Special Guests today:

None.

Interview schedule:

Thomas Cherryhomes will be on to clear up some misconceptions about the
Fujinet system that some of us were trying to discuss last week without
proper knowledge

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:

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 5 of the
extra overflow tables have now been sold):
https://www.tandylist.com/

The Festival of Portable Computing: May 18-19, 2024
Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England
This show is dedicated to portable computers. With Frank Swygert, Taylor
& Amy, and now portacoco.com, we actually have portable Coco’s and
MC-10’s… we should qualify for this show, right? 🙂
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72231/The-Festival-of-Portable-Computing-18th-19th-May-2024/

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, which includes a separate hall for just Tandy
machines. The main hall is already sold out for tables, and as of March 6,
only 2 of 21 tables in the Tandy hall were still available:
(scroll down on the main page)
Jeff Wires (the host of Chronologically Gaming) and Boisy Pitre are both
speakers this year.
Speakers list:
https://www.vcfsw.org/speakers

Retro-Computing Expo ’24 is from 11 am until 7 pm at Anvil Center in New
Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. It is actually 2 shows in one:
the Retro-Computing Expo and the Retro-Gaming Expo. They already several
presenters lined up, including 4 people to talk about the NABU, including
Leo Binkowski who was an engineer at NABU. George Philips, the author of
the TRS-80GP emulator and a regular on the TRS-80 Trash Talk podcast is
also presenting, amongst others. This is supported by the Chilliwack Retro
Computing Club, which has it’s own Facebook Group:
(show the copy of the “poster” that I was sent from my local desktop –
“Retro-Computing_Expo_24.jpg”).
Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ChilliwackRetro/

VCF-West looks to be happening August 2-3 (Fri-Sat) at the Computer History
Museum in Mountain View, California. This year they are a full partner with
the museum, so that admission for both the museum and VCF can be done with
one purchase, and the are taking people booking to be speakers/presenters
now as well.
CHM (Computer History Museum)
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA
https://vcfed.org/2024/03/14/vcf-west/

VCF-Midwest has finally announced their new, larger venue for this year
(#19) – the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg,
IL. Sept 7-8, 2024 (Sept 6 evening (Friday) is reserved for vendors, etc
to set up). Unfortunately, their original block of rooms already sold out
in 3 hours after they announced yesterday. VCF is working with the hotel
to get more, but that won’t happen until Monday)
https://vcfmw.org/

Tandy Assembly for 2024 has been announced for Sep 27-29, 2024. UPDATE:
THEY HAVE STARTED POSTING EXHIBITORS ON THEIR WEBSITE
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
http://www.tandyassembly.com/

Retro Computer Festival 2024: November 9-10, 2024
Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England
In the early stages of planning for this year, this is (I believe) the
largest general retro computing show in the UK (it’s their VCF style show),
covering all retro machines. I am not sure if it 1 or 2 days; the header &
ordering part of the site says November 9th only, but just below that it
says November 9-10.
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/

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

1) Tim Lindner has posted some “lightly” commented 6809 assembly source
code from the Diecom game Iron Forest, to show a routine that works with
the Diecom designed Master system Phaser interface:
https://github.com/tlindner/DCLG-Kernel

2) CocoTown has posted his next video about upgrading his Moon Patrol
style game from when he was a teenager with Game revolutions cycle 7 –
this time optimizing the players car not just for speed, but to enhance
it’s appearance:
https://youtu.be/JJT7NhNKq9Y?si=SputTnCj7n20lcvI

3) Eddie Malphrus, in the “All Things Tandy/Radio Shack” group on Facebook,
posted a brief history of Videotex from the original Project Green Thumb
up to the Videotex cartridge on the Coco. It includes photos of the
original TRS-80 Model 1 shell based version that we showed a few weeks
ago, the Agvision version, and the Professional Farmers version as well
(go through photos):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/260663051145211/posts/1545410492670454/

4) Thomas Cherryhomes released another Coco Fujinet video, this time
showing the News Reader:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYYOazjhfs4&ab_channel=tschak909
He also did a quick video showing NDIR (Network Directory) as well:
https://youtu.be/J-85vtD5ihE?si=jDTsd5U9IvwkJmwp
He also shared some pics from VCF-East, where he taught classes on Fujinet,
and mentioned that there has been an attitude shift towards Fujinet and
that people are starting to volunteer to help:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161258993682641/

5) The Stray Pointers podcast interviewed our Glenside president Jim Brain
in their Season 2, episode 10 show, covering his journey in electronics,
Commodore computers, the Coco and his company Retro Innovations:
https://youtu.be/sBJ5DF7X3GA?si=LRtADLSYk1K2yHF_

6) Congrats to David Kroeker who sold out all 4 Diecom adapters/phaser
guns by the end of the weekend. He will be doing a second run later,
and then possibly pass it off to someone else to continue manufacturing them.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161255403392641/

7) Evie Solomon’s presentation from VCF-Socal earlier this year is now
up on YouTube, where she goes through the Backbit and what machines and
features it supports. Including going through the Coco, 6809 and even
mentioning the 6309:
https://youtu.be/b1Oong5vORk?si=If-eF7OvObo6CGWc

8) TRS-80 Retro Programing did a video showing his fixing of bugs of his
save game feature in his Tales of Suburbia game, which is nearing completion:
https://youtu.be/__TiYtPLDcc?si=pJzqGSmvcfpm8GCR

MC-10

1) Canadian Retro Things did a video of his upgrading his MC-10 (already
modded with 8K RAM on the main board) to composite video output, using
the upgrade from Ed Snider @ zippsterzone.com:
https://youtu.be/li6n4wqevmc?si=faY4urt_4LuyEPm6

Dragon 32/64

1) Bosco released (on the world of dragons forums) a set of (mostly)
classic heavy metal style song clips based on the Dragon, it’s hardware
(6809) and software (Microdeal & their mascot, Cuthbert). Tomfoolery /
work in Progress is what he calls them (I quite like them, being a bit of
a classic metalhead myself):
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11168
(play a sample or two from folder on my desktop)

2) RetroGingerPod on YouTube did a 3 part (so far) video series from a
wrapped in black plastic mystery computer to exploring a quite yellowed
(and water damaged) Dragon 32:
Discovery (and shows how bad of a state the power supply board is in):
https://youtu.be/5t4jng868_Q?si=GHJnT9Fom7hEASaG
First Power Up:
https://youtu.be/vnX2Y17HKiw?si=jZ5ZRNBAofCAw3Iy
Second Power up:
https://youtu.be/zbZNEbMWISo?si=I1jR5wye4YQIEPt5

3) Mostly Horses and Retro Computing on YouTube did a video of attempting
to load tapes on a Dragon 32. I am not sure what his exact set up is,
but the audio did sound like a proper Dragon (or Coco) tape, but it wasn’t
picking it up at all. Cable issue maybe?:
https://youtu.be/kftYokJutNk?si=kICtcVk-5Q6f7gq7

4) Julian Brown found some more corrections to do with his PAL daughterboard
(part of his Dragon replacement motherboard project), but he is not fully
where he wants to be yet:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3690291057897203/

5) Richard Harding posted a link on the Dragon Facebook group to the
text of an interview that Helen Osborne did with David Farrugia, who ran
“Dragon Computers and Software” shop during the Dragons heyday, on the
island of Malta in the Mediterranean Sea.
Interview link:
http://www.dragondata.co.uk/history/Quotes/DAVID_FARRUGIA/DAVID_FARRUGIA.html

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Pere Serrat has now released AGD Games pack #12 for the SuperSprite FM+
board (for both Coco and Dragon). This is the upgrade board with improved
graphics, hardware sprites and a sound chip. This pack adds 4 more games
that use the enhanced features:
Castle of Sorrow
Droid Buster
Flype v2.0
Space Escape
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11169

2) Erico Patricio Monteiro has a new animated gif showing his progress
on the low res action game The Savage Sword of Cocon. The final game is
written in ugBASIC, I believe:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161264342347641/
He also shot (with a camera aimed at a TV) video of the game in action
as well. While not as clean looking, it does show some of the animation
effects better:
https://youtu.be/8Pl6S_sYqnI?si=AmBfZ3xHGvGe9ltq

3) Retro Trailer-2 on YouTube put up a gameplay video of a recent Game On
Challenge – Time Fighter by Mark Data Products, including getting to the
second time period:
https://youtu.be/1NFoFhnyEhE?si=cK4uuSMwC5cs1aS7

4) Jim Gerrie ported a text adventure game called Enchanted Island,
originally written by 13 year old Greg Hassett on the TRS-80 Model 1/3 to
the MC-10, adding an animated title screen:
https://youtu.be/LGjuP3FDEos?si=vF-wtG3A9gXhLoXF
And another from the same author, Voyage to Atlantis was updated with some
bug fixes:
https://youtu.be/hB85doY_B8M?si=kJMNj-EkWMjeGrxm

5) This weeks Sibling Rivalry with Tim & AJ features the game Vultures
on the Coco (originally from the Dragon). And Tim & AJ might have figured
out why AJ’s luck playing games has been poorer than it should be:
https://youtu.be/WbMIVgPOL1Y?si=Wl3pF3C0s_kpl8b1

6) Retrobloke on YouTube did a YouTube short showing the original box &
tape for MicroDeal’s Space Fighter (a Star Trek clone):
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/iO0rBIxKd4w

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