H7WwehU0Ng8?si=SbvwgMcUsvF_lw8V 3) Xiphod / voidstar tech put up a video showing his progress in making a BASIC version of Dungeons of Daggorath for the CommanderX16 (that’s the Eight Bit Guy’s project, I think?). He also mentions at the end of he video that an article about the project will be in an upcoming issue of the new Compute Gazzette magzine: https://youtu.be/AEi9IYwAoog?si=PrX6szl0HksTOlft 4) VCF MidWest is on this weekend, and we hope to have live coverage from Paul Fiscarelli and others. Just to show the sheer scale of this year’s show, Jim Brain posted some photos from early in the set up, before tables started to fill up: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163184727152641/ 5) Craig Marshall posted some pics from the Adelaide Retro Computing event in Adelaide, New South Wales, Australia, including Tandy and Coco related stuff to celebrate SepTandy: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163183490542641/ 6) Tony Licari from Australia also posted some pictures, in his case of the Coco Cartridge caddy that we have shown on the show before, designed by Antonia Cabellero. In this case, the previously mentioned Craig Marshall 3D printed it for Tony himself: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163182646127641/ 7) Brian Blake posted a 1+ minute video showing his running Lyra driving a Music Maestro MIDI card – Retro Innovations modern version of the old Coco MIDI interface. He does note some weird noise when using the mouse (I *think* it might be the extra CPU time required to sample joysticks in the background?). He also compares the “standard” TV output 4 voice from the Coco itself, vs. the up to 8 note MIDI version using a Casio CTK-471 synthesizer: https://youtu.be/Kr6ucSA-T3s?si=9oUvUP8ExN1bo8Mf 8) MicroHobbyist on YouTube (our very own panelist Frederic) put up a 35+ minute video for his rebooted 6309 based single board computer project: https://youtu.be/pSqKW4V6c6g 9) John Papas posted on the Coco Facebook group a mockup of his upcoming Coco 3 portable laptop, which will involve a new case with a flip up screen as well as a battery. He does mention that is not a product he will be selling; just making for his own collection. So PortaCoco is the place to go to if you are interested in getting something similar for your own system: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163175320632641/ 10) Antonio Caballero appears to be working on making 3D printed models of the various monsters in the Coco classic game Dungeons of Daggorath (note: there is a short video showing the Wizard model rotating): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163172928552641/ 11) Alison DeNu released an updated version of her “Character Doctor” program from last week for SepTandy, called “Character Doctor Deluxe”, which adds lowercase to the PMODE 4 character set: Post about it: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163171224187641/ Download link from Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xmh0EDljuLsqVEzGkLp4dN2DdhflsoHC/view 12) Jace Cisnero posted in the Coco Facebook group that he is going through the Dungeons of Daggorath source code with the goal of trying to port it to the Amiga, and he has some questions: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163166143307641/ He has also two videos related to the project: Exploring DOD in September: https://youtu.be/DsrQwn8w7ek?si=Vr5DU5k3U9lZb65O Random dungeon generator (where he has it working the same as the Coco version): https://youtu.be/5OrzXdxYBZ8?si=1WZA-RN0BGqYc95I 13) Microsoft has released the original source code for the 6502 version of their BASIC… which is the foundation of their later 6809 version. Could they allow the 6809 source to be released to the public as well? I have heard that Microsoft’s own 6809 version is missing (which is too bad, because the Deluxe Color Computer’s Advanced Extended BASIC would be part of that), but a copy of the Dragon 32’s original source by Microsoft and Dragon Data has been found, so could we get full permission to release it and maybe change a few things to cover the Coco 1 and 2 BASIC’s? https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/09/03/microsoft-open-source-historic-6502-basic/ 14) Chris Poacher posted some magazine scans from Home Computer Weekly magazine on his Microdeal Facebook group that involve the Dragon, incuding articles and ads: https://www.facebook.com/groups/204334613785733/posts/1772493926969786/ 15) Retrogamer Gen X on YouTube posted an almost 12 minute video with the history of Radio Shack/Tandy computers, including the Coco: https://youtu.be/BX8ArBuG3VE?si=Th7rS6FOOuznZzmL 16) 8bitsinthebasement released VLOG2 for his current work in progress, Super Shooty Aliens, where he covers his experiments on using different screen modes to achieve the best effect he can for both NTSC and PAL based Coco’s (and Dragons): https://youtu.be/9hrLdC7rPbI?si=zS498rkRZaPYPLPZ 17) BoysonTech is bringing back it’s 2 MB RAM Boomerang RAM upgrade, but with a new twist – it uses the 44 pin PLCC version of the 6309 (a square chip) which allows it’s footprint to be even smaller: >From Richard Lorbieski: "BoysonTech to display a sneak peak of their new 2 Meg Boomerang board. CPU DAT uses a genuine Hitachi PLCC-44 63C09 CPU. Very few people knew that Hitachi also produced a PLCC version of the 63x09. We were to reduce the DAT board by 25%. It's now the nearly the size of a Hitachi 40 pin DIP CPU. The new board will have a PLCC socket. 6 Layer DAT board featuring 2 separate ground planes. Removable staking pins - if a pin breaks, they can be easily replaced. 2 Meg board is now the shape of a Boomerang.” Freshly posted pics this morning: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163187830917641/ 18) Veronica Explains, Action Retro and Taylor & Amy (collectively known as The Stop Bits when they appear in band form) have released their EP called “Return From Interrupt (RTI is a 6809 opcode, of course) on Bandcamp, just in time for VCF-MW. Veronica posted a quick video announcing it on her channel, which I am plugging because 1) She does have a Coco, and 2) Taylor and Amy have made multiple Coco / MC-10 video and have attended CocoFest multiple times: https://youtu.be/RSVaZwDFVrg?si=exCaxSPU8DAafwdt Bandcamp link to here the album: https://thestopbits.bandcamp.com/album/return-from-interrupt And their own website: https://www.thestopbits.net/ MC-10 ----- 1) Jim Gerrie posted a video of his conversion of the program “TF”, originally by John Krutch in the book “Experiments in Artificial Intelligence for Small Computers”, published in 1981. It is an early machine learning program: https://youtu.be/cGinsGea0fc?si=Tb5SOJm_st_67p2M Game On news (all Coco related platforms): ========================================== 1) Tim and AJ of the My Drunk Sibling YouTube channel had a live stream last night for episode 197 – and it was several Coco games that they didn’t announce in advance (start at 1:10): https://www.youtube.com/live/KoW7PogoX3c?si=6y6TIRpLZcO7WGZf 2) Retro Dudes on Facebook posted a video for SepTandy, showing Temple of ROM playing on real hardware: https://www.facebook.com/reel/2183053362176285 3) Jim Gerrie ported 3D Noughts & Crosses (originally by Steve Thomas in the May 1979 issue of Personal Computer World Magazine). It’s an early 3D Tic Tac Toe game: https://youtu.be/B2HdPy-vIek?si=QvsYVCUKf0VTI6oS 4) Retro Arcade Gaming on YouTube did a comparison of official and unofficial clones of Super Sprint – including Grand Prix Challenge by Diecom (23:21), one of their earliest Coco 3 games (unfortunately the sound was *very* minimal): https://youtu.be/BH5ubHIYgsQ?si=tf1nF-auPpVlDcBK 5) Marlin Lee posted a video of the game Robin Hood, originally for the Dragon 32/64, which we have played on the Game On Challenge some time ago: https://youtu.be/KbnL85BV59I?si=uU71hUEvyzaXVEOi 6) WhiskyTangoFoxtrot on YouTube posted a SepTandy gaming video – assorted arcade ports on the Coco that is almost an hour long. He covers Dunkey Munkey, Donkey King and Zaxxon : https://youtu.be/JK2_hu2wtGc?si=GdfeCu_lLyEtTwBT He also posted part 2 of his playthrough of Calixto Island, which he completes: https://youtu.be/P-1K2XOqjEk?si=xgv2fgQQUnRKP8SS 7) XperTek did another Coco 2 gameplay video from his disk #8 collection – this time covering Moon Hopper by Computerware: https://youtu.be/q7XU4D9noxQ?si=oE8PzHDx9AR_oiQS 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/