The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 463, May 2, 2026 (April 25-May 1)

Collected by L. Curtis Boyle and Presented by Rick Ulland

Interview schedule:

Not scheduled yet, but Logan Ward and Britt Monk have agreed to come on
the show.

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:

The next online live International Computer Club show on the Twitch and
YouTube channels for the Amigos. There has been Coco content on there
before; will there be this year? 7 guests have already been booked as of
this week. It starts at 4:30 pm EST on May 2:
https://www.youtube.com/@AmigosRetroGaming

VCF-SW (Southwest) is at a slightly different date this year (May 29-31)
because of the Soccer championships, and is happening at the Westin
Dallas Forth Worth Airport. This is of course where Tandy/Radio Shack was
headquartered, so expect some alumni to be popping by!
https://www.vcfsw.org/

Retro Fest in the UK is running May 30-31st at the STEAM Museum of
Great Western Railway in Swindon, 10 am to 5 pm both days, and there is
confirmation that a Dragon Fujinet rig will be shown at the show:
https://www.retrofest.uk/

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/Saturday) (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

VCF West is August 1-2, 2026 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain
View California, and there are a few local Coco people that may attend:
https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/

VCF-MW (Midwest) is September 12-13 at the Schaumburg Convention Center
in Schaumburg, Illinois (west of Chicago proper):
https://vcfmw.org/

Tandy Assembly dates and new venue have been announced on Facebook. Oct
2-Oct 4 at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel at the Cincinnati Airport:
https://www.facebook.com/events/896272716427805/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22attachment%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D

The 2nd VCF Montreal dates have been announced, and they have moved a few
months ahead to avoid the dead of winter (it was in January earlier this
year; the next one is November 7-8 this year as well):
https://cvcfed.org/vcf-montreal-2-0/

NEWS:

Dragon 32/64

1) Julian Brown let me know that Curtis didn’t have everything quite right
talking about some of his Dragon stories last week.
From Julian:
“Just watched yesterday’s show, just wanted to say nice try on the slot
covering my core board for the rev 4 but not quite on target. The PLCC
(square) socket is for the character rom, not a CPU. The CPU in question
is held in the FPGA – allowing for either a very fast standalone master
CPU (disabling the main CPU), a symmetrical dual CPU setup using bus
mastering, or an asymmetric dual CPU using time slicing (the main CPU
remains responsible for handling IO and interrupts) – or you can just
switch the extra CPU off. The virtual CPU can run at about 40 times the
speed of an original. The SAM replacement would also allow a 63C09 to run
full speed not just “double” speed.
Technically the virtual CPU is a proven, cycle accurate reproduction of a
6809 but it doesn’t have to be – you could implement most forms of 8-bit
CPU (or switch between them) but then you have all the fun and games of
incompatible byte code. You could also implement a more efficient 6809
compatible CPU or just extend it with custom instructions such as Hitachi
did. Dedicated compress/uncompress instructions spring to mind, likewise
for encryption which would potentially make native access to SSL protected
resources viable.
The other point is about the One ROM – these are simulated ROMs based on
the Raspberry Pi chip. They allow reprogramming over USB while in-system
on top of all the other simple tricks of paging that we normally do for
larger ROMs. One trick in particular is multiplexing the ROM so it can
effectively populate multiple ROM sockets – it just needs to see the chip
enable signal for each individual position. Look up Piers Rocks on You
Tube for demonstrations (https://www.youtube.com/@piers_rocks)”

He also posted an update to his multi-pack boards, including costs, and
how many he has left:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164188574647641/

And an update on his CPLD based SAM/VDG boards:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4390697187856583/

And an update on the MMU/2 MB of static RAM, integrated VDG board:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4387133211546314/

2) John Whitworth posted that the Dragon PSU has now fully been migrated
to KiCad, making it easier to “make progressive changes”:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4385968828329419/

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

1) CocoTown returns to his Moon Patrol style game in his latest episode,
with Game Revolutions covering “adding 80s video game special effects”,
going in detail about nested loops for an implosion effect, and a ray
explosion effect:
https://youtu.be/91E54DLC1gE?si=cU2rhMjXkc_rSuQD

2) Rich Stephens posted in the Coco Facebook group a video showing the new
“color shift” options added to the Coco Fujinet newsreader, now allowing
both inverse video and both colorsets:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164209060207641/

3) Boisy Pitre posted a quick video in the Coco Facebook group showing
his hydro-dipped “Rainbow” Coco 3:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/?multi_permalinks=10164208554237641&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen
And a Galaxy Coco 1 using the same process:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164208083717641/

3) Erico Monteiro posted in the Coco Facebook group that his procedural
semigraphics demo with animated aliens plotting schemes, called Open
Pilantra is now available for download from his fued.net site:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164207320302641/
Download link:
https://fued.net/open-pilantra/

4) Carlos Camacho is working on a Coco assembler application with a GUI,
called CocoForge, which supports 6809 and 6309 and even some 6800/6801
equivalent instructions, Flex support, profiles, and more:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164204238327641/

5) Mauricio Matte is working on something similar, called Coco Game Studio
project, which is a modern Assembly development IDE including the editor,
cross assembler, screen editor, XROAR emulator, etc. (Scroll down to
show screenshots):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164204424572641/

6) David Collins has been working on a Linux port of Micro-C, an embedded
K&R C compiler, and he showed a screenshot of a simple test program running
that calls BASIC ROM output routines:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164193626962641/

7) Vincent Tran has made a Windows app called RetroModem Bridge that he
uses for getting online with his Coco 3 and RS-232 pack. He made it with
help from AI, and uses it with Roger Taylor’s NetMate to go online with
current Telnet BBS’s:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164192503917641/

7) Brian Palmer posted another Coco 3 picture type in originally done by
Joy Wallace for a Coco magazine in 1987:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164189808217641/
He also posted another for the Coco 1/2 originally by Nick Kopstarelas
in 1985:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164189620217641/

8) Mike Horgan posted a video clip of his new ESP-32 Coco, including 3D
printed case and demoing it playing Poona:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164188625457641/

9) Chris Presley posted a quick video on Facebook showing him running a
Coco emulator on an Android phone:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164188574647641/

10) Luc Dion posted some screenshots and DSK image of a 3D sombrero graphic,
and showing it with both artifacting and non-artifacting modes, running
on the ESP-32 Coco project:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4262638377332924/posts/4314464062150355/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4262638377332924/posts/4314494482147313/

11) Cedric Beaudoin posted new firmware to enable the RS-232 pak emulation
on the ESP-32, and has now also posted a diagram of how to make a cable
for it, and a test program to make sure it works:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4262638377332924/posts/4313595302237231/
He also posted a Joystick testing program to help people tweaking joystick
settings on the ESP-32:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4262638377332924/posts/4309613279302100/

12) Timothy S. Brennan posted a blog about his using the ESP-32 Coco,
and even rescuing a program he wrote for playing D&D:
https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2026/05/flashback-friday-color-computer-fun.html

13) Dave Appleton posted photos of some old hand wired 6809 systems he
built back in the 1980’s for commercial products:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3997904270502925/

14) David Collins posted some of Dave Dunfield’s MicroCAD drawings:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3997479117212107/

15) Nonsonic on YouTube does an almost quarter hour review and show through
of the December 1985 issue of Rainbow magazine. He is from Canada, but
doesn’t seem to familiar to the Coco:
https://youtu.be/rVkJE6YgXCA?si=h1rA9KjniFwVxkul

16) synexo on YouTube released a video showing his Coco 3 using his Modem
Pad with a modern synth modem (at 300 baud which is all the Modem Pad
supported without some hardware hacks):
https://youtu.be/KmrtVg1ozqg?si=sjnmmMlnC9cWuGm2

17) Glenside has the live stream presentations from CocoFest last weekend
up to watch:
https://www.youtube.com/@glensideccc/streams
These include Jim Brain’s presentation for the CocoMem Jr., Rick Adams
Coco War stories, John Strong’s Coco Game Development Q&A, and Henry
Strickland’s updates on several of his projects.

MC-10

1) Jim Gerrie ported “Bee Maze/Bee Amazed”, a maze generating program from
Creative Computing magazine in June 1981. Ported from the TRS-80 Model
1/3 original, It includes both printer and screen output capabilities,
and I think it is running in SG6 (64×48):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPpLI80gcP8

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

1) Allen Huffman posted on his Sub Etha blog the full story behind the
PONG programming contest from the May 1993 Chicago CocoFest. He shows the
demo he made in text mode (80 column), and mentions the winner was GNOP
by Chris Hawkes of Hawksoft, and MM/1 game where the ball stays centered
on the screen and the whole play area scrolls around it. He also reveals
the secret that he actually queried Atari about making his PONG version an
officially licensed one, and lastly a video demo of a dual simultaneous OS
(OS-9 and Linux) version of Pong he did in the early 2000’s, which had
each player with it’s own OS on a separate core in the Core Duo Intel CPU:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/04/28/we-wanted-to-licensed-pong-in-1993/

2) Chronologically Gaming covered both the Dragon and Coco on this weeks
episode; Sands of Egypt on the Coco, Greg Zumwalt’s version of Space
War for the Coco, and St. George and the Dragons on the Dragon 32:
https://youtu.be/bnP_tTJZYog?si=18e0szEatAd9S-Pd

3) Renga in Blue covers the text adventure game “Escape From Sparta”
written by Rick Townsend and Thomas Hollerback for the 1st Rainbow Book
of Adventures contest:
https://bluerenga.blog/2026/05/01/escape-from-sparta-1983/

4) Brian Palmer posted in the Coco Facebook group that he is typing in an
old Goldsoft Adventure game called “Search for Martha”, but it is a long
listing to type in and he is asking if anyone already has it:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164203623947641/

5) Erico Monteiro is sharing his progress in trying to duplicate a feat
that he did when he was younger – winning all of the time gates in the
classic game Time Bandit:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164192269837641/

6) Inufuto has started releasing it’s many cross platform versions of a
new game called “SwordWork”:
http://inufuto.web.fc2.com/8bit/sword/
Coco 1/2 version:
https://youtu.be/ngHg8VnRyls?si=CJQszNcIN2cO9aha
Coco 3 version:
https://youtu.be/LNH6yItz9qI?si=jb186b5zUL3LXGvc
MC-10 version:
https://youtu.be/sjuuBPgoyB4?si=–QfqjYH5-t2JwOP

7) Chinop on YouTube posted a video playing Panzer by Patrick A. Ewing. I
think this was from T&D magazine. This is loosely based on the old Gunfight
arcade games from the 1970’s, with 1 or 2 player options:
https://youtu.be/jLES8PfUyqY?si=LuhOKVnJ1FyJV__1

8) Attempts: A gaming channel (by LRU) covers the game Fingers for the
Dragon 32/64:
https://youtu.be/Ok5M8auv7d4?si=2VPw_8qSsHdxL0z3

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