The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 304, March 11 2023
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
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1) Allen Huffman dig a blog post deep diving into how tokenized lines are
stored in BASIC and how much memory they take. He even includes a BASIC
subroutine that can report on the BASIC program it is merged with. There
is also a sequel blog hinted at at the end of the article as well:
2) James Diffendaffer posted both a screenshot and listing of a port to
the Coco 1/2 of a Colonial Viper from the original Battlestar Galactica
TV series, that was originally written by Monty McGraw in 2000 for a Tek 4052
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160514688972641/
(See playable video in the comments by Paul Shoemaker showing a Cylon in
sites – animated on the Coco).
3) The 64 bits or less Retro Gaming Festival is taking place at the Benton
County Fair Grounds in Corvallis, Oregon (and is sponsored by the Portland
Retro Gaming Expo) that takes place on June 3-4. They mention the consoles,
light gun based systems and home computers that will be out for people try,
including the Coco. I should also mention that Tim and AJ will be attending
from the Sibling Rivalry show:
https://www.64bitsorless.com/
4) TRS-80 Retro Programming uploaded a video about doing reverse masking
with PUT in Extended BASIC, which we may cover ourselves later in the show:
https://youtu.be/F3j9BY2j1mM
5) Thanks to Alderson Retro Computing for pointing this out:
Darren Atkinson released an update (firmware version 127 and SDC-DOS
version 1.75) for the CocoSDC on February 27, which you can download at
http://cocosdc.blogspot.com. This includes fixes to CRC error reporting and
and when it is inserted in sector ID fields when formatting, and Deleted
Data Address Marks (DAM). I believe these are related to his working with
Carl England on making the SDF image handling more robust (mostly for copy
protected disk images). Other updates:
– added command to switch to specific image in a Disk Set
– added option for 8 bit transfers in the Write Logical Sector command
(so we can use TFM if you have a 6309). He warns that it has NOT been
tested for reliability at 1.78 MHz on a Coco 3
– added options for creating/mounting files that aren’t necessarily
disk images. These can only be accesses using LBA sector commands or the
STREAM command
– Creating/modification dates – instead of the old generic very old date,
the CocoSDC will now set the date/times to midnight on the build date of
the firmware (Feb 27, 2023 for this latest version, but it will change
on newer builds in the future.
SDC-DOS 1.75 update adds the following enhancements:
– Added ability to change the step rate for any REAL drives hooked up:
DEF STEP=r (r can be 6,12,20,30 (ms))
– BACKUP command has been changed to not erase the current program and
variables from memory.
– DSKINI command has been changed to not erase the current program and
variables from memory, and also will tolerate up to 6 granules of that
contain bad sectors before aborting. If any are found, they are marked
as Allocated in the File Allocation Table (ie it won’t let you use them).
– Sector I/O code has been rewritten to use Status polling rather than HALT
and NMI “infinite loop” method. This prevents problems that can happen on
Coco 1 or 2 machines due to a lack of pull up resistors on the address
bus and Read/Write lines (he notes particularly if a 6809 was replaced
with a 6309).
MC-10
—–
1) Brendan Donahe posted both on the Coco Discord and the MC-10 Facebook
group that he has the wired USB keyboard/Atari joystick adapter working well
on the MC-10, and that he is now working on a new 3D printed spacer to fit
between the two halves of the MC-10 case to have room for the ports. He
also mentions that one should be able to have both this upgrade AND the
CocoVGA installed at the same time and fit within this case spacer:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/5882187338574706/
Dragon 32/64
————
1) Chris Poacher posted in his “Microdeal – The 8 bit years” Facebook
group a pretty interesting historical document from Microdeal – their
2nd price list which shows all of their available software with prices,
for ALL the systems they supported at the time. It also includes an ad for
Buzzard Bait, and the top 10 list for the Dragon (Chris thinks it was made
in late 1984 or early 1985):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/204334613785733/posts/1197636294455555/
He also showed some alternate early tapes that Microdeal sold – black
cassettes instead of the more standard white they usually used:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/204334613785733/posts/1195281361357715/
2) Ciaran posted in the Dragon Facebook group about some hidden options
in the “cvbs” branch of the Linux source for XRoar, which has some extra
options, with more options for video artifacting colors, and including
extra controls for brightness, contrast, hue and various filter pipeline
options. You will have to recompile from this branch to get these options,
but for those of you for whom Linux is your native OS and development
system, this is definitely worth taking a look at:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3412645708995074/
3) Varun Khanna in the Dragon Facebook group is taking a survey of peoples
favorite Dragon 32 games as part of research for a project he is working
on for the group. Get your votes in!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3411630652429913/
4) Spanish YouTube channel ParcelaDigital, el blog de Manuel Llaca,
does an almost 40 minute tour of the computer museum at the University
of Zaragoza, which covers a ton of retro computing (and even earlier),
including the Dragon 32.
(in spanish, so turn CC on and change auto-translate under settings to
English):
https://youtu.be/LDVUwdrlZ9U?t=770
5) YouTube channel “The only way is OLED display” put up a video called
“Dragon User 40th Anniversary” to celebrate the fact that 2023 is 40th
anniversary of the launch of “Dragon User” magazine:
https://youtu.be/GFf01PM0Tgc
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) TRS-80 Computer Programming on YouTube shows some further updates to
his Ghost Saga BASIC game that he is working on, including a new player
position/sprite and shows some of the adventure style elements that he is
adding to the game:
https://youtu.be/ZMa_sdpCELk
2) Jim Gerrie posted “Dr. Who Adventure” originally for the Atari 400/800
from the magazine called “Computer & Video Games”, March 1983 issue. He
even fixed a bug from the original code (GOSUB’s without proper RETURN’s):
https://youtu.be/BcX-sgNgZDE
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