The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 295, January 7, 2023
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
——————————-
TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube did a video about using PCOPY in
Extended BASIC:
https://youtu.be/Qh0DKRaJnAc
Ron Klein announced that the CocoPi now has the MAME 0.251 package
available for it through the updating system built in. On the Coco side of
things, it fixes some bugs in the 6809 core for things like TFR (where it was
using 6309 behaviour in a few spots), adds in the Disto Super Controller II
mini expansion bus emulation, including the add-on realtime clock/parallel
printer board for the mini bus. It also contains very preliminary work on
the never released Deluxe Coco:
https://coco-pi.com/new-mame-0-251-package-available-for-coco-pi/
Brian Wieseler posted photos of a Coco cartridge that I have never seen
before: from HiTech Electronic Sign Company in Clearwater Florida. It has
a ROM and a large 1/4″ stereo style plug coming from it. I am guessing
it is to program electronic signs (Bill Nobel did a similar project for
a company in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan back in the 1990’s) – but has anyone
seen these before?:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160395574967641/
XRoar version 1.3 has been released, and it
Main XRoar page with downloads:
https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/
List of changes in 1.3 (mainly floppy write back behaviour – it will now
by default actually save things to the disk image when you save things,
rather than just temporarily and then throwing out your changes when you
quit XRoar. Yay!):
http://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/doc/xroar.shtml#Recent-changes
Allen Huffman has dug out some old graphics ads and demos he did within
the first 2 years of getting his Coco 3, and has posted videos of 4 of them
on his Sub-Etha Software YouTube channel. They include ads on behalf of
his father, and feature palette animations, custom character sets and more:
https://www.youtube.com/@subethasoftware/videos
Carl England posted an update of his attempting to write software that
can back up copy protected disks directly to the CocoSDC. He has had
*some* success, but purposeful CRC errors still seem to cause problems
when trying to create the .SDF format disk images (See comments for some
further details):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160392682597641/
For those wanting to put in a CocoDV board from AC’s 8-bit Zone into a
Coco 1, but don’t want to have to cut the plastic center post, Mike Rojas
as a solution – a little “CocoDV Board Relocater for the Coco 1”:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160397300112641/
Retro Tech Repair put up his part 2 video for trying to fix his homebrew
composite mod on his Coco 2. He also shouts out AC’s 8 bit Zone, and does
game demos at the end:
https://youtu.be/yVPkKDZzCRo
Portuguese YouTube channel “Oldplayers” did an almost 2.5 hour live
stream talking about the TRS-80 Color computer and clones. Make sure to
turn on close captioning and settings->auto translate->english if you
don’t speak Portuguese (Luciano Scharf, Juan Castro and Daniel Campos were
on the show as well, although with some audio issues at the beginning –
they are active in the Coco community as well):
https://youtu.be/hELNWBKrbYI
Nine Finger Tom on YouTube (and on the Coco Discord) did a short video
showing the GIME-X 256 screen image, with scrolling vertically to show
the whole thing (256x225x256):
https://youtu.be/d_C06z7832M
Sheldon MacDonald has posted another update video on his dual IDE
(to generated code for both the Coco and the Sega Genesis:
https://youtu.be/O8YB0zJoEeQ
And a second one, which will be part of a series for those getting started
in assembly. This episode covers loads and stores on both the 6809 and
the 68000 CPU’s:
https://youtu.be/_29ATB9C5V8
TJBChris is starting a new series on his YouTube channel – “Tandy Time”,
and his first part of the series is with the Coco 3 – and he creates the
TJB shopping network (however, nothing is actually for sale):
https://youtu.be/CTsmYbrn5iA
Antonio Caballero has finished his design of a replacement box for
the Direct Connect Modem Pak:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160399160612641/
Steve Strowbridge uploaded a font that can be drawn using DRAW statements
to the Coco Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160398963587641/
Ken of Canadian Retro Things did a quick video to show and talk about
some of the things changed or added in NitrOS9/EOU Version 1.0.0:
https://youtu.be/WEzkV9eYtiQ
MC-10
—–
Darren Ottery posted another version of his MCX32-SD file browser at
the suggestion of Ron Delvaux: @-L will toggle inverse text on/off. You
can get it from his Google drive, and the announcement post is from the
Facebook MC-10 group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/5665378816922227/
Google Drive link:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1MoNq4qmz0FRubv5CDMrNpSAoR_zJU0d5
Robert Sieg posted a sample of a menu system that he is working on for
the MCX32-SD. This is very early stages and he expects to make a lot of
changes as he goes, but he is requesting that people download it and give
it a try and give him some feedback. The program is available for download
in the MC-10 Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/5682357415224367/
Dragon 32/64
————
Julian Brown has made progress on his Dragon motherboard replication
project, and now has it booting the ROM correctly (he still is awaiting
some parts to test the cassette port and audio):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3365661430360169/
And Ciaran Anscomb’s similar project also showed progress. He doesn’t
have the screen hooked up yet, but the ROM is running fine – he types MOTOR
ON (blindly) and you can hear the click of the cassette relay, and typing
in purposeful syntax error (which caused MS BASIC to shut the motor off)
also works in his quick little video:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3365143467078632/
NOTE: Julian Brown is working on a Dragon32 and Ciaran Anscomb is
working on a Dragon64.
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
Jim Mullis posted the question in the Coco Facebook group: “How many
folks here are actively working on new games for the CoCo? Also when you
are done, will you be sharing your code freely?”
To which Paul Shoemaker responded (see comments) with a screenshot of
an awesome looking new RPG he is working on (with it’s own unique combat
system, going by his comments):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160397161607641/
Jim Gerrie posted a video of another MC-10 game port he has done – this
time Aztec Adventure (by Roberto B. in 1988) originally for the Italian
Laser 300 computer. It was fixed up and translated to English originally
by Garry Francis, and Jim ported it to the MC-10. SPOILER ALERT if you
play the whole video it shows how to win. It’s a text adventure with a
low res graphic title screen:
https://youtu.be/fP4iXCUXjqc
He also ported the text adventure “Spaceship Farmer” to the MC-10 (also
translated from Italian). He would like testers for this one to see if
they can play it all the way through. (download link in the description
on the YouTube page):
https://youtu.be/07LaeL7n4yk
Chronologically Gaming has a new episode that has Space Assault (by
Image Producers for Tandy) @ 3:37:
https://youtu.be/A6jTqG0M1gc?t=217
And also Project Nebula:
https://youtu.be/usMk_0FvXk8?t=744
The 2022 “Beauty and the Beast” programming contest for all TRS-80’s
were announced (the challenge this year was making a Wordle clone), and
Rick Adams COCOdle came in a very close 2nd with Rowland Archer’s Word-80
on the Model 4 in the “Beauty” category (mainly because Rowland included
extra stats that it keeps track of):
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