The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 349, February 3, 2024

Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:

Glen Dahlgren

Interviews schedule:

None upcoming… yet.

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:

VCF SoCal: Feb 17-18, 2024 in Orange, California
Hotel Fera – Events Center
100 The City Drive, Orange, CA 92868
https://vcfsocal.com/index.html
It should be mentioned that Thomas Cherryhomes will be a speaker at the
show, going over Fujinet – including the Coco version that is currently
a work in progress. Randy Kindig is also confirmed as a speaker now as well.
Also, a couple of color computer exhibitors are now listed as well:
https://www.vcfsocal.com/exhibitors

Interim Computer Festival: March 23-24.
This is a pre-announcement for a retro computer show in the Pacific
Northwest Area. Details (specifically where, etc.) will be coming later,
and registration will open in January.
https://sdf.org/icf/

The Indy Classic Computer & Gaming Expo is April 13-14 in Indianapolis.
Crowne Plaza
Randy Kindig of the Floppy Days podcast helps with this one – and he was
our guest not too far back.
https://indyclassic.org/

CocoFest: May 4-5, 2024 in Carol Stream, Illinois (near Chicago)
Holiday Inn & Suites
https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
Table bookings (the main hall is completely taken up now, and 14 in the
hall are available):
https://www.tandylist.com/

BoatFest 3: June 14-16, 2024
Social Event Space
Hurricane, WV
https://www.ticketsource.us/boatfest2024/boatfest-retro-computer-expo-2024/e-raedpb

VCF SouthWest: June 14-16, 2024 (same weekend as BoatFest)
Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas – Dallas
Dallas, Texas
https://www.vcfsw.org/
UPDATES:
Also this year they are doing “Shows within the Show”, and one of those
is a Tandy Assembly meetup:
(scroll down on the main page)
Jeff Wires (the host of Chronologically Gaming) is also one of the speakers
at VCF-SW this year!
Speakers list:
https://www.vcfsw.org/speakers

Tandy Assembly for 2024 has been announced for Sep 27-29, 2024.
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
http://www.tandyassembly.com/

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

1) Retro Computing Roundtable, a fairly Apple centric podcast / live
stream show (but they cover everything from mainframes to microcontrollers)
discussed a 6502 homebrew computer project. The person doing it wanted to
eventually come up with a machine capable of running a version of Lode
Runner. Surprisingly, their method wound up using the Coco 3 transcode
to 6809 (since it had source available) to backport it back to the 6502,
but using Coco 3 style graphics. The person making it is Eric Badger
(his channel on YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/live/uHJfaoaXLrA?si=bxljXNTq1gwDgYrN&t=3605

2) Glen Hewlett did a blog entry on doing game sprite collision detection
in assembly, based on a the routines he found in Robotron when he was
transcoding it:
https://nowhereman999.wordpress.com/2024/01/29/coco-3-game-collision-detection-routine-6809-assembly/

3) Our very own Ken of Canadian Retro Things on YouTube put up a 1/2 hour
video – doing some Digital Archeology on some Coco disks:
https://youtu.be/hlMz_UvSEoI?si=qGbU3h4yXZL1mzqz

4) This years 10 line BASIC programming contest has been announced (scroll
down for english):
https://gkanold.wixsite.com/homeputerium/copy-of-rules

5) EJ Jaquay announced that VCC 2.1.8.3 has now been released, which adds
a host of new features:

• Web link in help menu to the newly updated User Guide
• fixed the HDBLBA rom image so it properly will emulate an IDE controller
  for SuperIDE
• Hard disk config can now enable/disable RTC
• Debugger adds instruction decode, disassembler window
• Command line auto past option
• blinking text fixed on 40 and 80 column screens
  https://github.com/VCCE/VCC/releases/tag/vcc2.1.8.3

6) David Collins has another update on his 6309 based homebrew computer
project on the 6×09 Facebook group – he now has it loading floppy disk
images from it’s SD card):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3303373426622683/

7) David Graham uploaded a new readme for the MM/1 schematics to the MM/1
Facebook group, which includes some things about them that people should
be aware of (including errors, usage of parts that were for testing only
and changed by the final release, etc.)
https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/4382739608617969/
(I have a local copy on my desktop to share)
MM1_schematics_readme_first.pdf

8) Jim Mullis posted another update video of his Super Powers game written
in BASIC with the Sundog Systems GrafExpress system, which includes new
characters, much wider world for horizontal scrolling (9 screens worth),
and lot more (see video description for full details). NOTE: Sound for
some reason did not come through on the video, and it’s more jittery than
it was on real hardware:
https://youtu.be/HEm-_OHgL9g?si=C2wvA12dPTxs6iID

9) Henry of The Break Key channel on YouTube continues on making a new
ROM for the Coco 1/2 to boot into Forth. This episode he gets the keyboard
working and typing to the screen, with editing:
https://youtu.be/5EjV6Muslag?si=pRXi8T7aTJ_ZdvAx

10) Bolling Holt on YouTube released a video “Reliving my 1991 10th
Birthday with the Tandy DMP-133″, which got at the age of 10 to use with
his Coco 2. Unfortunately he didn’t have a Coco compatible serial cable,
so he tested it with his Tandy 1000 TL/2 instead on parallel (with Deskmate):
https://youtu.be/JigW46CAgjA?si=Y-Zl59lCAhEcFBvg

11) The 6502 Show did an episode on making and programming a Compact Flash
card drive/file system for the GM-68 computer – but it will work with any
6502, 680x (including 6809) based system, if you want to experiment. He
also had early plans to try and port FLEX as a base OS, but abandoned it
for a much simpler system:
https://youtu.be/ti7coZ-yzTI?si=eEcktyN0_xQ4kJc9

12) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube did an update to his Coco Ultimate
RPG game that he is working on for the Coco 1/2. Here he shows using a
visual grid layout help fine tune character mapping. This can be helpful
for figuring out byte aligned GET/PUT’s for different modes, as well as
for the DRAW he statements that he is using in this game:
https://youtu.be/PEq4jEBxGMg?si=zk7LwEdLD9c2qMEY
He then did a quick update video yesterday, speeding up and optimizing
the BASIC code a bit, and employing the grid he worked on:
https://youtu.be/3tC5BLk3Lgs?si=cOdqGJZQEL5VdOh7

13) Allen Huffman posted his first blog entry on porting Rick Adam’s
“Lights Out Puzzle” (that Rick is working on for the Coco 3) to the Coco
1/2. This blog entry contains a complete history of the game as a good
background for the blog series:
https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/30/lets-write-lights-out-in-basic-part-1/

14)

MC-10

1)

Dragon 32/64

1) Following up on the challenge of making a ray trace program from the
BBC Micro run on a Coco or Dragon, Steven Goodwin took up the challenge
in the Dragon Facebook group. (He had a bug in the initial photos that
was fixed later in the comments). This is the same challenge Allen Huffman
had worked on but didn’t get as far. The Dragon CAS file is on the Dragon
Facebook group.:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3635799016679741/

2) Julian Brown posted an update about his FPGA prototype to replace the
6847 (VDG) chip – and with enhancements in the Dragon Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3636673456592297/

3) XRoar got two quick bug fix releases (1.5.1 & 1.5.2) from the 1.5 major
release last week.
1.5.1 fixes:

• Include cartridge database (mostly Coco 3 32K) for convenience
• Fix potential crash when cartridge loading fails
• Recognize Windows Drive letters properly (ex. C:)
  1.5.2 fixes:
• Timer interrupt fixes for the GIME
  You can download it from:
  https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/

4) The “Home for Obsolete Technology” channel on YouTube (he is Germany)
posted part 2 of a huge retro haul he got – this part includes 4 Dragon
32’s (he mentions that the Dragon is very rare in Germany)-one is heavily
modified:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGC3paSpnpc&t=429s

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Darren Ottery posted an interesting question on the Coco Facebook group –
what would the ONE game be that you would like to see ported t the Coco 3
(that could run within the Coco 3’s hardware limits):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161140909912641/

2) Rick Adams is working on writing a wrong with the Shanghai cartridge –
when one wins the game, the original plan was to have a full screen fire
breathing dragon presented to the player. Because Tandy limited how big
the ROM could be, he was only able to put the head in. Using extra space
that would have been possible if he had been allowed to use a 32K ROM,
he has most of it in now (I noticed this morning on the Coco Discord that
the whole dragon is now there, and Paul Fiscarelli is helping getting the
original title screen as well):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/colorcomputer/posts/907350990880634/

3) Chronologically gaming continued through September 1982 releases this
week, including multiple Coco and Dragon games:

Dragon: Devils Triangle (1:09). Coco: Frog Trek (26:27), Galactic Attack
(49:16)
https://www.youtube.com/live/E9t9VgMHpug?si=KdzwqK97Pf6CUw2N

Coco: Madam Rosa’s Massage Parlor (just mentioned) (25:47), Mega-Bug
(39:39) – Apple II version right before (Dung Beetles)
https://www.youtube.com/live/4aonXvaIAzk?si=yvrxxhqil1f-GPg4

Coco: Microbes (0:13), Mission:Empire! (14:42), Offender
(39:35). Dragon/Coco: Race Ball (57:25)
https://www.youtube.com/live/P54ACzfUn88?si=MIJUGcAkQXaOE_ky

Coco: Roman Checkers (24:00)
https://www.youtube.com/live/mMz_lPPfu7A?si=-gRUCrAakQV4TKgB

Coco: Shooting Gallery (10:47) (Atari 8 bit version shown just before),
Snak Pak (38:47)
https://www.youtube.com/live/WYuBKocHO1I?si=P-2ujtN-iJywjtsu

4) Jim Gerrie ported a couple more games to the MC-10. I know, I am just
as surprised as all of you. 😉
“Casse-tête dans le métro/Puzzle in the Metro” is a graphical adventure
game originally by Eric Ascheberg in 1985 for the Alice 32/90. Low rest
graphics by Jim replace the original ones:
https://youtu.be/pKzXl8kdbWo?si=m0EQsLEPrIRv2xVc
“Hey Man Don’t Get Angry”, also known as “Ludo”, was a port (and translation
to English) from the original German classic board game Ludo, originally
for the Laser / Dick Smith VZ-200 computer, in 1988:
https://youtu.be/l32IlnV_id8?si=xrRv_RN374sajxn2

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