The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 450, January 31, 2026 (Jan 24-30)

Collected and Presented by L. Curtis Boyle

Interview schedule:

Not scheduled yet, but Logan Ward has agreed to come on the show.

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:

VCF SoCal is February 14-15 this year at the Hotel Fera Event Center in
Orange, California:
https://www.vcfsocal.com/

The next TRS-80 Trash Talk live show has already been scheduled, for 8 PM
CST on February 21st on their YouTube channel:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163801640387641/

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

The next Dragon Meetup is March 28-29 at The Centre for Computing History
in Cambridge, England:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4295687980690838/

CocoFest 2026 is April 24-25, as mentioned in the Glenside meeting this past
week. And hotel rates are locked in now (see post on Glenside website). Feb
15 3 pm Central is the date the tables open up for reservation:
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/

The International Retro Computer Expo 2026 now has tickets available (this
was formerly BoatFest, ran by the Amigos – John, Aaron and Brent) for
their retro show happening July 10-11 (Friday/Satruday) (July 9/Thursday
vendors can set up in the evening). This is a general retro show for old
home computers, consoles and more, with gaming highlighted:
https://www.ticketsource.com/ircexpo2025/international-retro-computer-expo-2026/2026-07-10/09:00/t-qmjplra

NEWS:

Dragon 32/64

1) An updated version of Quarx from the 8 Bit Guy/Paul Shoemaker has been
released fixing some border graphics:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11330

2) The next Dragon meetup now has an officially announced date and place:
The Centre for Computing History (different than the last few years),
happening March 28/29:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4295687980690838/

3) Julian Brown posted an update to his VDG replacement, and has decided
to go the route of moving the character font data to a dedicated EPROM
rather than trying to force it into the CPLD itself:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4294827034110266/

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

1) Ron Lommardo, one of the people very active in the Coco/OS9 community back
in the 1980’s and 1990’s, posted a historic video showing some behind
the scenes of some Coco OS9 upgrade demos done in his hotel room for the
1990 CocoFest in Chicago. Kent Meyers shows off GShell 1.25, Mike Haaland
shows off MVCanvas with some enhancements for the Version 3 upgrade (like
multi-color patterns rather than just the 2 color standard), Bruce Isted
is shown modifying circuit boards, ShellPlus Version 2.9 is mentioned,
and Dale & Esther Pucket interview Ron’s wife about her history with
the Coco for a little bit at the end, which was going to be in Dale’s
history of the Coco book project that was never completed:
https://youtu.be/bBS_9uYhVLs?si=mqa1dJtsjRewOIG6

2) Brett Gordon made a drive speed test utility, and tested it with the
SDC, CocoIO and DriveWire, and recorded a video of it running the CocoIO
in particular:
https://youtu.be/9S2zQClVg_Q

3) Jeff Tranter put up a video covering VCF-Montreal, including photos of
Coco’s and Coco vendors:
https://youtu.be/yGBuIPCcwuI?si=ugqEJxhqvhAQiJdd

4) pw has updated his blog with another deep dive into how the Coco game
Downland works, this time covering how background collision work:
https://www.puffweet.com/2026/01/29/downland-unearthed-background-collisions/

5) The 8-bit Guy will take a little longer to complete his Coco video, but
he is taking another poll of the best Coco 3 games that would play in 128K,
that you can place your votes in (or add another game not listed so far)
on the Coco Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163797929557641/
An earlier in the week poll for the best games that are playable on Coco
1/2’s is also still going:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163791684807641/

6) Grant Leighty posted an update for CocoFest, including booking tables,
to the Glenside Color Computer Club’s website:
https://www.glensideccc.com/34th-annual-last-chicago-cocofest-update/

7) Rich Stephens posted that Fujinet has another Coco update – the
Wikipedia reader is out and supports 32 and 42 column screens on a Coco
1 or 2, and 40 or 80 column hardware text on a Coco 3:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163790000717641/

8) A large discussion on modifying/using the Armatron robot arm on the Coco
happened on the Coco Facebook group this past week (200 comments already!),
including the Hot Coco article series:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163780870992641/

9) PortaCoco was at VCF Montreal this past weekend, and was showing off
some newer thigns including the Porta MC-10, and the Porta Mini CM-8 monitor:
https://portacoco.com/

10) Mauricio Matte posted that Victor Trucco is developing a clone of the
CocoMax high res interface (for Coco Max / Coco Max II):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ClubeColor/posts/25330235346677507/

MC-10

1) Earie’s 8-Bit woekshop released a video about the MC-10, which he
had never heard of before:
https://youtu.be/e6ZfXXz9ZUI?si=X8uph–CrwF7nH8x

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) The Amigos review Nick Marentes Pinball in a late episode of The Coco
Show (delayed a few days due to the winter storm that tore through a lot
of the USA). Next Coco Show is planned to be March 16, reviewing Steve
Bjork’s Warp Fighter 3D:
https://youtu.be/4isnRjmxQ4M?si=_vBEIx7iOr6lQfYt

2) RetroTrailer-2 on YouTube posted a video of the Coco version of
Zaxxon. While the artifact colors are right, the screen looks a little
stretched horizontlly:
https://youtu.be/QY2unNTNkck?si=Wlgk5MSJHFitnUVr

3) Ellimist posted another Coco adventure game speed run video on his
YouTube channel. This time around he covers Pirate’s Treasure, a graphical
adventure game that is controlled by the joystick (there isn’t any text
entry at all):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLB09zsY9kU

4) Henrique Porto on the Coco Facebook group asked if anyone has ever
solved the Bank Robbery case in the Computerware game Sam Sleuth
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163780367482641/

5) Richard Kelly posted on the Coco Facebook group that he would like
suggestions for which Atari 2600 game he should port to the Coco:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163778646672641/

6) Renga in Blue reviews “House Adventure”, an adventure game published
by tape magnazine Chromasette in their January 1983 issue:
https://bluerenga.blog/2026/01/30/house-adventure-1983/

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