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-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 West is August 1-2, 2026 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain
View California, and there are a few local Coco people that may attend:
https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/

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

The 2nd VCF Montreal dates have been announced, and they have moved a few
months ahead to avoid the dead of winter (it was in January earlier this
year; the next one is November 7-8 this year as well):
https://cvcfed.org/vcf-montreal-2-0/

NEWS:

Dragon 32/64

1) Phil Harvey-Smith put some pictures up of his Dragon Beta prototype
that he has been working on making modern replacements for some of the
original parts, etc. that Dragon used in designing it back in 1984:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4384284578497844/
And the new iC16 board, where one can not get to the adjustment pots for
the floppy interface:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4380109035582065/

2) Julian Brown posted an update to his Dragon upgrade board (2 MB Static
RAM, integrated CPU & VDG, and SAMx32 which can handle full double speed
as well as 2 MB RAM) board – and unfortunately the 1MB Static RAM chips
he was going to use are now basically unobtanium thanks to the AI caused
RAM shortage:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4384126958513606/
Picture of his latest board design:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4383711305221838/
He also posted a photo of some ROM upgrades he has available – Unfortunately
I can’t remember what they are for (the 24 and 28 parts of the names I
am guessing is the number of pins for the ROM chip itself?)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4377730715819897/
He also did a late update where he now has a dedicated video DAC:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4385013428424959/

3) Tom Erik Gundersen posted a photo to the Dragon Facebook group showing
an old console and joystick made by Radofin, which he is pretty sure made
the 5th version of the official Dragon joystick (and is shown in the photo,
but with some different colors from the Dragon version). He is wondering
if anyone has any information on the “tele-sports IV” console:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4383009005292068/

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

1) Allen Huffman posted about a 3-D Maze demo written for the Coco 3 and OS-9
Level 2 and called “Toast”, that was written by Vaughn Cato back in the
1990’s. Unlike strict hallway only style 3D engines, this allowed larger
rooms and more angles of view (like a wireframe Doom style engine). It was
written in C; Allen isn’t sure if it has some assembly too. It seems to
run at a pretty decent clip given it is running under a full operating system:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/04/20/vaughn-catos-toast-3-d-maze-engine-for-coco-os-9-level-2/
UPDATE: He got permission to upload the sourcecode from Vaughn as well:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/04/23/vaughn-catos-3-d-vector-maze-demo-source-code/
He posted another demo by Vaughn (who has since gone on to working computer
effects in Hollywood, including blockbusters like Avatar)
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/04/22/vaughn-catos-bitmap-scaling-demo/
YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/kC52nWqZxzs?si=d-OaAKnkymgOryu6
He then posted some sourcecode for some other Sub-Etha OS-9 code from
the 1990’s:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/04/24/more-misc-sub-etha-os-9-stuff-on-github/

2) CocoTown did a follow up video on how the disk controller and the
Coco interact. He also talks about a bug he hit when doing the patches,
concerning the NMI flag in the Disk ROM:
https://youtu.be/_YxnA7QWyCA?si=ZKtjFUp0QOVqEbC2

3) Glenn Hewlett put up a video showing his video player for the Coco
3 with a CocoSDC. This is after he converts the video to a format to be
optimized for the Coco 3, and can do 11 fps with 11 KHz mono audio, and
supports both “256 color” composite and 16 color RGB modes:
https://youtu.be/bBJcGt6cbRc?si=IsdaD3nMqUDvwzhM

4) Brian Palmer uploaded some Coco 3 graphics disks, including SNOW.DSK
and SUMMER.DSK, to the Coco files area on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/files/files/
Sample from SUMMER.DSK:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164156429392641/

5) Paul Cunningham has posted to the Coco Facebook group that he has
added a Fujinet library to his Bare Naked Forth project, and has written
a graphic clock application for it that pulls the date & time over the
internet via Fujinet:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164182298787641/

6) Cedric Beaudoin has posted to the Coco Facebook group that has implemented
the RS-232 Pak into his ESP-32 Coco. He posted a video about it, showing it
in action on a full ANSI online BBS, using Sock Master’s Twilight Terminal:
https://youtu.be/TRWprAEIpag?si=tNpfl8BHGAGuaVYt

7) Geoffrey Knutzen posted photos and a description of his Coco 2 that
he had modified back in the day to have MIDI, using a small daughterboard
with a 6850 serial chip:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164166841617641/

MC-10

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Chronologically Gaming covered both the Coco and Dragon this week while
covering games released in December of 1982. On the Coco he covered the
BASIC PacMan style game Mr. Munch (from Chromasette), and the Dragon 32
version of Planet Invasion:
https://youtu.be/TAUd6q9Jt3Y?si=66BiM7i7hSvnfY2o

2) Brian Palmer uploaded a PMODE 4 BASIC Chess game to the Facebook
Coco group, originally written in 1984 by Nick Kostarelas for one of the
Australian Coco magazines, I believe:
Screenshot:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164161020837641/
Download link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164161099172641/
He also put in a Golf game by the same author (and same year):
Download link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164186324862641/
Info:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164186224352641/

3) In honour of CocoFest going on right now, Erico Monteiro has released
his SG4 game White Rock Ingotz (that we have talked about on the show before):
Announcement:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164186614037641/
Download:
https://fued.net/ingotz/

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