The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 431, September 20,2025 (Sep 13-Sep 19)

Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:

Glen Dahlgren – he has a new book launch, and we may talk a bit
about the PhantAsm assembler (I have it downloaded so we could show
the editor and the assembler, although I have no idea how to use them).
His main website:
https://glendahlgren.com/
Something I missed earlier at the end of July, is that he released a
free ¾ hour audiobook (that he narrates himself) of a short story
from his Chronicles of Chaos series, called The Dice of Chaos, on
YouTube. If you want to get a flavour of his books (and audiobooks),
this is a great place to start:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqCroro7Ajo

Special NOTES:

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 (please note that
this an active development machine so the BBS occasionally goes down
when Terry is working on hardware, etc).:
telnet ribbs.griswoldfx.com 6809

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:

Tandy Assembly for 2025 is Sept 26 to Sep 28 at the Courtyard by
Marriott Springfield Downtown in Springfield, Ohio. NOTE 1: If you
attended CocoFest this year, bring your badge to Tandy Assembly, and
you will get in for FREE! NOTE 2: 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 at the Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon.
https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/

This year’s RetroSC (a general retro show in Brazil, with a lot of
Coco and Coco clones present) is November 15, 2025 in Florianopolis,
SC, Brazil.
Native Portuguese site:
https://retrosc.org/
Google translate to english version:
https://retrosc-org.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Canada is getting it’s own official VCF – Montreal, January 25-26
of 2026. 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/

Tentative date for CocoFest 2026 – April 24-25, as mentioned in the
Glenside meeting this past week. And hotel rates are locked in now
(see post on Glenside website)
https://www.glensideccc.com/

That same weekend is the first official Latin American VCF, which
takes place April 24-26 in Bahia Blanca, Argentina:
https://vcf-espaciotec-com-ar.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

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

NOTE: We are planning to do a special “Coco 4” episode in the
future, which will included all the computers that were announced in
the 1991-1994 time frame that were supposed to be successors to the
Coco 3. We have Joel Ewy who has volunteered to show off their MM/1,
I am going to try and get my TC-9 up and running at least enough
to show it working, and Rick Ulland will show off a Delmar System
V… but we still need volunteers with TC-70’s, Kix-20 or Kix-30,
Delmar System IV, AT-306 and MM/1 B’s. Anybody still have these
machines that they would like to show off in an upcoming show? Email
me at curtisboyle@sasktel.net if you are.

Dragon 32/64

1) Mike Miller posted in the Coco Nation Discord’s News Topic
Suggestions channel about a project to make an IP stack for the Dragon
64 and it’s built in hardware serial port:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11305
Direct project page on github:
https://github.com/fridgemagnet3/uip/tree/dragon

2) More Fun Fixing It on YouTube did a video showing his trip to the
Northwest Computer Museum in the UK, including some shots of the Dragon
32 and 64 (32:25 to see the Dragons), as well as other TRS-80’s,
MC-10’s, etc. Of special note is that he picked up a Dragon 32 but
is replacing the motherboard with modern versions that he got from
Julian Brown (see: 1:11:46):
https://youtu.be/iwLaeubVD-c?si=OtsiZFQomGOt6Hea

3) Tony Jewell posted in the Dragon group on Facebook that he is
thinking of moving the Dragon Meetup to the spring of 2026 vs. the
normal fall of 2025:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4161412747451696/

4) Julian Brown posted an update about his remote control device and
getting the WiFi on it working to the Dragon Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4161041164155521/

5) John Whitworth posted a photo of a batch of SuperRGB boards for
the Dragon that he is getting ready for sale:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4162233100702994/

6) robcfg posted on the World of Dragon forums that a new tool for
DragonDOS images is out, thanks to him an bluecarcus:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11145&start=20

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

0) I will mention that there are quite a few posts for SepTandy on
the Coco related groups on Facebook, showing various peoples machines
(both from back in the day and now with collecting. I won’t show
them here on the show, but you can go to the various Coco groups and
change to sort by newest to see a lot of them.

1) Retro Rick has released a demo program for the Coco in the Coco
Discord Events → SepTandy channel:
Ron Delvaux made a short video of it:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/806769232089192

2) Catching up on some Coco Town videos that I have missed over the
past month or so (still trying to figure out why they were not showing
up for me in my searches):
Discussing how using AI to help fix the random number generator…
didn’t:
https://youtu.be/KKnkESbWv_M?si=RcUKb4sFJ0gdZmQ-
Figuring out why RND gives skewed results:
https://youtu.be/x7T3ghCYpdA?si=Wv6OzVkSr-zR0eA_
Comparing & ranking 6 different ways to randomize numbers:
https://youtu.be/MVCMf6M5Wcw?si=U5UWHEoWbokVTZOu
He then returned to the Moon Patrol style game he is working on, with
Game Revolutions cycle 27: Teaching video game aliens to fight back:
https://youtu.be/AxUhE42V-X0?si=WED5fPLSrpZ7WwmG
Game Revolutions cycle 28 – Designing a big boss for my big game:
https://youtu.be/-3kNPomxTvc?si=na-bOYfWcoT5ia3g
Game Revolutions 29 – Animating multiple layers of shield:
https://youtu.be/uMTnz0qXIXE?si=MIr6GtFlN1SSxRvF

3) La Coco Strangiato (alias Bob Emery from our panel) released a
video showing him assembling the CocoSDC kit that BoysonTech sells:
https://youtu.be/5xtE-6fkAMU?si=zAOEWk1ThebB74On

4) Since VCF-MW was last week, a few videos from the show are already
available:
Xiphod’s Photo Album of the show:
https://youtu.be/ld1CXUTusDI?si=VQw3BeZNx0gedVPP
Jason “CocoMan” Reighard:
https://youtu.be/S7THr04IQWU?si=6vmSgpKV85TkAfP4

5) Z4RT4N on YouTube posted a short video showing him calling the
Tuxedo Cat Lounge BBS from a Coco 3 via a Direct Connect modem pak
at 300 baud:
https://youtu.be/eSQbJvcQ0Lo?si=AFinbvKj_1awPo9G

6) 8bitsinthebasement posted VLOG 3 of his Super Shooty Aliens VLOG,
showing development of his space shooter game in assembly for the Coco
1/2/3 & Dragon 32/64. He decided to use SG-24, and now he continues
development based on that:
https://youtu.be/GFY6tM_4ZuE?si=IQocW5g_JjxlTh6n

7) JaceFuse, who we showed last week is working on a Dungeons of
Daggorath port to the Amiga, posted a short video update showing
some updates to his port so far, and also shows the Coco original &
a little bit of history to the game:
https://youtube.com/shorts/sC6kUeUIuQ8?si=ldH–NoeoKAi2VMn

8) David Chesek posted a video for SepTandy to the Coco Facebook group
showing a 32 column friendly version of RiBBS to Go by Terry Trapp,
and shows a 64K Coco logging into a 2 MB RAM Coco 3 running RiBBS,
both using WiFi paks:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163212856967641/

9) Luciano Scharf posted about a heavily modified Coco 1 he
received. It’s a European PAL version with 16K RAM, but modified
to use Peritel/SECAM video, and was sold in Belgium, but has some
things that are not at all common, which he mentions in the post,
and he has a ton of up close photos of the mods:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163207340422641/

10) Sheldon MacDonald posted a video showing his SID player
hardware/software for the Coco that he demoed at CocoFest this past
May to the Coco Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163202288147641/
He also posted an updated video for his upcoming game that we showed
last week, and this is the final preview before the games release. This
also shows the support it has for the SID chip player hardware that
Brendan Donahe (of CocoVGA fame) will be selling. It is a good demo
of what the Coco could have done with a sound chip (like the Deluxe
Coco was going to have, although that was more primitive than the SID):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163198041637641/

11) Joel Ewy uploaded a first shot at making 3D printer files to
print replacement CM-8 door clips to the Coco Facebook group. In the
comments he mentioned some changes he is already doing:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163201182967641/

12) David Collins posted an update on his VZ compatible RC39 Bus
computer. This is a Z80 based machine (I believe) but does use the
same VDG as the Coco’s, Dragons and MC-10/Alice use:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/173737063356725/posts/1876967146367033/

13) Jim Brain announced the executive for Glenside for the next year:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/290791956162/?multi_permalinks=10163633558341163&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen

14) Canadian Retro Things (Ken Waters) posted another SepTandy video
about the Electronic Book:
https://youtu.be/Ibifdw145iA?si=w9Op03zWnRa2ifUp

15) raxfale on the Coco Discord mentioned that he has written a BASIC09
interpreter for a hobby os dev he is playing (although his public
release on github is for Window, I believe). He notes it “isn’t
complete, and rather untested”:
https://github.com/pniekamp/basic09

MC-10

1) dougv4850 on the Coco Discord posted a link to his case design
for the MCX32-SD:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7144973/files
He also posted about it in the MC-10 group on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/24329724976727662/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Retro Gaming Nook posted a video to YouTube showing Donkey Kong
clones on the TRS-80 Model 1/3/4 and Coco computers as part of SepTandy
(including Coco 3 Donkey Kong transcode and Donkey Kong Remix by John
Kowalski (Sock Master):
https://youtu.be/piOk0M3X6Vg?si=x7Pt_OSfif5pe6gG

2) Jim Gerrie posted a new MC-10 conversion of the game Super Mind
(originally by Marc Petitqueux & Micro Influx back in 1983 for the
Sanyo PHC-25. It is based on the popular Mastermind game:
https://youtu.be/KznjFdvLLQ8?si=wKKfELtcQkPXQ26Y

3) XperTek tackled another Coco game from disk #8 in his Coco 2
amber screen collection, this time playing Space Sentry by Spectral
Associates (and the 3rd place winner in the first and only Spectral
Associates Game Programming contest):
https://youtu.be/zws5z3m66ZY?si=b0JtYHr061isMCpV
He also covered Tandy/DataSoft’s Shooting Gallery:
https://youtu.be/n0TyU1f7MLg?si=HneEN0R-aybSqxZk

4) Polish YouTube channel Retro Borusk will be hosting a live stream on
September 22 (10 AM CST) about Dragon 32 games – although they call
it the “unknown Dragon 32”, if Google translate is to be believed:
https://www.youtube.com/live/WCPq7rB8Kus?si=RsGF7Ij5T2-TXxJQ

5) WhiskyTangoFoxtrot on YouTube released a video showing Pitfall games
for the Coco for another SepTandy video (including the port Trapfall):
https://youtu.be/PknVv4jUcxA?si=_U_wBe2ZhlUomaYt
He also played Coco Zone – a graphic adventure game, in a part
1 video:
https://youtu.be/KI0JENItru4?si=FEOKPrr9tcmadc0A

6) Kari on Facebook just got a Coco 1 and is looking for suggestions
on what games to try on it (thanks Brian Wieseler for letting me know
about this post shortly before the show):
https://www.facebook.com/itskarilawler/posts/pfbid0AKZziGFvULaNNbT1r4ETVLjaxCweLhBVDegLb4hdqgXACvjEXG7M69z6RJ7t4jREl

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