[Index]
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 433, October 4,2025 (Sep 27-Oct 4)
===========================================================================
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 East is holding a swap meet October 18 in Wall, New Jersey. This
is a fund raiser for the VCF-East show. Specific location is in a
parking lot, and they have a Google Maps link to find it:
https://vcfed.org/vcf-swap-meet/
The DFW (Dallas/Fort Worth) Retrocomputing Show and Tell is happening
Saturday, October 18 at the Bingo Bingo in Grand Prairie, Texas:
https://www.meetup.com/dfw-retrocomputing/events/310440840/
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/
The Retro Computer Festival is being held November 15-16 at Cambridge
in the UK, and this year�s theme is gaming:
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/74558/Retro-Computer-Festival-2025-(Gaming-Edition)-Saturday-15th-November/
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/
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) Jose RL posted a photo of a system used in Spain (I believe)
as part of driver testing, that used a Dragon as the basis. The
translated text from the image says (using Google Translate):
The first model of electronic psychometric testing developed by
Fernando Ortiz in 1982, based on a Dragon computer and a Sharp color
monitor. Image provided by Fernando Ortiz.
"At first, I wanted to do it mechanically," recalls Fernando, who
admits that his first attempt failed, "so I ended up developing
a system."
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4173698982889739/
2) Julian Brown posted an update, showing freshly delivered 6847/fpga
interposer and remote configuration control boards:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4172082126384758/
3) Richard Harding posted in the Dragon Facebook group that they
(him and Tim Gilberts) are doing a Dragon Social on October 25 at
the Kenfig Dragon Factory an then to The Park, in Barry, Wales:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4170679406525030/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4170694579856846/
https://www.facebook.com/events/818498324198229/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22attachment%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D
4) Robcfg in the World of Dragon forums has posted about some updates
to his file viewing utility, including doing disassembly (both 6809
and 6309)
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11145&start=20
Download link:
https://github.com/robcfg/retrotools/releases/tag/DragonDOS_v1.0.6
He also posted a question about having the utility able to handle
OS9 files as well � a firm �YES!� from me:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11145&start=40
5) Tony Jewell posted on the Dragon group on Facebook that he is
looking for some suggestions of games �that are really quick to
learn and addictive� to show off at the Retro Computer Festival
being held at Cambridge this year. He has some Paul Shoemaker games
already selected, but is looking for a few more:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4165894220336882/
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) As a followup to his live presentation at Tandy Assembly, Jim Brain
posted a blog article on his Retro Innovations website, covering the
GIME and how it�s MMU works at a hardware level in accessing the RAM
(128K or 512K):
https://www.go4retro.com/2025/09/30/more-memory-gimme/
2) Keith Frechette, whom we covered before doing his Structured
Assembly Language (SAL), posted his proposed operators for the 6809
on the Coco Facebook group, using C/C# like syntax, and is inviting
comments:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163281409407641/
3) Thomas Cherryhomes posted to the Coco Facebook group a tip on how
to find out who is in a Fujinet Game Lobby from the web:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163264445372641/
He also followed up on flattening the directory structure for
Coco/Games on the apps.irata.online server, which better allow
filtering and wildcard searches, and invites others to try it:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163242522502641/
4) Randy Kindig posted some photos from SepTandy on his Floppy Days
Podcast Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/floppydays/posts/4168690236722718/
5) Jason Warnes of RetroRewind attended a retro get together in
Calgary, Alberta Canada, and displayed his Coco 3 system:
Show photo �Calgary retro gathering from Jason Warnes.jpg� in
Coco Nation News folder
�So there was a little retro get together this past Sunday, and I
was happy to bring a Coco 3 to show folks. Besides everyone marveling
at what good shape the Coco was in, they were pretty impressed with
some of the games. Here I had Goop Rush running. A fun, approachable,
"one more time" kind of game to get people interested. Other systems
at the event were Amiga's, Macs, a couple Osborne luggables (one
which the RIFA cap failed after an hour or so), and a re-engineered
home-brew SG-1000 gaming console. It was a fun time.
It was held at a makerspace in Calgary (Canada) called Protospace.�
6) Glen Hewlett posted some updates he has done (and is working on)
for his BASIC-to-6809 compiler (taken from his Discord channel for
the compiler):
�From Glen Hewlett � update on the basic-to-6809 compiler:
Hey All, I know it's been awhile since I gave an update on the
compiler. I finally finished writing advanced 64bit floating point
math functions that are testing well.
; INVERT_DOUBLE ; Do 1/x where x is at ,S (value to invert), Result:
1/x at ,S
; DB_COPY ; Copy Double number from source location U to destination
location X
; DB_SWAP ; Swap Double values, Swap DB @ ,X with DB @ ,Y - All
registers unchanged
; DB_SQR ; Square a Double number @ ,S result @ ,S
; DB_CUBE ; Cube a Double number @ ,S result @ ,S
; DB_SQRT ; Compute Square Root of a Double number @ ,S result @ ,S
; DB_HORNER_EVEN ; Evaluate an even-degree polynomial using Horner's
method, then S=S+3, result @ ,S
; DB_HORNER_ODD ; Evaluate an odd-degree polynomial using Horner's
method, then S=S+3, result @ ,S
; DB_RATIONAL ; Evaluate rational function P(x)/Q(x) using two
Horner chains
; DB_FLOOR ; Compute floor(x) x is @ ,S return with Double value @,S
which is the INTeger vale of ,S
; DB_SIN ; Compute sine, sin(x), x is @,S result @ ,S
; DB_COS ; Compute cosine, cos(x), x is @,S result @ ,S
; DB_TAN ; Compute tangent, tan(x), x is @,S result @ ,S
; DB_ATAN ; Compute arctangent, atn(x), x is @,S result @ ,S
; DB_EXP ; Compute exponential number, exp(x), x is @,S result @ ,S
; DB_LOG ; Compute natural logarithm ln(x), x is @,S result @ ,S
I still need to optimize the code, but the hard part is over I also
need to make 32-bit floating point versions of these routines, but
that shouldn't be too much trouble as the code logic will be the same,
just have to handle 32-bit floats instead of 64-bit floats. So far
the size is 2904 bytes, optimized will probably increase the size
but I figure it will still be around 3k�
7) Retro Challenge 2025/10 is now underway, and is now ran by
the Australian Computer Museum Society (ACMS). Rules are posted,
and there are prizes (although I am not sure if the prizes are for
Australians only):
Main website:
https://www.retrochallenge.org/
Announcement & rules:
https://forum.acms.org.au/t/retrochallenge-2025-10/803
8) Wayne Campbell published a very technical article on his
BASIC09 website explaining how line #�s are handled internally in
BASIC09/RUNB both when editing with source, and once they are packed:
https://wayneca.neocities.org/Basic09/lineNums
He also posted a long video (almost an hour and a quarter) where he
goes into a deep dive into Complex & User defined data types:
https://youtu.be/5I4wjHzkF74?si=IjjmqP9tV_gx9Lx7
9) Retro Byte Meister posted a video on his YouTube channel about
upgrading his Coco 2 to composite:
https://youtu.be/EEhxQgH3DnU?si=ZQQC2drTd4DE1LbP
10) Tandy Showcase on Facebook posted about some Coco club newsletters
that they have recently acquired: CocoBUG from the Bedford,
Massachusetts, �New Member Tape� from the United Color Computer
Club in Florida, and CFDM (Coco Friends Disk Magazine) HARDCOPY by
Rick�s Retro Enterprise in Kentucky:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid0FskHpNEtGrUBRnDTVVjAkwAEpQCzWJ26yBXHGFc1qiwBVbS2GWs3c43dWmohJcd6l&id=61570145349315
11) David Graham did a quick post to the MM/1 group on Facebook,
where he mentions that looking at the schematics and video pinout
specs, it might be possibly add EDID functions to a prospective MM/1
CPU replacement board:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/5008534719371785/
12) Brian Blake posted blog post about Lyra & MIDI on the Coco to
his Tandy TRS-80 blog site as a contribution to SepTandy:
https://tandy-trs80.com/steptandy2025/
MC-10
-----
1) Jim Gerrie posted in the MC-10 Facebook group that he is working
on a port of The World of Eamon, Beginner�s Cave, for 20K RAM and
up MC-10�s, including a screenshot:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/24477540708612754/
He has uploaded a complete playthrough video now as well, and the
description has a link to the game on the Internet Archive:
https://youtu.be/Q8cP7BeMJjE?si=CNLNAE8Rzx7b2pyE
2) luvradios on YouTube as part of SepTandy did a a quick/look demo
of an MC-10 he acquired from a co-worker:
https://youtu.be/vBEkS5uJL6M?si=nBqLHKNsITpjCXkU
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Alison DeNu released a new Coco 1/2/3 maze game she is calling
Cuthbert Gear Solid for SepTandy. She posted it on Facebook,
including cover art, and a download link to her Google drive to
download the game:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163267679627641/
Download link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ted-yTuxQxNhdbnnJL-sR7C1TF4iqCLk/view
2) Kieren Hawken posted in the Dragon Facebook group that they are
going to be doing an upcoming video on the best games for the Dragon
32 (they have done it with other systems), and they are asking people
in the Dragon group to pick their top 5 games and why they chose them:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4171616619764642/
He also posted an early version for testing, as a sound file:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lgAkQP2it6ySmLPzna_S04aKPECUMeHX/view
And video of gameplay:
https://youtu.be/w0DjICj089o?si=wEFDgIQyVlQ1TA8F
3) James King (Retro Bytes) posted multiple gameplay videos of Dragon
32 games on his channel this past week, including:
Jet Set Willy:
https://youtu.be/pcDu8Wfo8vg?si=TU-wTUXwtQ1Irh5Q
Manic Miner:
https://youtube.com/shorts/gDz5xPN0A4c?si=bma_Vk9qDTdIqfE0
Pedro:
https://youtube.com/shorts/s4oXVh1t7kU?si=qd7KiNZRk0Y9Z-x5
Shark Treasure:
https://youtube.com/shorts/8q8gxCjk7Mg?si=L9YslJugtI2cv3Ef
Whirlybird Run:
https://youtube.com/shorts/lRsUihdAnl8?si=4iKqVOYU2-XXPAZc
4) Polish YouTube channel Borusk Retro Gry TV did a 6+ hour stream
of Dragon 32 games live this past week, and you can watch the whole
thing now from their YouTube channel (note: The beginning is general
banter and unboxing of non-Dragon things; the Dragon stuff starts
around 58:25, where he uses it with a CocoSDC). He even uses a Coco
black beauty to play:
https://www.youtube.com/live/WCPq7rB8Kus?si=RYugqh9F1t4aGoZl
5) Spriteworx released another teaser / background story video for
his upcoming MC-10 game:
https://youtu.be/vZdvnzaW7io?si=hljOvvR9XAx7EzIG
Speak your mind! Let us know what you think at:
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