The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 459, April 4, 2026 (March 28-April 3)

Collected by L. Curtis Boyle and Presented by Mark Overholser and Rick Ulland

Interview schedule:

Not scheduled yet, but Logan Ward and Britt Monk have agreed to come on
the show.

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:

VCF-East is April 17-19 at the InfoAge Science and History Museums in Wall,
New Jersey. Peter Cetinski is going to be on the Podcaster’s RoundTable
panel (for the TRS-80 Trash Talk show, that does cover Coco’s in addition
to the other TRS-80 and Tandy machines):
https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/

CocoFest 2026 is April 24-25, as mentioned in the Glenside meeting this past
week. And hotel rates are locked in now (see post on Glenside website). Table
reservations are open now too. Holiday Inn & Suites Carol Stream, IL:
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

VCF-PNW (Pacific North West) is returning after multiple years in hiatus,
and is happening May 2-3 2026 in the Tukwila Community Center in Tukwila,
Washington:
https://www.vcfpnw.net/

The Brazil Color Computer Club has announced that their 10th meeting is
on May 2:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ClubeColor/posts/25741764422191262/

That same weekend is the next online live International Computer Club show
on the Twitch and YouTube channels for the Amigos. There has been Coco
content on there before; will there be this year? 7 guests have already
been booked as of this week. It starts at 4:30 pm EST on May 2:
https://www.youtube.com/@AmigosRetroGaming

VCF-SW (Southwest) is at a slightly different date this year (May 29-31)
because of the Soccer championships, and is happening at the Westin
Dallas Forth Worth Airport. This is of course where Tandy/Radio Shack was
headquartered, so expect some alumni to be popping by!
https://www.vcfsw.org/

Retro Fest in the UK is running May 30-31st at the STEAM Museum of
Great Western Railway in Swindon, 10 am to 5 pm both days, and there is
confirmation that a Dragon Fujinet rig will be shown at the show:
https://www.retrofest.uk/

The International Retro Computer Expo 2026 now has tickets available (this
was formerly BoatFest, ran by the Amigos – John, Aaron and Brent) for
their retro show happening July 10-11 (Friday/Saturday) (July 9/Thursday
vendors can set up in the evening). This is a general retro show for old
home computers, consoles and more, with gaming highlighted:
https://www.ticketsource.com/ircexpo2025/international-retro-computer-expo-2026/2026-07-10/09:00/t-qmjplra

VCF-MW (Midwest) is September 12-13 at the Schaumburg Convention Center
in Schaumburg, Illinois (west of Chicago proper):
https://vcfmw.org/

Tandy Assembly dates and new venue have been announced on Facebook. Oct
2-Oct 4 at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel at the Cincinnati Airport:
https://www.facebook.com/events/896272716427805/?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

NEWS:

Dragon 32/64

1) Tony Jewell posted some photos from last weekends Dragon Meetup:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4357720161154286/

2) Jim Brain posted some info on the CocoMem Jr, which actually might turn
into a Dragon project first, on the World of Dragon forums:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11349

3) DragonData on the world of Dragon forums posted a ROM download (and
screenshot) of a program that he suspects was a Dragon Data factory test
cartridge, to make sure the colors and characters on the VDG are coming
out right:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11350

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

1) R. Allen Murphy has been updating Coco Nation news summaries to Allen
Huffman’s Cocopedia, after Allen had to do some changes to the site. He
has the 2019 entries done now, and will continue to work on the others as
time permits:
https://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/CoCo_Nation_News_Archive

2) Glen Hewlett has released BASIC-TO-6809 version 5.25, which is some
more bug fixes from the previous 5.22 release:
Fixed SDC_DIRPAGE(0), was causing a stack corruption
Fixed V=VAL(“&H”+A$)
Fixed a problem with mixed two byte addition or subtraction one byte
operations
Fixed String concat, like S$ = “HELLO “+ “WORLD” was backwards, although S$
= A$ + B$ was fine
Fixed STRING$(), was totally broken
Adding missing command SLEEP to the manual, command existed but I forgot
to put it in the manual
Fixed a bunch of compare sizes that were incorrectly comparing the wrong
types on the stack

He then released a 5.26 with five more bug fixes:
Fixed compare code GreaterOrEqualLS2RU1 it was corrupting the stack
Fixed the EqualSameType8 routine, needed a LEAS 15,S at the end was a type
of LEAS 5,S
Fixed reversal of conversion code of FP5 types that were first in an
expression
Fixed compares with Single and Double types
https://github.com/nowhereman999/BASIC-To-6809Fixed non literal types
that start with – and mistakenly identified as unsigned should be signed

3) The other main BASIC cross compiler (ugBASIC, which is also multi-platform)
also had some updates. The Main branch is mainly general bug fixes (or
for machines other than Coco related), but the Beta branch has added SG4
support for 6847 based machines (Coco 1&2, Dragon 32&64, MC-10):
https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/beta

4) RPN’s blog (I think this is Richard Natali?) has an article where he
is using the Coco’s cassette port input as a game controller, based on
Steve Bjork’s Audio Spectrum Analyzer):
https://rpnweblog.blogspot.com/2026/03/color-computer-cassette-port-input-used.html

5) Paul Cunningham posted an update to his Star Trek type game port from
the original TRS-80 Model I game called Space Warp, including a video of
it in action:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164083990342641/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=uSox5BOjSvLwTWAY

6) Although manufacturing has not started yet, the CocoSDC2 specs have
been released by Darren Atkinson on the Coco Discord:

• Smaller board.
• No DIP switches or jumpers to configure.
• Allows up to four disk images to be mounted
  simultaneously from the SD card.
• Supports long-ish file names
  (up to 39 ASCII characters).
• ROM images up to 32K (Program Paks, Disk
  Basic ROMs) can be loaded from SD card.
  This replaces the Flash Banks of original SDC.
• On a CoCo 1 or 2 without an Extended Color Basic
  ROM, you can also have the ECB image loaded from
  the SD card (requires CoCo with at least 16K RAM).
• Real Time Clock and Battery.

7) Aaron Banerjee posted the patent for CLOAD for the Coco on the Coco
Facebook group, originally filed by Dale Chatham:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164097966002641/

8) Ron Delvaux posted a Coco 3 picture of Earth in tribute to the Artemis
II flight, currently en route to the moon:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164097910797641/

9) Cedric Beaudoin posted an update to his Coco ESP-32 project – he has
received his first batch of boards, and is now preparing to ship his first
batch of orders:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164095264692641/

10) Brian Palmer posted some screenshots of Coco 3 graphics done by David
Dyson back in the day, where he pointed out that it is where he learned
to use DATA statements with graphics commands:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164092929202641/

11) Michael Pittsley posted a video showing a graphic and some music for
St. Patrick’s day earlier last month. This originally appeared in the
March 1984 issue of TRS-80 News magazine:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164089534782641/

12) Allen Huffman posted a couple of blog entries about the fake vendor
at Atlanta CocoFest 1994 and the whole in joke behind it:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/04/01/klystronics/
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/04/02/klystronics-at-the-1994-atlanta-cocofest-revealed/

13) Paul Thayer is working on an ML, 512K Coco 3 super enhanced version of
the Coco 3 BASIC game Penguin Icarus, originally written by Nick Bradbury
and published in Rainbow magazine. He posted a couple of videos about it,
the latest being a comparison between the original and his new enhanced
version, with animated snow, digital sound effects and more added:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164082639447641/

14) Thomas Cherryhomes posted a link on the Coco Facebook group to User
documentation for Fujinet that is now available:
https://fujinetwifi.github.io/fujinet-docs/

15) Retro Byte Master posted a video to his YouTube channel about upgrading
a Multi-pak to work on a Coco 3:
https://youtu.be/STLQI_wi84k?si=PoGgPszoJUXP6NN8

16) Coco Town has posted his next Game Revolutions video, showing how to
make transparent pixels on the Coco 1/2 in assembly language:
https://youtu.be/AfOYICfRMZA?si=xFVlcZ-LEoTcNTJg

17) TRS-80 Retro Programming has released an update to his Ulysses of
Ithaca game project on his YouTube channel, and the fact that the demo
has been released on the Color Computer Archive:
https://youtu.be/Q3TD2tKGqmg?si=YGVE0XY9ilasJR9_
Download link:
https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Disks/Games/Ulysses%20of%20Ithaca%20Demo%20v1.0%20%28Coco%20Power%20Software%29%20%28Coco%203%29.zip

18) YouTube channel MacStories did an interview with David Sparks (podcaster,
creator of MacSparky), where he goes through his history with computers. Of
interest at the beginning was that he programmed text adventures on the
Coco 1, that he programmed in store at Radio Shack with the blessing of
the manager, as he and his family couldn’t afford to buy a Coco themselves:
https://youtu.be/odCL34UcyuU?si=5zSMBI9YuA1wgZYt

19) Ron Klein has released a Coco Pi project update (a “release candidate” as
he calls it, since he is sure some minor fixes will be needed). It features
a new Python based launcher, using VS Code for the standard development
environment, hover hints and full syntax highlighting for both classic
BASIC’s on the Coco as well as ugBasic and BASIC-TO-6809 cross compilers,
6809/6309 assembly language, MC-10 and CMOC.
https://coco-pi.com/coco-pi-project-update-2026-04-04/

MC-10

1)

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Jason Ross has released a demo video (and updated download link) for
his Stocks and Bonds game, a conversion from an old Avalon Hill game of
the same name. He used Claude AI to make it into BASIC09 (and later ChatGPT):
https://youtu.be/G7OF1prl_s4?si=1wQRhasVoeMa6WFh
Link to DSK downloads (and source & docs):
https://github.com/Rastamafugg/stocks-and-bonds/blob/main/disks/snb.dsk

2) Nick Marentes has revealed the “cover art” for this upcoming Coco 1&2
and Dragon 32&64 game, “Get Off My Lawn”:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164070991772641/

3) The website devoted to Mastertronic (a budget game development house
in the UK) posted an article of their top 20 best selling games on all
platforms, and with breakdowns by platform. Their Vegas Jackpot game
(#5 if you scroll down) sold 306,957 copies total, and the Dragon 32/64
version sold 2,333, which is one of the firm sales figures I have seen
for either the Coco or the Dragon:
https://mastertronic.co.uk/mastertronic-the-big-hitters-they-sold-millions-part-3/

4) Jim Gerrie ported “Lines of Action” from the 8 bit Atari computers to
the MC-10. The game was originally written by Canadian Claude Soucie, and
ported to the Atari by Sol Gruber in the Dec/Jan 1985 issue of ROM magazine:
https://youtu.be/kz8nz9cnyMg?si=DiyPTET8UXqKP9Bp

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