[Coco] Back to the CoCo world!

[Bob Devries]

Hey, welcome to yet another Aussie.

G'day mate!! :)
--
Regards, Bob Devries. Dalby, Queensland, Australia.
Faith isn't faith until it's all you're holding on to.
http://e4god.com/freeblogs/bdevries/


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <golgotha at toughguy.net>
To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Friday, November 26, 2004 8:47 AM
Subject: [Coco] Back to the CoCo world!


Well, I'm back.. again..

This is now my third outing in the CoCo world :)

First, a bit about myself.. My name is David, a 25yo father of three from
Wollongong, Australia

I got my first CoCo at the tender age of 8.. a wonderful CoCo2 with extra
ram option (cant recall precisely how much, but I know it was extended).. a
few of the 'floaty' joysticks, and the most unreliable tape deck ever yet
made (which was replaced at least three times over the years)..

I remember wasting my youth playing "Donut Dilemma" (Thanks Nick!) and
"Radio Ball", and competing with my Dad to see who could find the final
spells in "Madness and the Minotaur"

Within a few weeks of its arrival, the CoCo was performing backflips at my
request, having mastered BASIC.. or at least "mastered" as defined by an
8yo :)

A few issues of Rainbow, some youthful dreams of programming grandeur.. 

Then our local Tandy/Radio Shack store closed due to the death of the
owner, and that was that.. my wishes for a CoCo3 went unfulfilled, and the
CoCo took a back-seat to my flash 286PC which arrived the next year.. I
still broke out the CoCo every now and again, but things just weren't the
same.

Then, about 5 years ago, I ran into an old friend, who happened to have a
128k CoCo3 lurking in his bedroom, dusty and unloved.. $5 later and all was
happy again.. I had my CoCo3, after all those years! 

I grabbed a few public-domain released 'virtual tapes' from the internet,
and tried to write them out using my stereo and sound-card, but with not
much luck.. I knew I had to go further.

So, I got in touch with the CoCo crew here on the internet (a newsgroup, I
believe), and soon purchased a double disk-drive, multipak, mouse, 6309, a
few books, OS-9 level two and disk edtasm+ (with a CoCo2 thrown in for good
measure!), courtesy of Bob Devries of Queensland and I believe Rick
(surname forgotten) from 'overseas'.. 

I was set! Many, many hours mis-spent seeing the wonders people had coaxed
the CoCo3 into doing since my departure from the "CoCo scene"..
Sockmaster's new Gloom3d demo, Nick's pacman demo, and all the games I'd
always wanted to play but never could on my CoCo2...

And then tragedy struck.. my CoCos and most of the extras were stolen
and/or destroyed during a break-in at my flat...

Demoralised, I gave up and moved on, cutting my teeth on 80x86 asm instead,
and the CoCo's were once again forgotten

My curiosity was piqued again when I discovered my OS-9 level 2 manual,
Disk Edtasm+ manual, and my copy of "TRS-80 Assembly Language Programming"
by W. Barden in a box whilst sorting my storage.. a few quick glances at
the internet showed that the community is still strong, and I'm wanting to
get back the glory days once more!

So, I have a few quick queries..

One: How on earth do I get Nitros9 running on MESS? I cant seem to find any
step-by-step guide anywhere :(

Two: Anyone in or near australia willing to part with a Coco3 setup
w/diskdrive? Emulator are good for only so much

Three: Any decent publicly-released reference books for programming the
Coco2 and or Coco3 in ASM available? specifically looking for info on
graphics programming - have a few projects I'd like to knock out.. even the
Coco3 BASIC manual itself would be handy :)

My long-winded intro is over now.. you can all returned to your
regularly-scheduled browsing!

Thanks for reading,
David

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