The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 429, September 6,2025 (Aug 30-Sep 5)

Collected by L. Curtis Boyle and Presented Mark Overholser

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-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/

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!

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 Spanish site:
https://retrosc.org/
Google translate to english version:

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@sasktel.net if you are.

Dragon 32/64

1) Ciaran Anscomb has released XRoar 1.9. This fixes some bugs, adds
SAMX8 support, adds support for emulating the CP-400 Brazilian Coco
clone, and more:
https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/

2) Julian Brown posted about his Configuration remote control,
for which he has most of the software done and now needs to add the
hardware. It will let one boot a Dragon or Coco with various hardware
configurations:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4144654169127554/
He also posted a photo of his new boards all together (some small
components still needed, and the GAL needs some programming):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4142243299368641/

3) The Mastertronic Collectors Archive has blogged “Micro Natters
Part 3: A Mastertronic Re-Release Guid – Other 8 bit formats”. This
includes the Dragon game Bug Diver, along with other 8 bit systems:
https://mastertronic.co.uk/micro-natters-part-3-a-mastertronic-re-release-guide-other-8-bit-formats/

4) Sebs Place on Facebook posted in the Microdeal group that Chris
Poacher (who runs the Microdeal group) has donated a Dragon 32 and
many add-ons to him, and that he is now working on a video about what
it was like growing up with a Dragon 32:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/204334613785733/posts/1771056480446864/

5) Chris Poacher posted a scan about the unofficial history of Cuthbert
that originally appeared in Home Computing Weekly magazine issue 124
(Aug. 6-12 1985):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/204334613785733/?multi_permalinks=1772469970305515&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)

1) Sheldon MacDonald released an hour long video showing how he preps
MIDI music files for both his Coco and Sega Genesis projects, using
his Qmidi Studio program:
https://youtu.be/MUksBNj_gvQ?si=A-GEFHuBiuoa0Vw6

2) La Coco Strangiato (Bob Emery) uploaded a video to his YouTube
channel, where he attempts to get rid of the yellow bar in video
output on a Coco 2:
https://youtu.be/YaalJ70wBaY?si=_1b8bj8Sl5krP3bO

3) Wayne Campbell uploaded an hour long video to YouTube where he
investigates BASIC09 and how it’s Icode works with both BASIC09
and RUNB:
https://youtu.be/HV_wQSKhDKc?si=zNP1GGrYQfJJhCMZ

4) I think this was missed by Curtis last week: Allen Huffman on his
Sub Etha Software blog did a part 3 to the UnderColor magazine’s
spiral challenge, including optimized submissions and corrections to
the actual mission of the original article:
https://subethasoftware.com/2025/08/21/undercolors-spiral-challenge-from-1984-part-3/

5) Nicolas Maillouski posted in the Coco Facebook group that
Canada’s first VCF in Montreal this January is still taking exhibitor
registrations. Hopefully some Coco people can make it:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163157280987641/

6) Alison DeNu has returned for SepTandy, releasing a utility called
the Character Doctor. Written in Extended BASIC and available for
download, and is used for generating text characters on a PMODE 4
screen. (NOTE: There is a screenshot in the comments):
Main post:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163155844807641/
Direct Google Drive link (it may be on the Color Computer Archive
by showtime):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/19jpUeb0YsviXdRGBknZoy02iUqFM68hQ/view

7) Andrew Ayers released a DSK image on the Coco Facebook group that
contains page flipping demos for the Coco 3:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163148896202641/
He also uploaded a DSK image for PRINT speed tests, based on Jim
Mullis’ earlier upload. It contains 3 original and 3 optimized
versions:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163145659887641/
He also released a DSK image of 512K BASIC from Microcom, including
some instructions to the Coco Facebook group, for those who want to
expand the Coco 3’s capabilities in Super Extended BASIC to take
advantage of 512K RAM:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163158857442641/

8) Rich Stephens posted a few updates to FujiNet’s news client,
specifically for the Coco 3. The latest video improvements (which now
supports 32, 40 and 80 column modes) is shown in the Coco Facebook
group here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163143905167641/

9) Speaking of FujiNet … it’s originator, Thomas Cherryhomes,
will be at VCF-MW Sept 13-14 to show the various FujiNet systems off,
and will be attempting an Intellivision bring-up:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163132408862641/

10) John Papas posted photos and videos showing his Coco 2 portable
laptop style computer to the Coco Facebook group. I wonder how
this compares with PortaCoco that we have seen the last few years
at CocoFest?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163135091462641/

11) John Linville posted a photo of the game controller he received
from Paul Thayer, showing a different color combination:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163131943512641/

12) 8bitsinthebasement on YouTube (Hi Peter!) has started a new VLOG
series for a new game that he is working on called Super Shooty
Aliens. He shows the beginning of the code running, what the plan
for the game is, and then goes through assembly source to show how
the player’s ship moves and fires:
https://youtu.be/arDVAC8kJiI?si=uUtuRXvCb6DC9NGO
He posted his second VLOG this morning, covering how he does the
starfield effect:
https://youtu.be/7mke2fBJpGM?si=ztDMKMTU185zJGh-

13) Ken (Canadian Retro Things) Waters, esteemed panelist on the
Coco Nation and the Game On Challenge, has done a follow up video for
programming for the Electronic Book. It is titled “Math is Hard”,
so obviously he has been listening to Curtis and Nick too long:
https://youtu.be/kCPzTBJdgcw?si=orL9OH-uPrzwClNJ

14) CocoTown’s series of videos about Random number generation on
his YouTube channel got mentioned in the Portuguese YouTube podcast
Reporter Retro, in episode 117 (1:07:29, but one will need close
captions and auto translate turned on):
https://youtu.be/UA0K1psS2ss?si=SD2Zw3V3C-reRIOC

15) Sheldon Macdonald put up a short video showing a new 64K Coco
1/2/3 game that he is woking on:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163159861912641/

16) Henry over at The Break Key (welcome back!) released an hour
long video going into doing comparisons and logical operations in
the Forth ROM he is building:
https://youtu.be/ga617U_UPow?si=aPMBseqh32Uq4hh7

MC-10

1) Jay Mundy of SpriteWorx, who is working on a new MC-10 game that
he has been teasing (with guests!), suffered a bit of a set back
and made a sarcastic post about it. He has recovered (re-written)
the code that was lost:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/24212592775107550/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Marlin Lee released a video on his YouTube channel showing dot
eating games that are not just clones of PacMan:
https://youtu.be/4KwkkRc62v4?si=0gCojc4gY0uwjPNP
He also released a video showing one of the possible solutions in the
text adventure game Bedlam (which had a randomized solution each time
you played it, so it isn’t the same game every time you play it):
https://youtu.be/EVNFTrUhdCo?si=1Z6WucnhuJBQ9idL

2) Coco-Synthesis on YouTube released a video showing his Coco 3
version of PacMan, written in Coco 3 Super Extended BASIC. It has 6
mazes and 7 bonus fruits:
https://youtu.be/irhWQPIApoc?si=vB6vnS3ZTp-Llhxe
Download and source code links:
https://github.com/CoCo-Synthesis/BASIC-Pac-Man/releases/tag/v1.0.0

3) Andrew Ayers released an updated version of Color Blitz (like Canyon
Bomber on the C64, I believe) on the Coco Facebook group for the Coco
1/2/3 (NOTE: Screenshots in the comments). This was originally ported
to the Coco by Matt Voss based on the original VZ-200 version:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163139168042641/

4) Tim and AJ have released episode 196 (or is it 156? lol) of Sibling
Rivalry on their My Drunk Sibling channel, playing Blitz on the Coco:
https://youtu.be/F9XWoSK3Geg?si=JzmtUiHjzwtfabql

5) XperTek continues going through his Disk #8, this time playing
Gomoku Renju from Tandy:
https://youtu.be/wG3DwWj6Cj4?si=TlUnrTSt_zG5s7-r
And Megabug:
https://youtu.be/V52AYq3AFAU?si=HJkjOaC7c2KTUwpk

6) Dragon32 on YouTube posted a video of playing Shenanigans (one
of the early graphical text adventure games, originally by Mark Data
Products) on XRoar, right to the end and winning the game:
https://youtu.be/8CPIdFAD4zk?si=Fo855l8zeN1A1BqE

7) As part of SepTandy, YouTube channel WhiskyTangoFoxtrot posted some
game streaming videos playing Coco games, including his commentary:
Cashman:
https://youtu.be/EbN2S8Dk8Wo?si=3mqaY3TxrDnGUJ1C
Calixto Island part 1:
https://youtu.be/jWIjmdcyGME?si=evJz-Zi3-o4IYP4j

8) YouTube channel Cybercrime Debunkers posted a video showing scans
of every page from issue #1 of TILT magazine in France. There is some
Dragon 32 content hidden away in it’s pages (sorry, didn’t get
a chance to find where specifically):
https://youtu.be/l9P6mDGFZRU?si=2MKxlmBK7h3cHjfJ

==============================================================================

Speak your mind! Let us know what you think at:
feedback@TheCoCoNation.com

If replying on a mailing list, please trim replies to the specific
items.

Get connected with more of the CoCo, Dragon and MC-10 community here:
https://thecoconation.com/community/