The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 413, May 17, 2025

Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

For those who want to try an online BBS running on a real 512K Coco 3,
you can reach Terry Trapp’s RiBBS system here:
telnet ribbs.griswoldfx.com 6809

Special Guests today:

Richard Lorbieski of BoysonTech will be on to talk about his returning to
the Coco hardware world & answering questions about his upcoming products.

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:

Retrofest 2025, organized by Tony Jewell, is a retro computer festival
happening in Swindon, England May 31-June 1, 2025. Some Dragon people (like
Richard Harding and Chris Poacher) have already committed to attending
the show, and some other guests that we have had on our show (like some
of the people from Pixel Addict magazine) will be there as well. It is
being held at STEAM (the Great Western Railway museum):
Retrofest website:
https://retrofest.uk/
They even have a promo video:
https://youtu.be/UCZ-BtFW9Ok?si=B441wLvpDI2iekLN

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.
https://www.vcfsw.org/

The Southeast Michigan Vintage Computer Club is having their 8th public
meeting/display June 28, 2025 from 11 AM to 5 PM Eastern at Grace Chapel’s
Gymnasium, 2515 N. Williams Lake Road, Waterford Township, Michigan (near
Pontiac). This covers all retro gaming consoles and home computers.
https://semichiganvcc.blogspot.com/2025/04/se-michigan-vintage-computer-club-ver.html

BoatFest (now International Retro Computer Expo) will be July 11-13 in
Hurricane, WV. There is now a promo video for it:
https://www.ticketsource.us/ircexpo2025/t-eanjyje

VCF-Midwest (the largest retro show in North America, I believe) is September
13-14 at the Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, Illinois. This year
is the 20th anniversary of this show, and there is a lot of collaboration
between CocoFest and VCF-MW, so expect a large number of Coco and Glenside
people at the show! Still free admission, and hotel booking is open already.
https://www.vcfmw.org/

That same weekend, Retro World Expo will be held September 12-14 at the
Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Connecticut. Tickets and vendor
applications aren’t quite ready yet but will be soon. This is a gaming
oriented retro show (including tournaments) but also includes things
like wrestling:
https://retroworldexpo.com/

Also that same weekend, for Canadians and anyone wanting to travel up to
Canada, the WoRC (World of Retro Computing) show is September 13-14 at the
old Goudies Department Store location at 8 Queen Street North, Kitchener,ON,
Canada (West of Toronto, and right beside The Museum). This is a general
retro show with a bunch of gaming and home computer platforms, vendors,
seminars, LAN parties, workshops, door prizes & raffles and is sponsored
by Retro Rewind. Admission is free, and it runs noon to 5 pm Eastern on
both Saturday and Sunday:
https://worldofretrocomputing.com/

Tandy Assembly for 2025 is Sept 26 to Sep 28 at the Courtyard by Marriott
Springfield Downtown in Springfield, Ohio. NOTE: Peter Cetinski issued an
update on May 13 – all tables are officially sold out:
https://www.tandyassembly.com/
And they have some exhibitors already (click Exhibitors link)

This year’s Portland Retro Gaming Expo runs from October 17-19 in 2025 (they
just had this years Sept 27-29). Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon.
https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/

Canada is getting it’s own official VCF – Montreal, January 25-26 of

It will be held at the Royal Military College outside of Montreal,
but I don’t have any more details (the venue, for example) yet:
https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/

**** NEW NEWS ORDER TO HELP OUR LIVE EUROPEAN VIEWERS ****

Dragon 32/64

1) A followup to the Maplin I/O board that controlled a model train system
on the Dragon 32 that we talked about last week: the author of the photos
and post on the World of Dragon forums (Peter Mooney), has posted some
updates and clarifications about the 3rd party hardware card:
(scroll to the bottom):
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11286

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

1) Jason of CocoMan.biz fame has released his CocoFest summary video for
Day 1 of the Fest:
https://youtu.be/kQHdlytHYsc?si=5dMHLYIptfpg113D
And day 2:
https://youtu.be/hjQCN-5pA28?si=71OcKOzIU_6PCc0f

2) Glen Hewlett has released a fairly large update to his BASIC to 6809
BASIC compiler, to version 4.34 including fixes to bugs found by D. Bruce
Moore. This version also includes an IDE, based on Quick Basic 64pe’s
IDE but with Coco specific enhancements. Here is Glen’s “press release”,
from the Coco Discord:
“V 4.33

If your CoCo 3 can support 2.8 Mhz high speed the compiled code now runs
at triple speed (2.8 Mhz)
for most operations (not disk, etc.)

I just pushed a big update V4.34 with many fixes, thanks to Bruce Moore.
There’s still more to come as far as minor fixes but I want to share this
new version because it includes an IDE. It’s based on QB64pe’s own IDE,
except I’ve added support for all the special new commands the Basic compiler
has added specifically for the CoCo. I call the IDE “SDECB.bas” short for
SUPER DUPER EXTENDED COLOR BASIC
If you’re using an M1 Mac, the binaries are all updated including the new
IDE which are ready to run.
If you want to move the SDECB to another foler to run, it will need all
the subfolders along with it (there might be some that are not needed,
I just keep it all together to be safe, as I know some are definately needed)
The updates from version 4.32 are:
V 4.34

Can now handle 10000 IF/THEN/ELSE commands per program, was previously
set at 100
Fixed a bug detecting string array variables
Made STRING$ function now handle ascii codes instead of only string
values for the 2nd value in the command
Fixed a bug with MID$
can now handle 1000 deep expression comparisons, was limited to 10
previously
Fixed a bug with IF/THEN/ELSE where compiler could re-use the same labels
Fixed a bug with numeric arrays with one element (wasn’t pointing at
the correct RAM location)
Fixed a bug with the SDC_GETCURDIR$ command
Fixed a bug with the PLAY command (IRQ was returning to the wrong location)
PLAY command now automatically plays at normal speed then automatically
speeds up the CoCo after playing
Have fun!”
https://github.com/nowhereman999/BASIC-To-6809
NOTE: Some people are working on getting a binary Windows version going
as well, to make it easier to download. That is still a work in progress.

3) Aaron Scheller in the Coco group on Facebook posted some photos of an
awesome Birthday present he got – a Coco 3 with a CocoSDC:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162634074652641/

4) Marco Spedaletti announced the newest release of ugBASIC, version 1.17.2,
his BASIC cross platform compiler for a ton of 8 bit machines including
the Coco’s and Dragons. Some updates in this version are:

DRAW and PLAY are now compatible with multi-tasking
custom data types have been added (using BEGIN TYPE – this is like
TYPE/DIM in BASIC09)
Horizontal scrolling is now supported on the Coco 3
Double buffering has been added for the Coco 1/2
The 6809 code generated is also more optimized
Announcement on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162633204332641/
Coco target subpage with download, examples, etc.:
https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/target/coco?target=coco123&1.17.2&
New version of the manual is available as well:
https://spotlessmind1975.itch.io/ugbasic-user-manual/devlog/946392/new-revision-for-version-1172-is-out

5) Sheldon MacDonald released a video (and assembly sourcecode) for a cool
animated PMODE 4 graphics demo:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162610209452641/
Source code:
https://www.smdreloaded.com/index.php?topic=16.0

6) Boisy Pitre posted a link to a project that TomC on the Coco Discord
pointed him to – documenting a Sigma Games Slot machine, which was driven
by two 6809’s, each running their own copy of OS-9 Level 1:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162618417612641/
Github:
https://github.com/boisy/sigma_games_slot_machine
Also, congratulations to Boisy for getting his doctorate!

7) Jeffrey Worley, a long time Atari 1200xl user, got his first Coco – a
64K Color Computer (the full size white case melty keyboard version). And
he is running his Atari 130xe as a terminal on it at 300 baud, and he
included pictures of it in the Nitros9 Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/posts/3946276455635269/

8) George Janssen has returned with Lesson 16 of his Coco 3 assembly
language series on his YouTube channel, which is about sprites: Basic
movement and transparency:
https://youtu.be/GBQ0-zZbLcA?si=B5nB9P5PS2R1SqQn

9) 8bitsinthebasement posted part 2 of his experimenting with digitized
speech on his Coco 2, this time covering assembly lanugage routines to do
so, and allowing things like controlling the speed of playback and even
playing things backwards. And he shows & explains the short assembly code
needed to do so:
https://youtu.be/sxzYEXd0Xsc?si=ny4RYQT2ldZWhqSG

10) The video podcast “This Week in Retro” did a special segment on the
arcade game Sinistar, and pointed out an almost 3 hour deep history of the
development of this game, including interviews with the programmers. They go
through the the 6809 source code, some history of Williams, and more. Great
deep dive:
https://youtu.be/lCuoUSDBVac?si=hJGl4az0L6YrK2CO

11) Stevie Strowbridge posted an introduction video to his new
CocoTalk! channel on YouTube, where is re-releasing the entire back catalog
of CocoTalk (which is now the Coco Nation Show). He also plans on adding
some new content as he goes:
https://youtu.be/hD2dsw4o7Z4?si=TELSdNN9fgSk2hg9

MC-10

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Stu’s Game Reviews reviewed Clowns and Balloons using a deluxe joystick
and a real Coco 3:
https://www.youtube.com/live/5VXBl5i0jL8?si=gur6kajfUByy0Ykd

2) Inufuto has started releasing their next mega-multi platform game,
and their first sequel: Mazy 2. One has to navigate the maze, picking up
knives along the way to throw at monsters trying to block your path. This
sequel also introduces multi-floor levels with staircases to jump between
the floors. The MC-10 version is out already:
Downloads page for multi-platforms:
http://inufuto.web.fc2.com/8bit/mazy2/
Video demo of MC-10 version:
https://youtu.be/diCnoHLlauY?si=aK3YPHX1D8DBVaJY
Coco 1/2 and Coco 3 versions should be out this week.

3) Kees van Oss & Pere Serrate have uploaded the most up to date “Big Pack”
for the AGD engine games ported to the Coco and the Dragon (the regular
versions that run on original hardware). This is Big Pack version 3.3,
which is a single ZIP file that contains all 402 games to date, and has
both Coco and Dragon versions, and long filename versions for emulators
as well as short filenames for actual hardware (including the CocoSDC):
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11288
They also did a Big Pack version SSBP02 for the SuperSprite FM+ enhanced
versions (MSX video & sound hardware), and that pack now has 92 games
supporting the more advanced graphics hardware. Coco and Dragon versions are
available, and the Coco version can run under MAME as well which supports
the SuperSprite FM+ hardware:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11289

4) Renga in Blue did their summary of their favorite adventure games that
were published in 1982 across all platforms … and some Coco games made
the cut:
https://bluerenga.blog/2025/05/14/all-the-adventures-up-to-1982-in-review/
Under his recommendations for all adventure games up through 1982:
Category 2: “For adventure enthusiasts”: The Black Sanctum (Mark Data
Prodcuts) made the cut. It shoul be noted that he reviewed the 1984 graphics
enhanced version, but the original text version from 1981 has identical
game play and puzzle solving.
El Diablero from Computerware (Ken Kalish) qualified in category 2 as well.
Madness and the Minotaur from Spectral Associates (and later sold by Tandy)
got an honourable mention as well.
Star Trek Adventure from Aardvork made the honourable mention list as well,
based on the original OSI computer version, but this was ported to the
Coco not long afer that.

5) ZXFrankie on YouTube continues his quest for submitting high scores
for Dragon games on his real Dragon, this time tackling Pedro from Imagine
Software and getting up to level 23 to get his 6,095 point score:
https://youtu.be/dWfrFldr2_A?si=tNsIl8KbWpgv5sw3

6) Aquanaut 471 on YouTube did a one minute review of … I am not sure
what. The static photo throughout shows Pogo-Jo, an impressive looking
Q*Bert clone done in Semigraphics-24 for the Dragon, but I don’t think
the audio description matches. And there is a LOT of foul language here,
so I won’t play it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88YqrFxfkEk

7) XperTek on YouTube posted a gameplay video of Dale Lear’s classic Double
Back, on his Coco 2 / amber monitor system (although it takes him a bit
to remember what the object of the game is):
https://youtu.be/9HrsIYhgYqM?si=i8oLc2tOQVIQY00T

8) Jim Gerrie released his MC-10 port of the game “Epidemic”, originally
written by science instructor at Columbia College in Vancouver, BC in the
May 1981 Compute! magazine. It is a simulation of a disease outbreak on
an island, and even includes nice summary charts at the end to show how
the player did:
https://youtu.be/K6Ba7vqomIM?si=200sTNJZIAJCEljj

9) Tim & A return to the Coco on their Sibling Rivalry show, this time
covering Tandy’s Radio Ball, One gets to see some of the bugs that are
inherent to the game, which otherwise would not have been too bad of an
early pinball game:
https://youtu.be/UDofENxSwIk?si=NTDrIjaByYHPgI63

10) 8 Bits in the basement put up a video review of Nick Marentes Donut
Dilemma (the Coco 3 updated version) on his gaming YouTube channel “8bits’
basement gaming base”:
https://youtu.be/6jJW91WTPsY?si=KFI-Gtv8T-TxGh1W

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