The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 481, September 5, 2026 (Aug 29-Sep 4)
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 481, September 5, 2026 (Aug 29-Sep 4)
Collected and Presented by L. Curtis Boyle, Mark Overholser, and 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:
VCF-MW (Midwest) is September 12-13 at the Schaumburg Convention Center
in Schaumburg, Illinois (west of Chicago proper):
https://vcfmw.org/
That same weekend is the World of Retro Computing at the University of
Waterloo (Ontario, Canada):
https://www.worldofretrocomputing.com/
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
New England RetroFest is happening in Concord, New Hamphire on Saturday
October 24.
https://neretrofest.com/
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). It’s at a new
location closer to Montreal proper (Champlain College Saint-Lambert):
https://cvcfed.org/vcf-montreal-2-0/
That same weekend, and newly added to the list, is the next RetroSC retro
computer/gaming show in Brazil that usually features a large contingent
of Coco clones (CP-400, Codimex, etc.), which is happening November 7,
2026 in Florianoplois, Brazil:
Portuguese site (try Google Translate, etc. to translate):
https://retrosc.org/
The countdown has begun! CocoFest for 2027 is May 14-15
https://www.glensideccc.com/
NEWS:
Dragon 32/64
- Tom Erik Gundersen getting jiggy with the SAM
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/4527191784207122/ - A different take: OS9 for Dragon
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/4524228534503447/
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
- Lee Perkins issued a couple of updates to his Castle Wolfenstein engine
testing for the Coco 3 that he has been trying. The first one shows wall
tile rendering and optimizations for speed, that actually looks pretty
good even at it’s low resolution:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpUdIMclxwI
His second video shows a wider variety of tiles, from level 3:
https://youtu.be/DJGQi78mw5Q?si=LFhqxdZRbmNqKe1v - Hackaday and Digikey have announced their Retrocomputing contest (with
some prizes):
https://hackaday.io/contest/206399-retrocomputing-contest - George Janssen has released part 2 of lesson 21 for this Coco 3 assembly
language tutorial series, which is about drawing points, lines and boxes
in assembly:
https://youtu.be/moXQZ4BKf0g?si=NCNNML3IVUhrWFCq - Allen Huffman posted a quick post to his blog about some experiments
he did with AUDIO ON/AUDIO OFF back when he was young:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/09/01/the-coco-vocoder/ - For SepTandy, Brian has been running down the CoCo. Starting with a fan,
so we can load ‘er up
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164744099597641/ and then Super Voice, so the CoCo can read.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164754392532641/ and the Voice, so CoCo can sing. Is he building a robot?
From here he links the Rainbow article, check it out.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164758310967641/ - Vincent Tran has potentially too many floppies
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164747631827641/ - Don’s gone wild. Custom Molex connectors?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164753139107641/ - Cedric has released new ESP32 firmware, supports 6309 and more!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4262638377332924/
https://discord.com/channels/301741082600013824/1480677815237218388/1544926236302905457 - Chris Burke updates his “hardware” math accelerator. The VCC implementation
is 80% complete, the PicoROM implementation is in investigation stage,
and I’m just starting the C runtime library support.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164756985607641/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=2nT92x3bKaErPxxq# - Thomas Cherryhomes writes on connecting FujiNet to Google Calendar
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?mibextid=wwXIfr&v=1381517507517598&rdid=SqxI9Hdm7ltJdqs1
- Rich Stephens reports on CAS file compatibility for FujiNet for CoCo
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164742066662641/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=54QjpUhb5P94SkNx# - Vincent Tran describes a little project since receiving my FujiNet
earlier this week- GiME ANSi! It’s an ANSI terminal for the CoCo 3
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164729531207641/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=E7FBJMNmgcWcXrQZ# - Alex Redman: Enhanced DOS BASIC has now come to v8.00b and a LOT of
useful things for programmers who want to experiment with what this 40
year old machine can still do!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164726623737641/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=Cshl18wafeFfJNLW# - Don Sorensens Coco 3 rebuild… 99 % of everything is here. I’m
still waiting on the SALT chip replacement from Tuc’s Workbench and my
2mb ram and Pro-Tector from Cloud-9.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164725544157641/?mibextid=wwXIfr&rdid=wq1TKtKYF7FZaASv#
MC-10
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
- Aaron and The Brent of the Amigos do a review of the Tom Mix Software
game Touchstone, a clone of the arcade game Tutankham:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9dMiLXfU3w
They also staged a classic matchup – AmigaAugust vs SepTandy (Amiga vs
CoCo3). Zaxxon, Rampage, RoboCop, One On One, Marble Maze, and more. Check
them out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWI2m4v23VI
- Chronologically Gaming covered an old Larry Greenfield game – based
on the board game Clue”” – that he originally wrote back in 1982. He
has since updated it many times, including a Coco 3 version – but just
the Coco 1&2 version is covered here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkBOUnARWWE&t=1355s - TRS-80 Retro Programing did something a little different in his latest
video – he plays some commercial video games for the Coco 1&2 rather
than discuss his own:
https://youtu.be/epgFfSqP2Fc?si=63r4TvvTPhc_sk7g - WhiskyTangoFoxtrot plays CoCo Zone every Septandy. He never finishes. Is
this his year?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMV0MsI4STk - NostalgiaVault plays many games, including all the PacMans. Well,
26 of them. CoCo3 is in there somewhere, if you want to see a shootout.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkwa_gGPwiU
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