The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 331, September 23, 2023

Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

The interview with Doug Masten (author of The Contras) with co-interviewee
Glen Dahlgren of Sundogs Systems that was originally going to happen
on August 19 is being postponed, due to a fairly major surgery. We are
shooting for around October/November depending on doctor’s orders.

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:

Tandy Assembly 2023: Springfield, Ohio U.S.A.
SEP29-OCT01, 2023
http://www.tandyassembly.com/
** REMINDER: TRS-80 Trash Talk Live episode #35 is next Saturday (September
23) at 5 PM Eastern, and it’s focus is Tandy Assembly, going through vendors,
seminars and more! Live on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/@TRS80TrashTalk

Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown and Gameroom Expo
https://www.pinballshowdown.com/index.html
Pinball and classic video games – sent in by James Diffendaffer

-=- The Interim Computer Festival -=- : Seattle, Washington U.S.A.
SEP30-OCT01, 2023
https://sdf.org/icf/

Dragon MeetUP 2023 : The Centre of Computing History, Cambridge, UK
OCT 07-08, 2023
https://www.facebook.com/events/225011523831254

Portland Retro Gaming Expo: Portland, Oregon U.S.A.
OCT 15-18, 2023
https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/

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

1) Alan of AC’s 8 bit Zone put up a video about building a mechanical
keyboard for the Coco – from scratch:
https://youtu.be/LfPPVcCY15A?si=0x_qOU4NKag5YDJU

2) Mr. Dave 6309 put up a 512K animated page-flipping graphics demo,
and shows the source code to do it:
https://youtu.be/g2srdceDOx0?si=Uzq4pMnr5mnFTnZv

3) Coco Town added another SepTandy video, this time NOT about resurrecting
his Moon Patrol clone that he did as a teenager. No, this time he sees if
he can dial into a BBS at 300 baud… in 2023:
https://youtu.be/iLK4MqJWNfg?si=iaYfX2QyJjiF0Idm
Then of course he got back to his Moon Patrol clone, part 6: Explosions and
scoring. This is the final episode covering his original code written as
a teenager… but he’s not done. The next episode will be adding new code,
based on all he has learned since he wrote it originally:
https://youtu.be/7HoGbypgK88?si=eyR6_lM2FJFDiC2U

4) 8-Bit Rerun (a new channel on YouTube) posted a SepTandy video about
a Coco 2 clean & retrobright. This is a PAL Coco 2 with “Colour” spelled
correctly ;-). I am not much into cosmetic restorals, but the method he
used to give rid of some of the case damage I am not familar with, and
seems to have good results:
https://youtu.be/lquotAw3HzM?si=Veu-vwDQrHGeH6Q-

5) 8-Bit Boyz on YouTube finally gets around to opening a box for SepTandy
that he got from fellow YouTuber “Geek With Social Skills”… almost a
year previous:
https://youtu.be/rD62ulRNSZY?si=a67DvK25G3TaxIyO

6) Ken of Canadian Retro Things did a big unboxing for a SepTandy video:
https://youtu.be/wD9KdXzcikk?si=AaRHdkxO0tEJeHON

7) ARC Javmaster did a live stream Wednesday night unboxing a Coco 3 that
had never been used which both Sloopy and I guested on. One of the other
people on (Joe of Joe’s Computer Museum) got to try NitrOS9/EOU for the
first time on his Coco 3 as well.
https://www.youtube.com/live/5hvUQLEYLaQ?si=u09cLzzonUABh_3o

8) Drake on YouTube did a SepTandy video as well – a fellow Canadian –
did a Coco 1 unboxing (With some extras):
https://youtu.be/E_gGFpd6e6A?si=QWVK992GnOyvSCy3

9) The first Tandy Assembly Meetup in the San Francisco Bay area will be
November 4, 2023 from 2-5 PM at the San Francisco State University. They
have a Google doc where you can sign up to go. This is for people who can’t
make the track to the central/eastern states for the full Tandy Assembly
show. There is talk of eventually making this a Tandy Assembly West:
https://forms.gle/Xqc42DNyBPvWnwve6

10) Boisy Pitre has been active on our Discord about a new OS-9 Level
1 port to a project called Foenix F256 Jr, which is real hardware using
the equivalent of a 6MHz 6809. Level II is up next. This system features
advanced graphics and sound compared to a Coco 3. Boisy posted a quick
video on Facebook showing it talking to a Drivewire 4 server and running
programs from that:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160919924427641/
And a quick description of the system:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160919017012641/
And the manufacturers site:
https://c256foenix.com/f256k/?v=3e8d115eb4b3

11) The Dithertron website we covered last week (for converting modern
picture formats to dithered formats for retro computers has now officially
released it’s first 6847 support. It supports 128×64, 128×96 and 128×192
4 color modes, and both colorsets:
https://8bitworkshop.com/dithertron/#sys=c64.multi&image=seurat.jpg

MC-10

Dragon 32/64

1) John Whitworth posted on Facebook that Dragon PSU boards are back in
stock at his online store (16 as of his post on Friday):
https://www.dragonplus-electronics.co.uk/product/dragon-psu-board-kit-version-jan-2022/

2) “Doc Feelbad” on the Dragon Facebook group posted a link from the Home
Computer Museum in the Netherlands (that we have covered before), where
they have apparently found out they possess a rare Dragon 32 Demonstration
cartridge:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3552416985017945/

3) Richard Harding posted a poll in the Dragon group on Facebook, asking
people if they use of their Dragon’s helped launch their career, or if they
just played games, etc. I think they have an even higher ratio of people
who’s careers started because of their Dragon usage than us Coco people –
80% said it had:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3551879625071681/

And, although this isn’t Coco related (or even 6809), but since they are
great friends of the show, I thought I would close out with a great song
by Taylor and Amy that was partly recorded at VCF-MW. Plus we have quite
a few cross platform people on our panel and in our audience too:
https://youtu.be/LrPxM-qYNTI?si=yTxTQZRcdd35fn7Z

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) TRS-80 Retro Programing put up an update video of his Tales of Suburbia
graphic adventure style game, covering a new music option and changing
tapes between the chapter segments:
https://youtu.be/N65VLs6yLio?si=vEzNLvaj9bgTOn7-

2) Jim Gerrie returns with a backport from the Metra Alice to the original
MC-10 of the game “Third World War” originally by Free Game Blot in 1985:
https://youtu.be/gG2R28Rlwj0?si=fJeayf5QJaSxXfF7

3) Retro Gaming Nook on YouTube did a long play video for SepTandy, playing
Imagic’s DragonFire – as he puts it – “on an original Tandy Color Computer
in all it’s RF Glory”, since it didn’t play properly on his Coco 3. He
gets to the 11th round, when things are really speeding up:
https://youtu.be/YT6Vemgg_io?si=xZjN2LjVmgtyVJGs

4) “Attempts: A gaming channel by LGR” on YouTube posted a 12 minute video
of gameplay playing Nick’s Donut Dilemma, and from what I can tell is
meant to be an official entry for high scores on multiple high score sites
(including Twin Galaxies):
https://youtu.be/ySKTCOSZ_JY?si=z0qEw2Yq-1NqBL8M

5) Brian Palmer (Briza) has resurrected a BASIC Coco game from Australian
magazine SoftGold – World Weight Lifting originally written by Duncan Fenn
(14 at the time). Brian had been trying to get this one typed in for awhile,
but he was missing a page in his copy. Thanks to Raechell Tony Hobart,
he got the missing page and typed it in. I don’t think he has uploaded
the DSK image yet (probably still testing it):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160911200122641/

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https://thecoconation.com/community/

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