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) Julian Brown posted an update on his newest Dragon ATX VDG board.. he
still needs some parts that he is expecting this upcoming week:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4302307650028871/

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

1) D. Bruce Moore released a blog post and video about upgrading his
original 4K Coco 1 – he had already the upgrade the keyboard, and in
this video he is upgrading the ROM’s.
https://coco.gracenote.ca/rom-upgrade-and-dont-fry-the-motherboard/

2) Coco Town returns with a deep dive into the differences in BASIC’s
and how they perform graphics, using the Apple II and the Coco for the
comparison:
https://youtu.be/Ethx539pjRI?si=e17a7fI2HeWsCgXl

3) Retro Byte Meister did a video on “pushing this TRS-80 Coco 3 to the
Limit” = performing multiple hardware upgrades – 6309, 2 MB RAM and
the GIME-Z:
https://youtu.be/Gk6l0LHQqss?si=DSTP5Ev8110HC2Qz

4) Rich Stephens posted an updated set of instructions on how to write a
ROM file to one of the ROM banks available on the CocoSDC:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163789634737641/

5) Milton Solomon posted some pictures and a video showing a new joystick
that he is working on for the Coco 1/2/3. It features 2 buttons, and he
is uploading the BOM for it with the expected cost of parts being $20
(or even less). It bears a remarkable resemblance to the Deluxe joystick,
although I am guessing the cost does not include the 3D printed case?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163812154012641/

6) Antonio Caballero posted a lengthy article on Facebook that goes through
the hardware interfaces used by Coco Max / Coco Max II, and Coco Max III,
and how they compare with the Tandy High res interface:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163811557767641/

7) Tony also posted about a missing piece of software that sounds intriguing:
Chroma-Sketch. It allowed one to draw pictures (including undo commands if
one had 64K RAM) and converts them to BASIC programs. It also advertised
22 colors in each of 3 color sets:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163818574752641/

8) Dwayne Downing did an AI experiment using Claude Opus 4.5 – have it
make a Coco assembly Space Invaders game (using text chars). He experimented
with multiple AI engines to do so… only Claude produced working code,
which he uploaded as a .CAS file for XRoar to the Coco Facebook group. Some
of what he went through is mentioned in the comments:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163818467282641/

9) TRS-80 Retro Programing returns with a video on the Coco 3 via VCC. He
has some questions on how to set up VCC for disk rather than tape, but
shows a graphics editor that he has started on, and also tries regular
speed vs full double speed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPN8Qa7oBuI

10) The long awaited Coco video from the 8-Bit Guy just got released on
his YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Tq8jdS6mY

11) Zachary Joseph Greenman posted photos of a Coco board he has, and
needs help in identifying it:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163827950047641/

12). Rich Stephens posted about another Fujinet upgrade – the Game Lobby,
Five Card Stud and Battleship have all been upgraded now to include
joystick support:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163824760257641/

13) Daniel Moist posted on the Coco Facebook group his own monochrome
composite out circuit for a Coco 2, and he plans on working on color next:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163821861347641/

14) Paul Cordingley posted about his admiration and set up of a MiSTer to
emulate Coco 2 and Coco 3:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163821530852641/

15) David Kroeker is asking on the Coco Facebook group if anyone has a
copy of the Home Commander software that Speech Systems sold back in the
day for the X10/Plug ‘n power modules:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163821386062641/

MC-10

1) Ceisya Nadazz posted in the MC-10 group on Facebook an update to his
MC-10 emulator port to the Nintendo DS/Dsi/XL/LL… but isn’t this
someone else’s project? I could be remembering wrong:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/25506794375687377/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) The Ellimist YouTube channel released another Coco adventure game speed
run, this time covering Polynesian Advetnure by Don Dunlap from the 1st
Rainbow Book of Adventures:
https://youtu.be/RVXHP3_acW4?si=-eMgTUzSrfkBjSh4

2) Renga in Blue also reviewed a text adventure game for the Coco; this
time around covering University Adventure (for some reason referred to as
College Adventure in the T&D sheet) from the November 1983 issue of T&D
tape magnazine (#17):
https://bluerenga.blog/2026/02/03/university-adventure-1983/

3) Chinop on YouTube did a 4+ minute play of Spaced Invaders written by
Stuart T. Wyss-Gallifent in 1985:
https://youtu.be/fdKhmRjCNG0?si=yc7hQnucFb-lD5na

4) John Hancock did a video about the arcade classic Berzerk and it’s
ports and clones, including Tandy’s Monster Maze:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pXKO8WniPQ&t=761s

5) The 8-Bit Guy had one more game related survey about the Coco for his
upcoming Coco documentary video; this time he is asking for the best modern
homebrew games (Coco 1,2, or 3). Since the episode is now out, I don’t
know if there is any point voting… but maybe he will do a follow-up?:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163815389822641/

6) A theme this week on the Coco group on Facebook is people wondering how
to solve some of the classic, more difficult adventure style games from
the Coco heyday. Chris Williams was asking if anyone ever won Madness and
the Minotaur (in the comments, one person mentions that actually had the
assembly source for it from the original author, Tom Rosenbaum):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163816569717641/

7) Henrique Porto had a similar query about Maui Vice, a graphical adventure
with joystick/mouse controls:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163818412377641/

8) My Drunk Sibling posted their latest Coco game review. Tim & AJ review
Nick Marentes Coco 3 Pinball – and they make a big point of reading the
manual after all of Nick’s complaints that nobody ever does that. Bonus:
There is a discussion about Nick at the end:
https://youtu.be/F_bBXidrtDY?si=Hhk0FEySXClRKSDp

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