Special NOTES:

NOTE: We are planning to do a special “Coco 4” episode for January as
part of the virtual Tandy Retro Show (this hopefully gives enough time
for some of us to get our old machines up and running enough to fully
demo). These are the computers 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.

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:

As Mark Overholser mentioned on our show, the next Tandy Retro Show will
be happening January 24 and 25th, which will be a series of live YouTube
streaming presentations. He is currently taking bookings of people &
topics. Send an email to: registration@tandyretroshow.com
https://tandyretroshow.com/

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. At least
2 Coco speakers have been confirmed so far:
https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/

The Indy Classic retro show will be happening March 21-22, 2026 at a
new location – the Wyndham Indianapolis Airport Hotel in Indiapolis,
Indiana. This show includes Randy Kindig of the Floppy Days Podcast as
one of it’s hosts:
https://indyclassic.org/

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

VCF-PNW (Pacific North West) is returning after multiple years in hiatus,
and is happening May 2-3 2026 in the Tukwila Community Center in Tukwila,
Washington:
https://www.vcfpnw.net/

NEWS:

Dragon 32/64

1) Julian Brown posted some updates to his current video projects for
Dragon related things in one big post to the Dragon Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4261481594111477/
He also posted a webpage explaining all of his current projects (including
non-Coco/Dragon):
https://ukdragons.org.uk/default.html
He did some other updates this morning on one of his video projects,
including this one about why does the video address counter on the VDG
use 42 bytes per row (see some further talk in the comments):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/4262154547377515/

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

1) D. Bruce Moore posted a blog entry (with linked video) about replacing
the original Chiclet keyboard from his old Coco with a modern replacement,
including talking about some issues that he hit while performing the
upgrade with his son Jacob:
https://coco.gracenote.ca/coco-keyboard-replacement/
He also posted an entry about replacing the power button/switch on his
Coco 1:
https://coco.gracenote.ca/coco-power-button-snapped-off/

2) Jim Mullis did a YouTube video prototype of an SG-12/Coco 1&2 version
of Super Powers game (currently Coco 3/512K only). It flickers, but the
speed isn’t actually too bad (comments after the video was made are in
the Coco Discord Super Powers channel):
https://youtu.be/wkc8SUUsVuk

3) Brett Gordon put up a video on his YouTube channel showing a GUI/program
launcher that he is working on for Coco 1/2’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRzO2E72x8U

4) Juan Castro has added more updates to his ROM upgrade that we have
covered recently (and he is planning to be on the show soon to demo the
entire ROM upgrade), including:
HSET COLOR can set the border color on 6847-T1 equipped Coco 2’s
HSET LSET 1 enables 6847-T1 true lowercase, HSET LSET 0 reverts to
uppercase/inverse lowercase

5) More updates for ugBASIC including some Coco updates:
Main branch – fixed CPU filll indirect for 6309/6809, other bug fixes
and general optimizations:
https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/main
Beta branch:
Added ENCRYPT/DECRYPT/SIERALIZE/DESERIALIZE instructions, bug fixes and
other enhancements:
https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/beta

6) Nicolas Maillouski posted that tickets for the Montreal VCF are officially
on sale (for the show on January 25-26):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163584942772641/

7) Glenn Emelko posted photos and a bit of history about a company that he
was part of (starting in 1987) that ran in store touch screen information
computers for General Nutrition Centers – these used Coco 2’s and
3’s from 1987 through 1994 before switching to PC’s. He also covers
some other projects they used Coco’s for, and mentions that at one time
they had more than 1000 units distributed at once throughout the US:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163630134932641/

8) Retrogamer Gen X put up a bit of history about a variety of 8 bit era
computers and computer companies, including commercials. He has a whole
section on Tandy (including Coco stuff):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3aDPtL4_cE&t=5839s

9) CocoTown returns with a video about Extended BASIC’s PAINT – this
is the deep dive video he promised after his initial coverage in the
previous episode:
https://youtu.be/l-X2EoDXdK0?si=8lTi_Lr4XSy6kvNC

10) Logan Ward posted an interview he had done back in 1989 about doing
Computer artwork… on his Coco 3 (And Color Max 3 by the looks of it). I
recognize his name from cartoons he did for Rainbow, and activity on the
online networks of the time (Compuserve, Delphi):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8SNP9e-vIE

MC-10

1) Jim Gerrie posted a “silly home brew” I Love BASIC graphics demo
for the MC-10 that he wrote:
https://youtu.be/Ox4TUy5enwI?si=K0FA0kyg-5q3tpa6
He also put up an MC-10 Christmas graphic (link to source in the comments
– a Coco version would need some changes):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/25235194316180719/
He also did a math intensive spiral Christmas tree in the MC-10 Facebook
group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/25235164832850334/

2) Jay Mundy of Spriteworx posted the 3rd and final episode of his attempt
to build the MCX-32SD for this MC-10, including programming the Xilinx
chip itself:
https://youtu.be/tujB1_Ir-0Q?si=geXS-XAETPCmz8wO

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Luc Dion posted on the Coco Facebook group that he is working on a
Dungeons of Daggorath sequel, and it’s a special Christmas version that
he teases the intro with:
Announcement:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163636856762641/
Video of the intro:
https://youtu.be/dwo_TokcL68?si=Fo3y28aSs_8_jfAB
Link to get the ROM image to try it yourself (I believe that this is the
full game, not just the intro):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163636883137641/

2) Ellimist posted a speed run video to his YouTube page of The Crown of
Merro adventure game (originally from the February 1982 Rainbow magazine):
https://youtu.be/eT1Sb5st-D8?si=7813ybrpzgt0eISn

3) Attempts: A gaming channel (by LRU) posted a high score attempt video
for the Dragon game Desperado Dan:
https://youtu.be/mYWmuQO_vS8?si=piegTOqQSQ11I3KM

4) RetroTrailer-2 on YouTube posted a video with gameplay of Gold Runner
II by Diecom. His copy seems to have a glitch in the title screen (likely
from being a cracked copy), but the game seems to work. This was a sequel
to Gold Runner, with more than 30 new additional levels:
https://youtu.be/tgV45k3OnQI?si=_0nuO1k92tjjzOiG

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﻿The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 445, December 27,2025 (Dec 20-26)