The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 380, September 21, 2024

Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:

Paul Shoemaker – For the launch of his new Coco 1/2, Coco 3 64K game Lava
Hero. NOTE: Ciaran has made a Dragon 64 port as well (see Dragon news below):
https://pshoemaker70.itch.io/lava-hero
Nick Marentes – For the launch of his new BASIC game (using the
Semigraphics-12 BASIC tricks we talked about on CocoTech episode 6),
H.E.R.O.:
https://nickmarentes.com/ProjectArchive/hero.html

Interview schedule:

None

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:

The Manitoba Retro Computer and Gaming Club is having their final meetup for
the year today at the Fort Rouge Leisure Centre in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Dave
Kroeker is planning on being there (and may pop on the show to show us what
is happening), and D. Bruce Moore might be there as well. While I couldn’t
make to this meeting (too busy with work for a 16 hour roundtrip drive),
they have already set their next one for January 4, 2025 – and the current
plan is that both Bill Nobel and I will be going to that one!
https://www.facebook.com/events/490916033527109

Tandy Assembly for 2024 is Sep 27-29, 2024. An update from Pete on August 9

they have now sold out of tables for the show! And another announcement –
Steve Leininger, the designer of the TRS-80, is the keynote speaker!
http://www.tandyassembly.com/speakers.html
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
http://www.tandyassembly.com/
(Show the vendor list image from my desktop, which was updated this last
week): “tandy assembly vendors.jpg”

Also that weekend is the Amigos next live ICC (International Computer
Club), which will be at 4 PM EST on September 28. This is for all retro
computers & gaming consoles. It streams live on their Twitch channel and
YouTube channels).
Previous club videos can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaD3XRYu1lQTWrMYYPmaOa4AIj4xArroD

The Dragon Meetup is 100% official now: October 12-13, 2024 at the Museum
of Technology in Cambridge, England:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3776261519300156/

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. Tickets can be ordered online for individual
days or both days.
All of their events (including separate entries for both days) at the
bottom of this page:
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/30677/What-s-On/
The Saturday event specifically:
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/

Retro SC, the retro show in Brazil, is having their 2024 event on November

This always has a strong Coco/CP-400/etc. contingent, including multiple
people who have been guests on our show.It is happening at 1670 Haroldo
Soares Glavan road, Cacupé, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina.
https://retrosc.org/

VCF East has had a date change for next years show due to a scheduling
conflict. It is now April 4-6, 2025 – same facility as this year. Info
Age Science Museum, Wall, NJ.

VCF-SW in Texas has been booked with dates: June 20-22, 2025 at the Davidson
Gundy Alumni Center, University of Texas, Dallas, Texas.
Tables & Tickets will go on sale January 2025. $20/adult ($25 if bought
at the door), $10/student ($15 at the door). 17 and under are free (with
accompanying adult). Tables are $50.

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

1) Jason “Cocoman” has posted his VCF-MW video on his Fairly Amused
YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/oeka9yCODl4?si=X3sUNMzh8e7L-p4h

2) CocoTown did another SepTandy video that has nothing to do with ongoing
Moon Patrol clone project; this time showing off a financial accounting
package he wrote in middle school for himself. And then some other programs
he wrote in his childhood (long before he started the Moon Patrol game):
https://youtu.be/gv6TGXkplT8?si=LTRU__qZtSJBPfVO

3) Tim Halloran posted parts 5 & 6 of his video series on restoring
and getting his Coco 2 ready to take to Tandy Assembly, which is next
weekend. This is a unit that will be going into the no minimum bid auction
to fund raise for next years show. The Coco 2 is cleaned up, has the power
supply changed to run off of a USB cable, includes the little RF style
adaptor to run on a modern TV, and even includes Dungeons of Daggorath in
it’s original packaging with the manual. He also tests it with the TP-10
thermal printer, but that won’t be included in the auction:
Part 5 (the USB power supply):
https://youtu.be/CNzk02t6Vxs?si=kXLOkAshzoV8I7_3
Part 6 (final testing):
https://youtu.be/g6hP7op2Htw?si=v4d-xvlVZPC8-zVQ

4) TRS-80 Retro Programing released a video showing importing/exporting
variables using a disk/tape template, using his upcoming Tales of Suburbia
game:
https://youtu.be/EADAp4Gthqs?si=ljYb9ZMIyIZcAzUd

5) Ken of Canadian Retro Things released his video of what Coco goodies
he picked up in a box full of stuff at VCF-MW:
https://youtu.be/HGzmXWiXsI8?si=qjTbPGVHCjAyUgiy

6) Ciaran Anscomb has released XRoar 1.6.4, which fixes a couple of bugs:
Control+Shift+digit shortcuts, and LUT based composite rendering wasn’t
working properly if a Coco 3 was selected. You can get it from his XRoar
site:
https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/

7) Tandy Assembly had a couple of announcements for their show next weekend
posted on the Coco Facebook group this past week:
Rick Adams will be a presenter again this year, with his topic being Coco
War Stories:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161651794932641/
Neil Blanchard plays the role of a model in showing off the wearable merch
that one can get at Tandy Assembly:
https://www.facebook.com/tandyassembly/posts/pfbid0XNSezmCBBLBm3LjviPa6ttKZfcHWUH9DKaR1T97Rm4n2MfBmcG2W3WXVRxnuMhdql

8) Erico Monteiro posted a mockup of a PC/WEB vector program to change
vector graphic files to DRAW statements on the Facebook Coco group. Not
sure if he has made it a working project yet:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161654268847641/

9) Elliot D. Inosaur (cute fake name) posted a photo on the Coco Facebook
group of a $59 AUS RF to HDMI converter, and shows a picture of MegaBug
generated with it. It should be mentioned that it is from a PAL Coco,
so the colors are not the same:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161645792357641/

10) Jim McClellan touched up his Coco 1 with flat grey rattle can paint –
and it looks pretty good, as shown by his photo in the Coco Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161639371482641/

11) Sheldon MacDonald posted a photo of a Coco hardware project that he
is working on onto the Coco Facebook group, but hasn’t revealed what it
is yet. His only clue so far: “It’s meant to compliment the CocoSDC and
get rid of the need of a multi-pack interface”. Knowing his past work,
I am guessing either a sound or joystick cartridge that has a pass-through
for the CocosDC? What are your guesses?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161636375917641/

12) Jason Walters posted on the Coco DFE Facebook group pohotos of his
Coco 3 Athena 1.2 motherboard he received from Rocky Hill (Pedro Pana),
which he has now gotten up and running, and he included multiple photos:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/colorcomputer/posts/1043106977305034/

13) Eddie Malphrus posted in Coco DFE group on Facebook about his long search
to find the original Project Green Thumb hardware (250 were originally
manufactured, of which 200 went to farmers in Kentucky. After months of
searching.. he found a real one (not a mockup). This is the precursor to
both the VideoTex terminal that came out in the spring of 1980 and the
Coco 1 that came out a few months later, but is the forerunner of the
Coco and of Tandy and Motorola working together. Awesome history here,
with photos. Side note: He mentions that the host server machine was an
HP-3000 mini computer – I am familiar with this machine, as we had one at
my work after the PDP-11/34:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/colorcomputer/posts/1041886017427130/

14) 8bitsinthebasement (aka Peter) release a SepTandy video, celebrating his
Coco 2 making hardware and software to make it simulate an Etch’ n’ Sketch:
https://youtu.be/AgGDgrtg6Tc?si=RbWAUm-PEdFQiJXb

15) YouTube channel RetroAndGaming put up a video about his trying to get a
CASDuino, TZXDuino or MAXDuino to work for loading cassette based games on
both his MSX and Coco 1. As he mentions in the description, things didn’t
turn out as planned…at least on the MSX:
https://youtu.be/2uQ_HT3kg-g?si=eG85V5rosjH3lEDs

16) Mike Hawkey released a short video of his SepTandy project on the Coco
with a TP-10 thermal printer – printing out a maze to the printer from
a maze generator program on the Coco (based on a program from Creative
Computing magazine:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161655557237641/

17) Luciano Scharf posted (including some advertising brochures) about
the Brazilian Coco clone VC-50 by Varixx. This actually took the Coco 2
beyond Tandy’s including models with integrated dual floppy drives, full
keyboards with numeric keypads, one model had a built in small monitor:
https://www.facebook.com/lscharf/posts/pfbid02HtpoMp1uZi2vJ66y94hAp7AoSYxgNozeEtBcGxgN1idnby8YBXXbqmpu4ZswGBtol

18) Sonic Creeper Games, a Brazilian YouTube channel by a teenager,
released part 1 of his history/evolution of game controllers… and the
first one covered is the CP-400 ones, which is the most common Brazilian
clone. Thanks to Jose Neto for pointing this video out on Facebook:
https://youtu.be/1Yv4_yVf_xU?si=3WAKA0Dk1zWUL71v

19) As a SepTandy project, Wayne Campbell and I have been working on the
NitrOS9/EOU version of the BASIC09 manual. Now, there is no way we will
get the whole thing done by the end of September, but we are going to have
a Pre-release hopefuly done by then that will cover chapters 1 through

This will correct some mistakes that were in the original (even 3rd
edition) manual, and also cover all the changes and additions to the GFX
and GFX2 graphics libraries, including sample programs for things like
making program for Multi-Vue with pull down menus, etc.

MC-10

1) Jamie’s Hack Shack posted a video of his upgrading his MC-10 with the
composite video mod rom Ed Snider/Zippsterzone:
https://youtu.be/W5J2541Huh4?si=z9R9OnBt49p3uODA

2) Spanish YouTube channel El Viejoven FX put up a video (in Spanish) about
the Alice computers from France, including their history alongside the MC-10:
https://youtu.be/2KrD3RT5I58?si=OboHAxVjE0ocvL2a

3) Spriteworx (Jim Mundy) who is making the upcoming T.H.E.M. game,
released a video this morning of his development setup for making MC-10
games. He has a neat software trick to keep track of where routines start
when you RENUM a program (will work on a Coco as well):
https://youtu.be/YcUABR1f-yo?si=8HHiRbWyjbD7IW4P

Dragon 32/64

1) Ciaran has posted downloads for both Goop Rush and the brand new Lava
Hero game, both by Paul Shoemaker, for the Dragon 64. (He notes it may
not work properly on some Dragon 32’s upgraded to 64K
Goop Rush download:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11195
Lava Hero download:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11194

2) Julian Brown is continuing work on his Dragon 32 Static RAM memory board,
now on version 4 with more refined SRAM chip access signals:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3812318755694432/
He also had an update on his Multi-Pak Interface project – his current
version no longer prevents the Dragon it is hooked up to from starting. It
is sporadically booting a cartridge now, so he is getting closer:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3808968392696135/

3) Simon Plumbe posted a link to his updated Mastertronic checklist of
their Dragon 32 software (including the Vegas Jackpot game that the site
already reviewed that we covered a week ago). This includes releases from
Melbourne House (whihch Mastertronics bought) and Virgin games (which
Mastertronics merged with later):
https://mastertronic.co.uk/dragon-32-mastertronic-checklist/

4) Leslie Anderson posted a photo of a Dragon 64 homebrew computer designed
by Dan Werner. It’s a bit expensive, but it does have a redesigned keyboard
that has the modern arrow key replacement layout (some details in the
post text):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3467939723499385/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Jim Gerrie has released an updated version of his port of Akalabeth
(originally by Richard Garriott fr the Apple II in 1979) to the MC-10. This
new version has been broken into two programs using the CHAIN command in
MCX BASIC (by Darren Atkinson), allowing the program to use 28K RAM from
the MCX-32SD (and thus not requiring the older MCX-128 upgrade):
https://youtu.be/BYSJSAZmNtE?si=gPrnc3piu6odM7Ey
Internet Archive download & description:
https://archive.org/details/AKALABET

2) Tim & AJ are back on Dungeons of Daggorath for part 4. Will AJ finally
crack level 3?
https://youtu.be/3yURTruWjyk?si=YY6lyVekU8ho9o6A

3) YouTube channel Jostive fivezer release a couple of long play videos
of games on the Coco this past week. Of note is that he is playing them
directly from the Color Computer Archive, using Ciaran’s online XRoar:
Monster Maze (a recent Game On Challenge) from Tandy:
https://youtu.be/yJAjZNPaUqI?si=_1MxrWZqE3-hX94E
Birds from Tom Mix:
https://youtu.be/4Rn1JsKXn0Y?si=heKxhMQuu4K9LLuu

4) XperTek did another Coco 2 / amber monitor game, this time playing the
Classic Spectral Associates game, Lunar-Rover Patrol (which actually looks
pretty darned good on an amber monitor, I must say!):
https://youtu.be/xnKusXOxl0I?si=rTvWSm–tsSpu3XJ

5) Go grab the two game launches this week from Paul Shoemaker and Nick
Marentes!

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