The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 485, October 3, 2026 (Sep27-Oct 2)
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 485, October 3, 2026 (Sep
27-Oct 2)
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.
Special NOTES:
NONE
Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
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/
CocoFest for 2027 is May 14-15:
https://www.glensideccc.com/
NEWS:
Dragon 32/64
- Tom Erik Gundersen released an update video to his work in progress
Choplifter inspired game for the Dragon 64 now called Helilifter. This is
Tom’s 1st assembly language game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97zhdMKSNU8 - Mike (Bluearcus on the World of Dragon forums) posted some information
on the Dragon Beta version of OS-9 Level 2, including a manual that was done
to show how to use the new features (scroll to his message dated Sept 14):
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=26439#p26439
Manual – 80 columns, high res, and more talked about. This was done by
Vivavay Limited in 1984:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/browse/?downloads/Information/Dragon%20128%20Beta/os9-exten-drag-128#pid=File0001.jpg - Ian Wellock has been porting the game Starship Command from the BBC
version, and he says it plays faster than the original:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1602723113320685/?multi_permalinks=4558602767732690&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen - Tony Jewell posted a chart of known surviving Dragon 32 serial numbers,
to figure out which ranges are the most common, and which ranges seem to
be missing:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4557355817857385/ - Phil Harvey-Smith has some new 3D printed Dragon badges:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4553722304887403/
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
- Lee Perkins is working on a port to the Coco 3 of the DOS game Pagnitzu,
releasing a couple of videos showing progress:
Video 1 – render of the first room complete:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyi7pELyCaY
Video 2 – all 20 rooms rendered:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8SLBQbDgs - Ken of Canadian Retro Things did a video based on a previous video
by Robin of 8-Bit Show And Tell, working on optimizing code to read the
Electronic Book on the Coco:
Ken’s video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHPaBltyjfY
Robin’s original video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPCvhLlhMuQ - The latest TRS-80 Trash Talk Live show happened last weekend, and
they extensively covered this weekend’s Tandy Assembly, including going
through speakers and tables (well over 40 this year). There is a lot of
Coco content in both:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kriZDwbOWLY - Retro Ranger (Jeff) released a video about diagnosing a dead Coco 2 and
how he got it running, with the title “Check the Basics First!”. It’s
an older melted keyboard model:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLsyahcK5fE
He earlier released a video showing one of his other Coco 2’s getting
tested with games, diagnostics and trying the CocoSDC:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAgEPXhaEgI
And he also covered a Coco 2 he got that has an EPROM in it (for Extended
BASIC) rather than a stock Tandy/Microsoft ROM):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5mLOtvhGu8 - Rocco Corsi announced an XRoar Variable profiler that uses GDB to
connect to XRoar to profile BASIC variable use:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11374 - The 6502 Show released their second video in a series of making a video
card with a 6847 with a 6802 chip. This episode covers some changes to
the main computer board in preparation for the VDG (that latter will be
covered in part 3):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmeItp-c3GE - smbakeryt (Scott Baker) put up a video showing his bubble memory cartridge
for his Coco 2, including a really good description of how bubble memory
works. Color Computer Magazine covered a 128K Bubble RAM upgrade back in
the mid-1980’s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lizMFe032pU - Coco Town returns with the intriguing title “How 80s backdoors let
floppies HIJACK the computer (visualized)” (this is basically about
auto-loaders from disk and how they work):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhrOc9SZXOE - The first Tandy Tech Track livesteams from Tandy Assembly are already
available on YouTube. Tim Halloran covers Coco 6809 assembly language:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KURfZrzMYfA - Retro Islander posted an update video to his Coco 3 clone of Ladybug
(ironically Doodle Bug in the Game On Challenge is also a clone of Ladybug,
but for the Coco 1&2). He is almost done. He is using ChatGPT and Codex
to develop it:
https://youtu.be/oyspCgLic68?si=czQ8lbO-O7cgTpi_ - Randy Kindig’s Floppy Days podcast interviewed Peter Jennings about his
work with MicroChess, Checkers and VisiCorp (The first two were available
on the Coco 1 as two of the the original cartridges that Tandy sold for
the Coco in 1980):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxvkDbMUadY - 8bitsinthebasement (Hi Peter!) released a video about using the Coco
and MC-10 with PyDriveWire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTmy7V0o_qE - Billy’s Midway Arcade on YouTube posted a video about the Coco line
& accessories:
https://youtu.be/21RfwFzshuw?si=gyJCZLCf3-8GBhZW - Carlos Camacho posted a short video showing a teaser of his work in
progress version of Wolfenstein 3D (that’s two ports happening on the
Coco 3 now for this game!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwjOtx2BX8A - Goodhue County Gaming Alliance on YouTube covers the Coco 3 with games
like Downland and Super Pitfall. NOTE: Some foul language, and gameplay
is at least 13 minutes in):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRDonTQlLOs - Allen Huffman also covered Felipe Antonioso’s hardware project to
turn a Coco 2 into a Coco 3:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/09/22/felipe-antonioso-converts-a-coco-2-to-a-coco-3/ - Vincent Tran released an update video on his Sinistar transcode for
the Coco 3:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164873989312641/
https://www.facebook.com/WebmasterOfYourDomain/videos/2134780277476933/
His website:
https://tequestafarian.com/sinistar/ - Gene Helter has started a webpage for his Coco projects:
https://n7wdz.com/project-tandy-coco3.html - A third Wolfenstein port by Robert Sitton has appeared now as well as
a work in progress:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164873582552641/ - Alison DeNu has posted a DSK image to the Coco Facebook group that has
her very first program, a phone list program that she wrote for her then brand
new disk drive. This is a remake from memory as she lost the original code:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164867696022641/ - Simon Jonassen released a new video with a new wormhole demo:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164864176307641/ - Bradley Goldsmith posted another update to his HDMI cartridge, this
time adding Orchestra 90 support (but not full support):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164863240562641/
He also mentioned that his first run of the HDMI Cart is sold out, and
showed his 3D printed case for it:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164846208427641/
MC-10
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
- Jim Gerrie released a two player version of Connect-4 for the MC-10,
originally written on it’s French clone the Matra Alice. All of the
french has been translated to english:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJbxG0n0Bq0 - bug2k17 has released his version of Tetris for both the Dragon and the
Coco on the World of Dragon forums:
https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11372 - WhiskyTangoFoxtrot posted an over 1 hour gameplay video of the Coco 3
classic, The Contras (the first 512K required commercial game for the Coco 3):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69MUwHPdHSI - Tom’s Toys on YouTube (Tom Erik Gundersen) showed a demo of his new
game Astro Invasion for the Dragon 32. There are also Coco and Amstrad
CPC versions of this game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ9kGcwtJuw - Erico Patricio Monteiro is working complete maps for all levels of the
classic game Time Bandit, and is almost done:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164870268382641/
He also has released more screen captures with pseudo adventure game style
screens from famous movies, as he has the past few weeks. One example
(can you guess the movie?):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164860150747641/ - Jim Bob has released a DSK image of a Missile Command style game
(screenshot in comments):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164867349812641/
He also released Hive Raid, an AI assisted port of Yars Revenge:
Source:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164866520727641/
DSK image:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164866517912641/
Announcement and video demo:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164866486762641/
He also released Rocks, and AI generated Asteroids clone that looks quite
good as well:
DSK image:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164862499307641/
ASM source:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164862498172641/
Original post and video:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164862265062641/ - Antonio Caballero has released the first public beta 1 of the game
Crossroads that he has ported to the Coco 3 from the original Commodore
64 version. This was done by him and ChatGPT:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164865384627641/ - Chris Hill has ported Peter Jennings MicroChess to the MC-10 with 16K
RAM pack, running in 128x96x4 color graphics:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/28311987005168086/
Download:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/28301463936220393/
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