[Index]
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 435, October 18,2025 (Oct 10-Oct 17)
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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
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.
Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
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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 Vernon BC Retro Mania is happening November 8th, showing off
various retro computers:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163312949837641/
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
World of Commodore is December 6-7 in Mississauga, Ontario at the
Admiral Inn. The show 'warmly embrace(s) enthusiasts of all retro
computer gear, not just the Commodore computers (although the SuperPET
does have a 6809 in it and runs a version of OS-9 Level 1' making
it a cousin to the Coco in a way).
https://woc.tpug.ca/
As Mark Overholser mentioned on our show, the next Tandy Retro Show
will be happening January 24 and 25th, which will be a series of live
YouTube streaming presentations. He is currently taking bookings of
people & topics. Send an email to:
registration at tandyretroshow.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/
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 ****
Dragon 32/64
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1) Julian Brown has revealed what his secret project that we showed
last week was; based on a challenge he received, he designed a C64
motherboard that will fit into a Dragon case. He dropped some more
hints and then reveals as this past week went on:
The last hint:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4186446488281655/
The 'final' main board:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4187604018165902/
Card to convert repro Dragon keyboard to C64 compatible:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4191159057810398/
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) CocoTown does a deep dive into how artifact colors in NTSC work,
including the Coco. He even has some outtakes at the end:
https://youtu.be/SqLJox6UQwg?si=673alUZ5iokaa9mG
2) Ben North posted in the Dragon forums at worldofdragon.org that
he is disassembling and commenting the Ken Kalish game Invader's
Revenge. He notes some programming tricks, some seemingly unused
variable,s and maybe even an unused alien graphic:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11313
His postings about it on github, including a port to Pytch (Python):
https://bennorth.github.io/dragon32-invaders-revenge/
3) George B. Janssen released two new videos (and DSK images can be
found under his channel on the Coco Discord) this past week:
Halloween Screen for the Coco 3:
https://youtu.be/vvLByIdiFXc?si=yc8uZDAvZXeP_kEr
Prime Numbers demo ' comparing speed with BASIC vs. assembly,
and also how well does ChatGPT handle making 6809 assembly language:
https://youtu.be/XzdFdcWWB8Q?si=fc5Y82kb9sn92p0c
4) Jules Ambrosi posted something Tandy related in the Coco Facebook
group ' an old model of a Tandy Electronics truck from Australia:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163326995447641/
5) YouTube channel Z4RT4N posted a video of his Coco 3 calling up
The Keep BBS with the RS-232 Pak:
https://youtu.be/y5VqpVtLJyA?si=n_px2Y5gwvRLp1yz
6) TRS-80 Retro Programing released a video showing how he uses MS
Notepad to write/edit/copy/paste BASIC programs:
https://youtu.be/ymk6M079tgo?si=T7V7u7gRZzDN3OQm
7) Allen Huffman has done two blog posts this week about hacking the
BASIC PRINT command on the Coco, based on a query by Erico Monteiro on
the Coco Facebook group, about doing 'transparent' character',
which would leave the contents of the screen under said character
alone, while changing any others being printed over:
Part 1:
https://subethasoftware.com/2025/10/16/hacking-the-color-basic-print-command-part-1/
Part 2:
https://subethasoftware.com/2025/10/17/hacking-the-color-basic-print-command-part-2/
MC-10
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1) Another promo video/story update for the upcoming MC-10 game from
Spriteworx has appeared:
https://youtu.be/n7eN8w2ct3Y?si=wcVcWpmGW7r1BtSu
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
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1) Tim & AJ released episode 201 of Sibling Rivalry, this time tackling
the Steve Bjork/Tandy classic Stellar Lifeline:
https://youtu.be/5l1pSnC5Uo4?si=RU_twNbU2rTVYQLl
2) Allen Turvey (alias HappyCoding on Discord) has decided to release
his Asteroids RX game for free. Allen did the original Spectrum
version, and Pere Serrat did the Dragon and Coco ports. This was
originally sold on Allen's itch.io site, but he is now releasing
it to the public. I have uploaded it to the Color Computer Archive;
it should be available soon.
3) XperTek has released his disk volume 8 'full video' (all the
games on the disk), including multiple games that we have shown before
' including Space Assault that was our Game On Challenge recently:
https://youtu.be/aieHbTnHE9g?si=RYzpkv0LXaK_3Fqi
4) YouTube channel hirudov put up a long play video of the Coco
official Zaxxon port:
https://youtu.be/GKwiyzL48-4?si=eOxDsEFDW-nzj6Uk
5) Thomas Cherryhomes put up a video showing a demo of all the Fujinet
platforms playing against each other in 5 card stud Poker, including
the Coco:
https://youtu.be/F4l51soCiiA?si=bfa_2TqUq4RhuMWb
Speak your mind! Let us know what you think at:
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