The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 381, September 28, 2024
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 381, September 28, 2024
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle
Special Guests today:
Paul Fiscarelli live from Tandy Assembly
Interview schedule:
None
Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
Today is the Amigos live ICC (International Computer Club) stream (Twitch
and YouTube, which starts 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). I will be on to talk about the 2 new game releases
last week, and the CocoTech episode on semi-graphics in Extended BASIC,
but nearer the end of their show.
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
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 now has a partial list of exhibitors:
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) Coco Town did another SepTandy video – this time delving back into his
earliest attempts at writing arcade games on his Coco way back in his teens:
https://youtu.be/xuwPTfglupg?si=lkDz8dM_c8DPV_2m
2) Numerous updates to ugBASIC the past two weeks as well:
Beta branch:
https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/beta
Main Branch:
https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/main
3) Bob Emery released an 18 minute video called DIY FOG generator on
his YouTube channel La Coco Strangiato for SepTandy – which shows how to
install and configure his Color FOG Coco 3 utility:
https://youtu.be/UyeyPsDH4Fc?si=gGujycYq70tBp9Wn
4) The Amigos have release a video compiling all of the on the floor
interviews they did with some of the guests from this past June’s
BoatFest, including Ken (Canadian Retro Things), Henry (The Break Key)
and myself. Catch us and other from an international group on their
YouTube channel:
https://youtu.be/-P6DwG0Bwd0?si=mEJWBnVtOy6Tq7vR
5) Wi-Fi Sheep Tech Channel on YouTube released his first ever #SepTandy
video – with him running a Coco-Pi and NitrOS9 (gotta plug that!):
https://youtu.be/ff_45ua5KhE?si=e9ahHpieRP-PMEYE
6) Tandy Assembly had their Tech Talks streamed live on their YouTube
channel yesterday. One that is Coco related was John Strong talking about
Interfacing with the Color Computer:
General live stream channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@tandyassembly3099
John’s Talk:
https://www.youtube.com/live/PuLk8Qqh2tE?si=SaYqJd5c0TN2wazN
7) Davidk4715 on YouTube put up a short demo of his X-Pad graphics tablet
on the Coco:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qAfNGQ494Uw
8) Spanish YouTube channel RetroComputo did a review of the CocoSDC for
their SepTandy video this past week, including SDC Explorer:
https://youtu.be/KBQSJfrj3bQ?si=4wASIMcNReFRl6ei
9) Brian Jones put up a video showing Apple Vision Pro Gaming (this is the
Apple super-expensive VR glasses use) – trying out Downland streaming via
Stream Deck:
https://youtu.be/p97MODBFqgE?si=Rz5khaz_fv0npmGV
10) Spanish YouTube channel ArJoreg1987Retro posted an almost half hour about
The World of Retro Computing Show that took place in Kitchener a couple of
weeks ago. We plan on having the same guests we had on ahead of the show
to review it, and hopefully Stacey can make it this time to talk about
her Coco exhibit (which is shown in this video, before it is up and running):
https://youtu.be/VfTqytyJtwM?si=xScJirUcT5LBkSUK
11) A bit “off to the side” for the Coco is a video from YouTube channel
Retro4u, who found a 68008 upgrade board for the BBC Micro that is supposed
to run OS-9 (OSK version). The reason I am mentioning this video is that
the Coco itself had 68008 board upgrades in the mid-1980’s, and initially
Chris Burke’s unreleased Rocket CPU upgrade board was also going to use it
(he ended up deciding on a 68340, I believe… but it never received enough
orders and was never manufactured). This video shows him fixing physical
issues with the upgrade board, and burning the OS9 boot ROM from Cumana
(which I think did other OS9/OSK ports back in the 1980’s).
https://youtu.be/QnZIm0DagGg?si=AnSvbqPkZzzh_AeW
12) Henry Gernhardt of The Break Key fame on YouTube returns to his FORTH
language ROM project – this episode he actually gets Forth running from
an actual ROM. And a single 16K ROM I believe:
https://youtu.be/IqITZ43wGDI?si=aT78u6WuUGF8p4Ur
MC-10
1) Jim Gerrie ported “Piano Animation”, originally by George Dunbar in
the February 1985 issue of Computing Now magazine:
https://youtu.be/OsTYugOpTYY?si=PD30dlF_18cBEIKP
He then modified it to add more colors compared with the original:
https://youtu.be/tnkyt0iXNbs?si=PjnuvXFoG9EArON9
Dragon 32/64
1)
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
1) Rich N. posted another update to the Spy Hunter Coco 1/2 game he is
working on – it’s coming along very nicely. He posted a video of it on
the Coco Discord:
(use local file ‘spy_hunter_update (Rich N).mov’)
2) Jim Gerrie ported “Warlords” by Canadian company Speakeasy Software in
1978 (originally in Integer BASIC for the Apple II) to the MC-10:
https://youtu.be/S0FTZNLyqkQ?si=gOxGkkHm2B72fuA9
He also ported Microtriva from the same company:
https://youtu.be/nwQ1BCgmC-U?si=dwekugMkEwwetilh
3) Fabrizio Caruso has released a new game with his cross platform (over 200
different machines) program language (Cross-Lib) that is based on the Chrome
browser game TREX (as is an earlier Coco version called Run, Dino, Run):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161677024287641/
4) The Mastertronic website has now added a review of the Dragon version
of Horace Goes Skiing:
https://mastertronic.co.uk/game-review-horace-goes-skiing-dragon-32-melbourne-house/
5) Chronologically Gaming is back after fixing his PC, and covered both
Star Trek:PSS on the Dragon 32, and Starfire on the Coco on his first
episode back:
Star Trek:PSS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K2N4Qoplpc&t=36s
Starfire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K2N4Qoplpc&t=1311s
As an aside, but not Coco related – he also covered Nick Marentes earliest
commercial hybrid BASIC/ML game for the TRS-80 Model 1, Stellar Odyssey:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQ3mlizHX2g&t=1047s
6) Retro Gaming Nook put up a SepTandy video showing “3 Surprising
Coco Games You Need to Try Now”. These are the various Ghost Rush games
(including the latest Goop Rush) and Video Poker (both by Paul Shoemaker)
and the Donkey Kong transcode by John Kowalski (Sock Master):
https://youtu.be/zoezF9z9yBY?si=V-CEZwjWiWB1s311
7) Tim and AJ return with Sibling Rivalry’s pursuit of winning Dungeons of
Daggorath… part 5. In this episode AJ vanquishes the wizards image and
makes it to level 4 – where there is a whole slew of brand new monsters
to deal with:
https://youtu.be/nT4Dep2MD1w?si=Gr4IsQYvaB5YSmPD
8) Jay Mundy has announced in the MC-10 group on Facebook that his MC-10
arcade game T.H.E.M. is now available from his itch.io page, requiring
the MCX-32SD:
Announcement:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/260663051145211/posts/1651300265414809/
Itch.io page:
https://spriteworx.itch.io/them-total-human-eradication-mandate
YouTube video:
https://youtu.be/c4diW4AF41A?si=KWNG8gwlKomADK-A
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