From aawolfe at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 00:15:10 2009 From: aawolfe at gmail.com (Aaron Wolfe) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 00:15:10 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <9efa17da0907310754m35fe23e0ta67392641b867b86@mail.gmail.com> References: <9efa17da0907310754m35fe23e0ta67392641b867b86@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: If you let me know which code listings are difficult like that, I might be able to get a better scan. I have had great success with Abby Fine in its "BASIC" recognition mode on the online Rainbows found at maltedmedia. If it worked I could just paste in the text. Might save some time. -Aaron On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 10:54 AM, Sean wrote: > I was having fun until I got a code-checking one, almost every 'M' was > turned into an 'H', no '=' was correct, along with many, many, many > other OCR errors. > I'd be amazed if I actually got them all. ?That one hurt! > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 2:42 AM, Fedor Steeman wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Regarding Tom Lindner's excellent Rainbow digitization system: I thought a >> little competition would not harm. In any case it is a great idea with the >> top contributor list! >> >> I have now crept up into the top 3 and gaining in on 68.151.107.163 followed >> by Robert. It won't be long until I am number two! :-) :-) >> >> See if y'all can beat that score, suckers! MUHAHAHA!! Hasta la vista! >> >> Fedor >> >> -- >> Coco mailing list >> Coco at maltedmedia.com >> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco >> > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From coco+list at jeanpaulsamson.com Sat Aug 1 00:43:25 2009 From: coco+list at jeanpaulsamson.com (J.P. Samson) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:43:25 -0600 Subject: [Coco] Creating a real floppy from a dsk image over drivewire In-Reply-To: <6499C8A6-A0DD-4EF7-8478-D7D999AEF8E9@ocs.net> References: <2B61289D-A757-41E2-AB0E-C12A1ED599B3@ocs.net> <6499C8A6-A0DD-4EF7-8478-D7D999AEF8E9@ocs.net> Message-ID: <69FF1A02-B3D0-4B9D-B30C-D9A52F6ECAB6@jeanpaulsamson.com> On Jul 31, 2009, at 8:11 PM, Michael Furman wrote: > On Jul 31, 2009, at 6:28 PM, Michael Furman wrote: >> I have found myself without a linux pc with a real floppy drive and >> need to create a real floppy disk from a dsk image that I have on >> my Mac. Is there any way to do this? I have tried various things >> like playing with the drive on/drive off command in hdb dos, and >> also trying in nitros9 doing backups from /xN to /d0, and also >> backup f blah.dsk /d0 with no luck. > > Let me clarify a slight ambiguity in my previous message - I have a > Coco 3 with a pair of 3.5" drives attached and also have Drivewire 3 > running on my Mac laptop but lack my Linux PC that I would normally > use to create live floppies from the various .dsk and .os9 images I > have around. I haven't used DriveWire for a few years, so I can't remember the commands correctly or even test this out... I think the basic idea of copying virtual disk images from a PC through DriveWire onto a CoCo with floppy goes something like this: DRIVE ON DSKINI 4 BACKUP 0 TO 4 DRIVE OFF BACKUP 4 TO 0 Mount the disk image you are interested in in DriveWire. Create a blank, high-numbered virtual floppy to temporarily hold the disk image (e.g. virtual disk #4 in this case). Copy the virtual disk image up to this temporary space (e.g. from virtual disk #0 to #4). Then disengage DriveWire from commandeering the real floppy drive numbers, and backup that temporary virtual floppy onto a real floppy in the CoCo. -- JP From robert.gault at worldnet.att.net Sat Aug 1 09:55:27 2009 From: robert.gault at worldnet.att.net (Robert Gault) Date: Sat, 01 Aug 2009 09:55:27 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Creating a real floppy from a dsk image over drivewire In-Reply-To: <69FF1A02-B3D0-4B9D-B30C-D9A52F6ECAB6@jeanpaulsamson.com> References: <2B61289D-A757-41E2-AB0E-C12A1ED599B3@ocs.net> <6499C8A6-A0DD-4EF7-8478-D7D999AEF8E9@ocs.net> <69FF1A02-B3D0-4B9D-B30C-D9A52F6ECAB6@jeanpaulsamson.com> Message-ID: <4A74494F.9080103@worldnet.att.net> J.P. Samson wrote: > On Jul 31, 2009, at 8:11 PM, Michael Furman wrote: >> On Jul 31, 2009, at 6:28 PM, Michael Furman wrote: >>> I have found myself without a linux pc with a real floppy drive and >>> need to create a real floppy disk from a dsk image that I have on my >>> Mac. Is there any way to do this? I have tried various things like >>> playing with the drive on/drive off command in hdb dos, and also >>> trying in nitros9 doing backups from /xN to /d0, and also backup f >>> blah.dsk /d0 with no luck. >> >> Let me clarify a slight ambiguity in my previous message - I have a >> Coco 3 with a pair of 3.5" drives attached and also have Drivewire 3 >> running on my Mac laptop but lack my Linux PC that I would normally >> use to create live floppies from the various .dsk and .os9 images I >> have around. > > I haven't used DriveWire for a few years, so I can't remember the > commands correctly or even test this out... > > I think the basic idea of copying virtual disk images from a PC through > DriveWire onto a CoCo with floppy goes something like this: > > DRIVE ON > DSKINI 4 > BACKUP 0 TO 4 > DRIVE OFF > BACKUP 4 TO 0 > > Mount the disk image you are interested in in DriveWire. Create a > blank, high-numbered virtual floppy to temporarily hold the disk image > (e.g. virtual disk #4 in this case). Copy the virtual disk image up to > this temporary space (e.g. from virtual disk #0 to #4). Then disengage > DriveWire from commandeering the real floppy drive numbers, and backup > that temporary virtual floppy onto a real floppy in the CoCo. > > -- JP > Those are HDBDOS or RGBDOS commands. With Drivewire, a disk mounted on the PC will be one of 0-3 with floppies On, but the same disk will also be drives 4-255 as well. It is confusing. :) From mechacoco at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 15:02:28 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 13:02:28 -0600 Subject: [Coco] Creating a real floppy from a dsk image over drivewire In-Reply-To: <6499C8A6-A0DD-4EF7-8478-D7D999AEF8E9@ocs.net> References: <2B61289D-A757-41E2-AB0E-C12A1ED599B3@ocs.net> <6499C8A6-A0DD-4EF7-8478-D7D999AEF8E9@ocs.net> Message-ID: <5d802cd0908011202y2061c1a9ifa28e72079eb3b6c@mail.gmail.com> On 7/31/09, Michael Furman wrote: > > > Let me clarify a slight ambiguity in my previous message - I have a > Coco 3 with a pair of 3.5" drives attached and also have Drivewire 3 > running on my Mac laptop but lack my Linux PC that I would normally > use to create live floppies from the various .dsk and .os9 images I > have around. > > -- Here is a procedure which I have successfully used for single-sided, 35 track images: Make a duplicate copy of the image to work with. Mount the image file in slot 0 of the DriveWire server. Insert a real floppy disk in CoCo Drive 0. Enter the following commands under DriveWire HDB-DOS: DRIVE ON DRIVE #0 BACKUP 0 TO 1 DRIVE OFF 0 BACKUP 1 TO 0 Be sure to include the '0' in the DRIVE OFF command. The first BACKUP doubles the size of the mounted image file by creating a second copy of the disk image in the same file. The second BACKUP copies the second image from the file onto the real floppy. Darren From twospruces at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 15:34:34 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 15:34:34 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about FD-501 and coco3 Message-ID: Hi, Is FD-501 compatible with coco3? I've read somewhere that it is not - that the coco3 needs to be modified. Any info out there? thanks, Steve From pfitchjr at bellsouth.net Sat Aug 1 15:47:22 2009 From: pfitchjr at bellsouth.net (Paul Fitch) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 15:47:22 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about FD-501 and coco3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The Coco3 doesn't supply 12 volts for the disk controller. You need a Multipak, or the newer coco2 style disk controller and drives. > -----Original Message----- > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com > [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Adolph > Sent: Saturday, August 01, 2009 3:35 PM > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Subject: [Coco] question about FD-501 and coco3 > > Hi, > Is FD-501 compatible with coco3? I've read somewhere that it > is not - that the coco3 needs to be modified. > > Any info out there? > thanks, Steve > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From mechacoco at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 15:50:54 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 13:50:54 -0600 Subject: [Coco] question about FD-501 and coco3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5d802cd0908011250x5c9b6ed3g64dac15c995f3e92@mail.gmail.com> On 8/1/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > Hi, > Is FD-501 compatible with coco3? I've read somewhere that it is not - > that the coco3 needs to be modified. > --- Yes. The FD-501 will work with a CoCo 3. In fact all of the Tandy controllers except for the very first version (Cat No 26-3022) will work when plugged directly into a CoCo 3. If you use a Multi Pak Interface then even that first version will work. Darren From mechacoco at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 15:53:22 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 13:53:22 -0600 Subject: [Coco] question about FD-501 and coco3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5d802cd0908011253q14db3b35l92fc769ca1c4cb0d@mail.gmail.com> On 8/1/09, Paul Fitch wrote: > The Coco3 doesn't supply 12 volts for the disk controller. You need a > Multipak, or the newer coco2 style disk controller and drives. > Yes, but the FD-501 does not require 12 volts. Darren From petrander at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 16:05:55 2009 From: petrander at gmail.com (Fedor Steeman) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 22:05:55 +0200 Subject: [Coco] CocoNet: What's up!? Message-ID: Hi guys, I just got a load of money for my birthday, that was meant to be spent on CoCo stuff, so I was wondering how the CoCoNet software is progressing. I wanted to buy the Bluetooth RS-232 pack, but wanted to wait till the CoCoNet ROM was available for it, so I don't need to have it shipped twice. So, Roger... What's up? ;-) Cheers, Fedor From twospruces at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 16:07:19 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 16:07:19 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about FD-501 and coco3 In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908011253q14db3b35l92fc769ca1c4cb0d@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908011253q14db3b35l92fc769ca1c4cb0d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: That's good, because it seems to work. Now I just have to figure out how to make a 28pin DIP socket for dos upgrade. The schematic search begins... I guess my set up will be Standard coco3, 128k, with HD63C09/protector/512k upgrade. FD-501 controller, with HDBDOS for drivewire from Cloud9 a standard 2 floppy external drive enclosure remote PC for .DSK access via drivewire Seems reasonable. any comments? What would be a good addition for storage? ..Steve On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 3:53 PM, Darren A wrote: > On 8/1/09, Paul Fitch ?wrote: >> The Coco3 doesn't supply 12 volts for the disk controller. ?You need a >> Multipak, or the newer coco2 style disk controller and drives. >> > > Yes, but the FD-501 does not require 12 volts. > > Darren > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From pfitchjr at bellsouth.net Sat Aug 1 16:10:46 2009 From: pfitchjr at bellsouth.net (Paul Fitch) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 16:10:46 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes In-Reply-To: <0915D890CD964BEB9E5E533A687D847F@Dell3Gig> References: <266BB460-4EA1-42DE-98E7-FB606281A34D@verizon.net> <016EA52641A04E4FBD9F4915FAE5877C@Dell3Gig> <4A364493.5090107@mindspring.com> <000901c9edbc$bc3f7640$34be62c0$@rr.com> <4A366833.4060100@mindspring.com><000001c9eddb$1c9afd70$55d0f850$@rr.com><4A369495.7040601@mindspring.com><12CDA2D9F590448191CE291639EBC4F1@Dell3Gig><238D7A1C552D4EA1BFCC7CC2074C2F4B@Dell3Gig><07BB860985DC4EEF91B5D4C5A6A5541A@Dell3Gig><014E2268C8C94EE39766F0E51CCC62B1@Dell3Gig><0EFA1FD1-AC86-4C8E-81DE-F18240079B46@nationsdial.com> <0915D890CD964BEB9E5E533A687D847F@Dell3Gig> Message-ID: <9F59442A18CE4271A0C4EF50944AD79E@Dell3Gig> I'm inputting "The Gamers Connection" issues intot he database right now, and there is an add in the 1st issue for another magazine I never heard of, "the Coco Clipboard". Did this ever get published? Has anyone scanned them yet? From mechacoco at gmail.com Sat Aug 1 16:14:36 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 14:14:36 -0600 Subject: [Coco] question about FD-501 and coco3 In-Reply-To: References: <5d802cd0908011253q14db3b35l92fc769ca1c4cb0d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5d802cd0908011314s52684bf6kd3f990bab0891c06@mail.gmail.com> On 8/1/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > > Now I just have to figure out how to make a 28pin DIP socket for dos > upgrade. The schematic search begins... > --- Or just purchase a DOS Adapter from Cloud-9: Darren From flexser at fiu.edu Sat Aug 1 19:05:24 2009 From: flexser at fiu.edu (Arthur Flexser) Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 19:05:24 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes In-Reply-To: <9F59442A18CE4271A0C4EF50944AD79E@Dell3Gig> References: <266BB460-4EA1-42DE-98E7-FB606281A34D@verizon.net> <4A369495.7040601@mindspring.com> <12CDA2D9F590448191CE291639EBC4F1@Dell3Gig> <238D7A1C552D4EA1BFCC7CC2074C2F4B@Dell3Gig> <07BB860985DC4EEF91B5D4C5A6A5541A@Dell3Gig> <014E2268C8C94EE39766F0E51CCC62B1@Dell3Gig> <0EFA1FD1-AC86-4C8E-81DE-F18240079B46@nationsdial.com> <0915D890CD964BEB9E5E533A687D847F@Dell3Gig> <9F59442A18CE4271A0C4EF50944AD79E@Dell3Gig> Message-ID: The CoCo Clipboard definitely was published; at one time I had around six issues of it. My recollection is that the issues were around 20 standard-sized pages each, stapled in the middle. They had reviews and articles, with maybe a few simple illustrations. It appeared typed with reduction (daisy wheel?) rather than typeset. Art On Sat, Aug 1, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Paul Fitch wrote: > I'm inputting "The Gamers Connection" issues intot he database right now, > and there is an add in the 1st issue for another magazine I never heard of, > "the Coco Clipboard". Did this ever get published? Has anyone scanned > them > yet? > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From snhirsch at gmail.com Sun Aug 2 11:13:10 2009 From: snhirsch at gmail.com (Steven Hirsch) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 11:13:10 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [Coco] question about FD-501 and coco3 In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908011314s52684bf6kd3f990bab0891c06@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908011253q14db3b35l92fc769ca1c4cb0d@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908011314s52684bf6kd3f990bab0891c06@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, 1 Aug 2009, Darren A wrote: > On 8/1/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: >> >> Now I just have to figure out how to make a 28pin DIP socket for dos >> upgrade. The schematic search begins... > Or just purchase a DOS Adapter from Cloud-9: > Seconded, unless you want to conjur up something very ugly that will prevent the top of the cartridge from being present. -- From operator at coco3.com Sun Aug 2 14:53:27 2009 From: operator at coco3.com (Roger Taylor) Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 13:53:27 -0500 Subject: [Coco] profile pages Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.1.20090802134601.05b71ac8@coco3.com> With pressure from some old friends I grew up with, I now have a facebook and myspace page, which turned out to be somewhat of a good thing since I'm finding friends I've been unable to find for many years, even some ex's. :-P http://www.facebook.com/people/Roger-Taylor/100000095752969 http://www.myspace.com/cocotower -- Roger Taylor http://www.wordofthedayonline.com From goosey at virgo.sdc.org Sun Aug 2 16:08:15 2009 From: goosey at virgo.sdc.org (Willard Goosey) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 14:08:15 -0600 Subject: [Coco] another obscure CoCo graphics format Message-ID: <20090802200815.GC5522@virgo.sdc.org> This one's so obscure even view doesn't support it! :-) Deskmate 3 .PIC files seem to be raw 160x200(?) 16-color bitmaps. No green bytes or palette data. I'm not quite sure about the exact vertical resolution yet. Probably actually somewhere around 100 or 150 lines. Deskmate 3 paint seems to run in a wierd graphics mode. Anyway, I'm going to try to write something to turn them into vefs. Willard -- Willard Goosey goosey at sdc.org Socorro, New Mexico, USA I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. -- R.E. Howard From goosey at virgo.sdc.org Sun Aug 2 16:00:24 2009 From: goosey at virgo.sdc.org (Willard Goosey) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 14:00:24 -0600 Subject: [Coco] I should know better Message-ID: <20090802200024.GB5522@virgo.sdc.org> ...than to believe the Tandy OS-9 manuals. Just from reading the docs, I was under the impression that, on boot, OS-9 scanned through all of memory and linked in any modules it found. Should have known it didn't, at least under LII. That would take a long time. But I was wondering if it actually did, as I can see certain useful applications for this. So I tested it. My Setup: 6809 512K CoCo3, NitrOS-9 3.2.6 First, I looked over the output of mmap, and chose block 0x30, as one unlikely to get clobbered during the boot process. Used the rsdos command to copy an executable OS-9 module to a DECB disk. (cputype, actually. I wanted something small in case I had to do this by hand.) Rebooted to DECB. Modified a BASIC program to read the file and LPOKE it into memory starting at 0x600000. Another program to LPEEK and print the results to verify the module is there. Loaded cputtype in at 0x60000. Verified it was intact. Booted NitrOS-9. Ran mdir. No cputype. Link couldn't find it either. Rebooted to DECB. cputype still present in block 0x30. Looked through my disks and found a stock OS-9LII boot disk. Booted that. No cputype. So, on boot, OS-9LII does NOT scan through all of memory looking for valid modules. Willard -- Willard Goosey goosey at sdc.org Socorro, New Mexico, USA I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. -- R.E. Howard From wschaub at steubentech.com Sun Aug 2 17:05:02 2009 From: wschaub at steubentech.com (William Schaub) Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 17:05:02 -0400 Subject: [Coco] I should know better In-Reply-To: <20090802200024.GB5522@virgo.sdc.org> References: <20090802200024.GB5522@virgo.sdc.org> Message-ID: <4A75FF7E.9030405@steubentech.com> Thanks for verifying that this is the case. I read that too and thought it would be useful to take advantage of that somehow. I'm hoping that maybe it does indeed look in memory somehow but that more than just having the raw module image in a memory location of your choosing would be needed, like say also putting a pointer to the module at a certain location or having extra header information poked into memory with the image or something. Willard Goosey wrote: > ...than to believe the Tandy OS-9 manuals. > > Just from reading the docs, I was under the impression that, on boot, > OS-9 scanned through all of memory and linked in any modules it > found. > > Should have known it didn't, at least under LII. That would take a > long time. > > But I was wondering if it actually did, as I can see certain useful > applications for this. So I tested it. > > My Setup: 6809 512K CoCo3, NitrOS-9 3.2.6 > > First, I looked over the output of mmap, and chose block 0x30, as one > unlikely to get clobbered during the boot process. > > Used the rsdos command to copy an executable OS-9 module to a DECB > disk. (cputype, actually. I wanted something small in case I had to > do this by hand.) > > Rebooted to DECB. > > Modified a BASIC program to read the file and LPOKE it into memory > starting at 0x600000. Another program to LPEEK and print the results > to verify the module is there. > > Loaded cputtype in at 0x60000. Verified it was intact. > > Booted NitrOS-9. > > Ran mdir. No cputype. Link couldn't find it either. > > Rebooted to DECB. cputype still present in block 0x30. > > Looked through my disks and found a stock OS-9LII boot disk. Booted > that. No cputype. > > So, on boot, OS-9LII does NOT scan through all of memory looking for > valid modules. > > Willard > From goosey at virgo.sdc.org Sun Aug 2 17:28:56 2009 From: goosey at virgo.sdc.org (Willard Goosey) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 15:28:56 -0600 Subject: [Coco] I should know better In-Reply-To: <4A75FF7E.9030405@steubentech.com> References: <20090802200024.GB5522@virgo.sdc.org> <4A75FF7E.9030405@steubentech.com> Message-ID: <20090802212856.GB10276@virgo.sdc.org> On Sun, Aug 02, 2009 at 05:05:02PM -0400, William Schaub wrote: > Thanks for verifying that this is the case. I read that too and thought > it would be useful to take advantage of that somehow. I was thinking of configuration files for hardware that both BASIC and OS-9 could use (say, a hard drive or a network thingie (Roger's bluetooth pak, for example)). Especially a hard drive, where both OSs share the resource and need to not stomp on each other's data. Run a BASIC program to configure it, and it leaves a module in high RAM. Boot OS-9, and the module's there, in memory. > I'm hoping that maybe it does indeed look in memory somehow but that > more than just having the raw module image in a memory location of your > choosing would be needed, like say also putting a pointer to the module > at a certain location or having extra header information poked into > memory with the image or something. Level I might actually do the advertised memory scan, but just of its 64K. I don't know enough about LI to guess where in that 64K to set up a module in BASIC so that it wouldn't get clobbered during the boot process. Also, it might not be that hard to write a seperate LII utility that would do the memory scan, and link any modules found into the global module list. Willard -- Willard Goosey goosey at sdc.org Socorro, New Mexico, USA I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. -- R.E. Howard From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Sun Aug 2 17:43:10 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 14:43:10 -0700 Subject: [Coco] I should know better In-Reply-To: <20090802200024.GB5522@virgo.sdc.org> References: <20090802200024.GB5522@virgo.sdc.org> Message-ID: Hi, It's been a very long time, but I seem to have a memory that the modules must be in ROM. As the CoCo runs OS-9 in RAM only, it may not be good test of the impression. Perhaps the 68 Micro Journal ad's for OS-9 might be a good place to check. I also believe that OS-9 could be put into a ROM, if my memory from decades past is correct. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Willard Goosey" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 1:00 PM Subject: [Coco] I should know better > ...than to believe the Tandy OS-9 manuals. > > Just from reading the docs, I was under the impression that, on boot, > OS-9 scanned through all of memory and linked in any modules it > found. From twospruces at gmail.com Sun Aug 2 17:56:44 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 17:56:44 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about file transfers from PC Message-ID: Hi all, If I understand the drivewire product, I need to have a switchable EEPROM containing the HDB-DOS image, and standard DOS, in order to use drivewire AND my floppies. IE when it is time to access files via PC, reboot the machine with the drivewire software available in the cartridge, and if I want to use the floppies, switch back to normal DOS. Gee, that seems a bit clumsy to me. >From reading the drivewire documentation, it seems that a drivewire package was available that loaded from RS-DOS. To me, that seems like the right thing to do. The way it stands, if I were to use the "eeprom adapter" to upgrade my FD-501 with the HDB-DOS image, I end up with a pretty clumsy set up (assuming I still want to use my floppy drives, which I do) because HDB-DOS does not support floppies, so I have to switch the eeprom (which is hidden by the case cover) and reboot. Do I have an accurate understanding? Thanks. Steve From farna at att.net Sun Aug 2 19:05:21 2009 From: farna at att.net (Frank Swygert) Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 19:05:21 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes Message-ID: <4A761BB1.8070104@att.net> Paul, download "Tandy's Little Wonder" from the list site (in the FARNA folder). There is a short article on "CoCo Clipboard" by the publisher in there, including I think dates and how many issues. It was a couple high school kids that started it. --------- Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 16:10:46 -0400 From: "Paul Fitch" I'm inputting "The Gamers Connection" issues into the database right now, and there is an add in the 1st issue for another magazine I never heard of, "the Coco Clipboard". Did this ever get published? Has anyone scanned them yet? -- Frank Swygert Publisher, "American Motors Cars" Magazine (AMC) For all AMC enthusiasts http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html (free download available!) From mechacoco at gmail.com Sun Aug 2 19:23:49 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 17:23:49 -0600 Subject: [Coco] question about file transfers from PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5d802cd0908021623h2604562lc040d8efdffd2e01@mail.gmail.com> On 8/2/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > Hi all, > > If I understand the drivewire product, > > I need to have a switchable EEPROM containing the HDB-DOS image, and > standard DOS, in order to use drivewire AND my floppies. > No. HDB-DOS for DriveWire allows you to use both. For example, if you have two floppy drives (drives 0 and 1), you can enter the command DRIVE OFF 1. This tells HDB-DOS that drives 0 and 1 are real floppy drives and drives 2-255 are virtual disks in the currently selected slot on the server. This also prevents you from from being able to access virtual disks 0 and 1. Entering DRIVE ON disables real floppy access completely and allows you access virtual disks 0-255. An unfortunate side effect of this implementation is that when you want to copy data between a real floppy and a virtual disk, the virtual disk number must be greater than the highest real floppy drive number which you have enabled. This means you can't copy directly between real drive 0 and a typical DSK file which contains only a single virtual disk. The work-around for this problem is to first copy virtual disk 0 to a higher numbered virtual disk and then enable the real floppy drive(s). That should make it as clear as mud :) Darren From operator at coco3.com Sun Aug 2 19:32:50 2009 From: operator at coco3.com (Roger Taylor) Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 18:32:50 -0500 Subject: [Coco] EPROM-based boards Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.1.20090802181018.05ec06c0@coco3.com> Hello fellas, Tomorrow sometime I'll be raising the price of the Wireless RS-232 Paks back up to cost value or slightly above, as I've been selling them below cost for quite a while now. If you want one for $49, now is the time. See the coco3.com front page. I'd also like to try pushing these nice boards out bare or in Do It Yourself kits. For the kits, I'll probably just take each custom order and quote back a price based on what parts you want included. That is, if you already have some of the more expensive chips or parts that make up a wireless pak, you can use yours and save. The bare 6551/EPROM boards will be about $10. A rock-solid durable case will be about $8, 6551 will be about $5, and the other chips and parts will be cheaper. I doubt I'll have an order form for this kind of customizing, so I'd like to take e-mail orders and return a quote, and if agreed I'll e-mail a PDF invoice and accept a PayPal or personal check/MO payment. You can use these small boards to make wired 6551 paks, game paks, wireless bluetooth paks, and various other project boards. -- Roger Taylor http://www.wordofthedayonline.com From twospruces at gmail.com Sun Aug 2 19:52:05 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 19:52:05 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about file transfers from PC In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908021623h2604562lc040d8efdffd2e01@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908021623h2604562lc040d8efdffd2e01@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Ah, ok that's great. Then I can go with HDB-DOS as a typical use. I don't quite understand why a disk file .DSK can't be loaded into any virtual disk slot. What I'm used to with the 2 emulators, is that you can load a .DSK file into any of the emulated floppies. I suppose this detail must be in the docs for HDB-DOS. I'll start reading. great news! Steve On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 7:23 PM, Darren A wrote: > On 8/2/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: >> Hi all, >> >> If I understand the drivewire product, >> >> I need to have a switchable EEPROM containing the HDB-DOS image, and >> standard DOS, in order to use drivewire AND my floppies. >> > > No. ?HDB-DOS for DriveWire allows you to use both. ?For example, if > you have two floppy drives (drives 0 and 1), you can enter the command > DRIVE OFF 1. ?This tells HDB-DOS that drives 0 and 1 are real floppy > drives and drives 2-255 are virtual disks in the currently selected > slot on the server. This also prevents you from from being able to > access virtual disks 0 and 1. Entering DRIVE ON disables real floppy > access completely and allows you access virtual disks 0-255. > > An unfortunate side effect of this implementation is that when you > want to copy data between a real floppy and a virtual disk, the > virtual disk number must be greater than the highest real floppy drive > number which you have enabled. This means you can't copy directly > between real drive 0 and a typical DSK file which contains only a > single virtual disk. The work-around for this problem is to first copy > virtual disk 0 to a higher numbered virtual disk and then enable the > real floppy drive(s). > > That should make it as clear as mud ?:) > > Darren > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From mechacoco at gmail.com Sun Aug 2 20:29:29 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 18:29:29 -0600 Subject: [Coco] question about file transfers from PC In-Reply-To: References: <5d802cd0908021623h2604562lc040d8efdffd2e01@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5d802cd0908021729j7956ae1bm22e4654b9d05aef6@mail.gmail.com> On 8/2/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > > I don't quite understand why a disk file .DSK can't be loaded into any > virtual disk slot. > > What I'm used to with the 2 emulators, is that you can load a .DSK > file into any of the emulated floppies. > -- The four slots in the DriveWire server do not correspond to the four floppy drives supported by standard Disk Basic. Each slot represents a virtual hard drive which has the capacity to hold 256 virtual floppy disks. Only one of the virtual hard drives is active at a time. You use the DRIVE #n command (the # is required) to specify which virtual hard drive (server slot) is active. For example If you mount a typical 35 track DSK file in slot 3 of the server, you cannot access it using a command like DIR 3. You must enter DRIVE #3 to tell the system that server slot 3 is the current virtual hard drive, then DIR 0 will access the first (or only) virtual floppy disk in that file. Darren From twospruces at gmail.com Sun Aug 2 21:04:42 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 21:04:42 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about file transfers from PC In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908021729j7956ae1bm22e4654b9d05aef6@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908021623h2604562lc040d8efdffd2e01@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908021729j7956ae1bm22e4654b9d05aef6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I guess I am understanding why OS-9 seems like the right answer for a lot of users...no limitations I assume on the structure of the hard drive? Regardless, for now I just want to use the standard system I/O wise. thanks for the info. Steve On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 8:29 PM, Darren A wrote: > On 8/2/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: >> >> I don't quite understand why a disk file .DSK can't be loaded into any >> virtual disk slot. >> >> What I'm used to with the 2 emulators, is that you can load a .DSK >> file into any of the emulated floppies. >> > -- > > The four slots in the DriveWire server do not correspond to the four > floppy drives supported by standard Disk Basic. ?Each slot represents > a virtual hard drive which has the capacity to hold 256 virtual floppy > disks. ?Only one of the virtual hard drives is active at a time. ?You > use the DRIVE #n command (the # is required) to specify which virtual > hard drive (server slot) is active. > > For example If you mount a typical 35 track DSK file in slot 3 of the > server, you cannot access it using a command like DIR 3. ?You must > enter DRIVE #3 to tell the system that server slot 3 is the current > virtual hard drive, then DIR 0 will access the first (or only) virtual > floppy disk in that file. > > Darren > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From gene.heskett at verizon.net Sun Aug 2 21:31:43 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:31:43 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about file transfers from PC In-Reply-To: References: <5d802cd0908021729j7956ae1bm22e4654b9d05aef6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200908022131.43211.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Sunday 02 August 2009, Stephen Adolph wrote: >I guess I am understanding why OS-9 seems like the right answer for a >lot of users...no limitations I assume on the structure of the hard >drive? > There are some restrictions, most caused by the 64k limit to the size of the file allocation table which starts at LSN1 of the drive. Because it runs out of bits to represent each individual sector at about 131 megabytes, for larger drives it is required to change the size of the cluster that a bit represents, to 2, 4, etc in powers of 2 increments. Each such increment doubles the size of the drive that can be handled. The tradeoff is that the minimum allocation also grows. To 2 sectors, then 4, 8 etc. I haven't personally found this to be a problem in actual usage. My drive is a 1GB seagate on a tc^3 interface. Where there has been a problem, it is more generally going to be related to the 'SAS' value in the descriptor, and small values such as the default of 8, can and have been used up because the FD.SEG section of a files descriptor sector only has room for 48 entries. I have made some noise in past years that this SAS value should be defaulted to at least 20 (it is a hex value, so that is 32 actual) in order to conserve this resource, and to speed up floppy writes too as that reduces the number of re-seeks that must be done in order to allocate the space to write the file to. If doing really big files, I have been known to temporarily set SAS to FF. This does no harm as the allocation will be reduced to the actual size of the file when the file is closed, and the next allocation request will start with the next available cluster that is SAS size in contiguous space. >Regardless, for now I just want to use the standard system I/O wise. >thanks for the info. > >Steve > >On Sun, Aug 2, 2009 at 8:29 PM, Darren A wrote: >> On 8/2/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: >>> I don't quite understand why a disk file .DSK can't be loaded into any >>> virtual disk slot. >>> >>> What I'm used to with the 2 emulators, is that you can load a .DSK >>> file into any of the emulated floppies. >> >> -- >> >> The four slots in the DriveWire server do not correspond to the four >> floppy drives supported by standard Disk Basic. Each slot represents >> a virtual hard drive which has the capacity to hold 256 virtual floppy >> disks. Only one of the virtual hard drives is active at a time. You >> use the DRIVE #n command (the # is required) to specify which virtual >> hard drive (server slot) is active. >> >> For example If you mount a typical 35 track DSK file in slot 3 of the >> server, you cannot access it using a command like DIR 3. You must >> enter DRIVE #3 to tell the system that server slot 3 is the current >> virtual hard drive, then DIR 0 will access the first (or only) virtual >> floppy disk in that file. >> >> Darren >> >> -- >> Coco mailing list >> Coco at maltedmedia.com >> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. I think it's a new feature. Don't tell anyone it was an accident. :-) -- Larry Wall on s/foo/bar/eieio in <10911 at jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV> From pfitchjr at bellsouth.net Sun Aug 2 21:40:53 2009 From: pfitchjr at bellsouth.net (Paul Fitch) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 21:40:53 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes In-Reply-To: <4A761BB1.8070104@att.net> References: <4A761BB1.8070104@att.net> Message-ID: <3F145E85E43846ACBA84AEBE14B7B724@Dell3Gig> Thanks Frank. I have that book. I'm pretty sure I bought one of your hard copies long, long ago. I'm not sure it will help tho, as I am physically looking at each article I input and keying in sort codes, ie Coco1/2, Coco3, Hardware, Software, ECB, DECB, OS-9, Flex, ASM, Basic09, Forth, Pascal, ect... The goal is to open the database, ask it about Coco3 Hardware Projects & DECB and have it produce a list of articals in magazines available on Malted Medias site which can be downloaded. As I have already downloaded all the scanned mags there, I have a lot of material to work with. Its my hope that my "where are these" messages will let those with missing issues in hardcopy form know they need to be scanned and uploaded. Right now the available PDF/DEjaVU'd mags comes to about 16 gigs. As 32gig flash drives are very affordable right now, you can put the ENTIRE COCO library, all the software disk images, manuals, and emulators on the flash drive, plug into ANY intel machine, and off you go. I just think thats too cool. > -----Original Message----- > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com > [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Frank Swygert > Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 7:05 PM > To: coco at maltedmedia.com > Subject: Re: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes > > Paul, download "Tandy's Little Wonder" from the list site (in > the FARNA folder). There is a short article on "CoCo > Clipboard" by the publisher in there, including I think dates > and how many issues. It was a couple high school kids that > started it. > > --------- > Date: Sat, 1 Aug 2009 16:10:46 -0400 > From: "Paul Fitch" > > I'm inputting "The Gamers Connection" issues into the > database right now, and there is an add in the 1st issue for > another magazine I never heard of, "the Coco Clipboard". Did > this ever get published? Has anyone scanned them yet? > > -- > Frank Swygert > Publisher, "American Motors Cars" > Magazine (AMC) > For all AMC enthusiasts > http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html > (free download available!) > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From twospruces at gmail.com Sun Aug 2 22:15:06 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 22:15:06 -0400 Subject: [Coco] some basic Nirtos9 questions.... Message-ID: OK, stupid question time.. Do all coco software applications still run when you use Nitros-9? I guess the main ROM is still callable, or is it? How do you write BASIC programs? Do all the games still work? what about utilities and applications? thanks, Steve From goosey at virgo.sdc.org Sun Aug 2 23:09:36 2009 From: goosey at virgo.sdc.org (Willard Goosey) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 21:09:36 -0600 Subject: [Coco] I should know better In-Reply-To: References: <20090802200024.GB5522@virgo.sdc.org> Message-ID: <20090803030936.GA29216@virgo.sdc.org> On Sun, Aug 02, 2009 at 02:43:10PM -0700, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: > It's been a very long time, but I seem to have a memory that the modules > must be in ROM. > > As the CoCo runs OS-9 in RAM only, it may not be good test of the > impression. Heh, yeah, that's not a useful combination of factors, is it? :-) > I also believe that OS-9 could be put into a ROM, if my memory from decades > past is correct. Cloud9 sells the kit. Willard -- Willard Goosey goosey at sdc.org Socorro, New Mexico, USA I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. -- R.E. Howard From goosey at virgo.sdc.org Sun Aug 2 23:20:42 2009 From: goosey at virgo.sdc.org (Willard Goosey) Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 21:20:42 -0600 Subject: [Coco] dm3 Paint .pic files Message-ID: <20090803032042.GC29216@virgo.sdc.org> I'm sure no one here will be surprised to learn I was wrong about the Deskmate 3 PAINT files. They are 160x175 16-color bitmaps, and they do indeed have palette information, starting at 0x3700. Then there's some other data, but I don't know what it might be. Maybe just junk bytes. Anyway, I'm pretty much happy with my PIC2VEF converter for them. Give me a couple of days to make a nice lha and tranfer it to a networked computer, and I'll upload it to the CoCo ftp sites. Willard -- Willard Goosey goosey at sdc.org Socorro, New Mexico, USA I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. -- R.E. Howard From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 08:47:36 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 08:47:36 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies Message-ID: Hi, Another dumb question- A 3.5 inch drive will work like a 720k drive simply by placing a DD (720k) disk into the drive, right? So, to use a 3.5 inch floppy with Nirtos-9, one merely needs to have it be plugged in, and make sure to use 720k floppies. The disk drive will operate correctly. (?) Interestingly, I have 3 different versions of the same Panasonicn JU-257. Only one of them can be selected to be drive 0 or 1. I think I have read that, in the coco, you want to use hard drive selects...no twisted cables. thanks, Steve From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 08:51:14 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 08:51:14 -0400 Subject: [Coco] observation Message-ID: I must say, Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it seems that is suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place No offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to understand floppy compatibility and set up. Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source. If I've missed it, please point me to the best places to learn about setting up the Coco! thanks, Steve From farna at att.net Mon Aug 3 08:46:44 2009 From: farna at att.net (Frank Swygert) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:46:44 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes Message-ID: <4A76DC34.4000906@att.net> No, it won't help, just give you a background of "CoCo Clipboard" is all. I'm pretty sure it's in the original, the only articles I modified for the second edition were "support" and "vendor" type articles, and I deleted all of the ads since the products are no longer available. Cloud-9 and many CoCo web sites were added in the "support" section though. ------- Date: Sun, 2 Aug 2009 21:40:53 -0400 From: "Paul Fitch" Thanks Frank. I have that book. I'm pretty sure I bought one of your hard copies long, long ago. I'm not sure it will help tho, as I am physically looking at each article I input and keying in sort codes, ie Coco1/2, Coco3, Hardware, Software, ECB, DECB, OS-9, Flex, ASM, Basic09, Forth, Pascal, ect... -- Frank Swygert Publisher, "American Motors Cars" Magazine (AMC) For all AMC enthusiasts http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html (free download available!) From mdelyea at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 09:09:37 2009 From: mdelyea at gmail.com (mike delyea) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 09:09:37 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1b52e6c80908030609v5dcbf31cuedd22dd7fe1b6bda@mail.gmail.com> Not exactly. You can use dmode to set the drives parameters to be a 720k double sided drive, otherwise the drive behaves as a 160k single sided drive. You have to change the typ, cyl, sid parameters (type, cylinders, sides), and probably the stepping rate for faster operation. I don't remember the actual settings for a 720k drive, I'll have to look them up. Once you've got the drive setup properly you can use cobbler to make a new boot disk that keeps the drives parameters for the next time you boot, else you'll be using dmode everytime you boot. On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Stephen Adolph wrote: > Hi, > > Another dumb question- > > A 3.5 inch drive will work like a 720k drive simply by placing a DD > (720k) disk into the drive, right? > > So, to use a 3.5 inch floppy with Nirtos-9, one merely needs to have > it be plugged in, and make sure to use 720k floppies. ? The disk drive > will operate correctly. (?) > > Interestingly, I have 3 different versions of the same Panasonicn > JU-257. ?Only one of them can be selected to be drive 0 or 1. > > I think I have read that, in the coco, you want to use hard drive > selects...no twisted cables. > > thanks, Steve > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From gene.heskett at verizon.net Mon Aug 3 10:00:04 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:00:04 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <200908031000.04835.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Monday 03 August 2009, Stephen Adolph wrote: >Hi, > >Another dumb question- > >A 3.5 inch drive will work like a 720k drive simply by placing a DD >(720k) disk into the drive, right? > Generally, yes. Unforch, finding DD disks can be frustrating. Taping over the HD hole usually doesn't work as the switch in record drive currents then results in a weak recording, one that may or may not be readable an hour later. >So, to use a 3.5 inch floppy with Nirtos-9, one merely needs to have >it be plugged in, and make sure to use 720k floppies. The disk drive >will operate correctly. (?) If the descriptor is properly dmoded for 720k, usually yes. >Interestingly, I have 3 different versions of the same Panasonic >JU-257. Only one of them can be selected to be drive 0 or 1. > >I think I have read that, in the coco, you want to use hard drive >selects...no twisted cables. That is best. The drive cable adapters can, if all traces are there, be where the drive select signals are swapped around, allowing one of the fixed at drive 1 drives to be used as 0 or 2. Terminations on 3.5" drives could be a problem too, and one should check to see if the pc's twisted cable also somehow enables the terminators for drive 0, out on the twisted end of the cable. Its not something I have attempted here, my drive 0 is a 5.25, 360k drive, 2 is a 720k 5.25, and one is whatever is plugged in at the time, boot default for drive 1 is a 720k here. >thanks, Steve > >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. The people rule. From gene.heskett at verizon.net Mon Aug 3 10:01:29 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 10:01:29 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies In-Reply-To: <1b52e6c80908030609v5dcbf31cuedd22dd7fe1b6bda@mail.gmail.com> References: <1b52e6c80908030609v5dcbf31cuedd22dd7fe1b6bda@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200908031001.30024.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Monday 03 August 2009, mike delyea wrote: >Not exactly. You can use dmode to set the drives parameters to be a >720k double sided drive, otherwise the drive behaves as a 160k single >sided drive. You have to change the typ, cyl, sid parameters (type, >cylinders, sides), and probably the stepping rate for faster >operation. I don't remember the actual settings for a 720k drive, >I'll have to look them up. Once you've got the drive setup properly >you can use cobbler to make a new boot disk that keeps the drives >parameters for the next time you boot, else you'll be using dmode >everytime you boot. > Or one could add the dmode command to the startup file. :) >On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:47 AM, Stephen Adolph wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Another dumb question- >> >> A 3.5 inch drive will work like a 720k drive simply by placing a DD >> (720k) disk into the drive, right? >> >> So, to use a 3.5 inch floppy with Nirtos-9, one merely needs to have >> it be plugged in, and make sure to use 720k floppies. The disk drive >> will operate correctly. (?) >> >> Interestingly, I have 3 different versions of the same Panasonicn >> JU-257. Only one of them can be selected to be drive 0 or 1. >> >> I think I have read that, in the coco, you want to use hard drive >> selects...no twisted cables. >> >> thanks, Steve >> >> -- >> Coco mailing list >> Coco at maltedmedia.com >> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. A fair exterior is a silent recommendation. -- Publilius Syrus From jcewy at swbell.net Mon Aug 3 09:55:07 2009 From: jcewy at swbell.net (Joel Ewy) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:55:07 -0500 Subject: [Coco] observation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A76EC3B.7030907@swbell.net> Stephen Adolph wrote: > I must say, > > Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it seems that is > suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place No > offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to understand floppy > compatibility and set up. > > Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source. If I've > missed it, please point me to the best places to learn about setting > up the Coco! > I think Allen Huffman's CoCopedia Wiki is a good start. Completely exhaustive? Not yet. But if people are willing to contribute the information they have it can be a valuable resource. http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page JCE > thanks, Steve > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 10:04:36 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 10:04:36 -0400 Subject: [Coco] nitros-9 support Message-ID: Hi folks, NITROS-9 web site does not have all that much information. Site mentions a wiki on sourceforge, but it's not really a wiki is it? Where is all the wiki stuff? So, Where can I get the information I need to be able to- 1) select compatible floppy drives for NITROS-9 2) install said floppies in my FD-501 enclosure, such that they are compatible with NITROS-9 and finally, 3) I'm wondering if I am writing to the correct forum. Is there a better place to go to get user support for COCO? thanks, Steve From wb8tyw at qsl.net Mon Aug 3 09:48:41 2009 From: wb8tyw at qsl.net (John E. Malmberg) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:48:41 -0500 Subject: [Coco] observation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Stephen Adolph wrote: > I must say, > > Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it seems that is > suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place No > offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to understand floppy > compatibility and set up. The COCO can use up to 3 industry standard double sided double density 5.25 or 3.5 inch floppy drives. High density 3.5 inch drives will work in 720K mode. The industry standard was set long before anyone heard of an IBM PC. 1.2M floppy drives do not fully support writing 320 K floppies, but should be usable to read them on a COCO, if you are just trying to copy disks to some other media. There is a hardware mode for the oldest controller that alleges to allow it to work with hi-density 5.25 drives and presumably 3.5 inch drives in high density mode. 8 inch floppies require some more hardware hacks similar to the 5.25 hi-density drives. > Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source. If I've > missed it, please point me to the best places to learn about setting > up the Coco! Sorry, I do not have any bookmarks handy. Floppy information used to be generally known and available until the PC documentation dumbed it down. -John wb8tyw at qsl.net Personal Opinion Only From wb8tyw at qsl.net Mon Aug 3 09:38:42 2009 From: wb8tyw at qsl.net (John E. Malmberg) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:38:42 -0500 Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Stephen Adolph wrote: > Hi, > > Another dumb question- Not dumb, but if there is a COCO Hardware FAQ it belongs on it. > A 3.5 inch drive will work like a 720k drive simply by placing a DD > (720k) disk into the drive, right? As long as it is a real 720K disk and not a 1.44M disk formatted as 720K. > So, to use a 3.5 inch floppy with Nirtos-9, one merely needs to have > it be plugged in, and make sure to use 720k floppies. The disk drive > will operate correctly. (?) Yes.[1] It will even work with ROM Disk Basic up to the capacity that Disk Basic recognizes, provided you have Disk Basic format the disks. If you use a 512 sector (MS-DOS default) and Windows hard coded value, the ROM disk basic reads and writes the 512 bytes, however the first 256 bytes goes/comes where the ROM expects, and the second 256 bytes of the sector is read/written from the verify buffers. So it is possible to use a PC to read and write files to that a COCO disk can read with the right program. If you have a PC running MS-DOS 6 or earlier, it can read and write 256 byte sector floppies. That API was removed from later versions of Windows. > Interestingly, I have 3 different versions of the same Panasonicn > JU-257. Only one of them can be selected to be drive 0 or 1. Cost saving measure. All IBM PC clones only use a 3.5 inch floppy wired as drive 0, and use the cable twist to make it drive 1. (It has been a while since I looked at it, and I could have that reversed, and I seem to remember that on a PC all floppies are configured to be drive 1.) Apparently someone thought that having the assembler set the drive number result in too many cases of them setting it wrong. Originally PCs had 2 5.25 drives, both configured as the same drive #, and the twist was used to change it. When 3.5 inch drives were added, the convention was still followed. > I think I have read that, in the coco, you want to use hard drive > selects...no twisted cables. The twisted cable just swaps the drive select 0 and 1, so depending on your configuration, you may or may not need it. You can actually put 3 floppies on a floppy cable and they should be supported by all OS's on the COCO. What ROM basic uses as the drive select for the 4th floppy is the side select line for double sided floppies. [1]The older drives had termination resistors that either had to be added or removed. The newer drives use auto-termination logic. For energy saving / chip heat saving, you want to make sure that the floppy farthest from the controller has termination (either auto or resisters), and the others are either auto-terminating or have the resisters removed. -John wb8tyw at qsl.net Personal Opinion Only From afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk Mon Aug 3 09:56:26 2009 From: afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk (afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:56:26 +0100 Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090803145626.12122tanjbdyw60w@aurigae.demon.co.uk> Quoting Stephen Adolph : > Interestingly, I have 3 different versions of the same Panasonicn > JU-257. Only one of them can be selected to be drive 0 or 1. > > I think I have read that, in the coco, you want to use hard drive > selects...no twisted cables. Note assume drives are numbered 0..3, so 0=first, 1=second etc. If you have a drive that is intended for the PC and therefore perminently set as drive 1, you can use it as drive 1 in the CoCo. If you wish to use 2 PC drives, you will need a cable with a twist, but not a PC cable, the twist needs to be I believe pins 10-12. With this done you can use 2 PC drives as drives 0 and 1 on the CoCo (or most other machines that expects jumpered drives, I have used this on my Dragons, BBC Micros etc without problems). Cheers. Phill. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program. From rcrislip at neo.rr.com Mon Aug 3 10:17:33 2009 From: rcrislip at neo.rr.com (richec) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 10:17:33 -0400 Subject: [Coco] profile pages In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.1.20090802134601.05b71ac8@coco3.com> References: <6.2.5.6.1.20090802134601.05b71ac8@coco3.com> Message-ID: <200908031017.33380.rcrislip@neo.rr.com> On Sunday 02 August 2009 14:53:27 Roger Taylor wrote: > With pressure from some old friends I grew up with, I now have a > facebook and myspace page, which turned out to be somewhat of a good > thing since I'm finding friends I've been unable to find for many > years, even some ex's. :-P > > http://www.facebook.com/people/Roger-Taylor/100000095752969 > http://www.myspace.com/cocotower Well.... now I know what you look like 8-) From farna at att.net Mon Aug 3 11:37:56 2009 From: farna at att.net (Frank Swygert) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 11:37:56 -0400 Subject: [Coco] observation Message-ID: <4A770454.2070007@att.net> As it is with most any internet source, though some are more organized than others. For basic information your best bet is to download "Tandy's Little Wonder" from ftp://maltedmedia.com/coco/Farna/Tandy's Little Wonder/. The only file you need is Cocobook-TLW2.pdf, though you might want to read the READ ME FIRST.txt file. There is a section in there on just setting up a CoCo from a beginner's perspective as well as comprehensive info on most CoCo subjects and a whole lot of history. ----------- Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 08:51:14 -0400 From: Stephen Adolph Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it seems that is suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place No offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to understand floppy compatibility and set up. Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source. If I've missed it, please point me to the best places to learn about setting up the Coco! -- Frank Swygert Publisher, "American Motors Cars" Magazine (AMC) For all AMC enthusiasts http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html (free download available!) From os9dude at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 11:50:53 2009 From: os9dude at gmail.com (Rogelio Perea) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 11:50:53 -0400 Subject: [Coco] observation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5631e580908030850i7dd9030fs9793a6b6b1c25130@mail.gmail.com> It has been a while since the CoCo FAQ has been circulated... on and off I have been looking for the latest edition to start that thing again, most likely needs updating to bring it up to speed. No FAQ will give it all, but at least provide for an organized starting point. -- Rogelio On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Stephen Adolph wrote: > I must say, > > Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it seems that is > suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place No > offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to understand floppy > compatibility and set up. > > Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source. If I've > missed it, please point me to the best places to learn about setting > up the Coco! > > thanks, Steve From alsplace at pobox.com Mon Aug 3 11:52:31 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 10:52:31 -0500 Subject: [Coco] observation In-Reply-To: <5631e580908030850i7dd9030fs9793a6b6b1c25130@mail.gmail.com> References: <5631e580908030850i7dd9030fs9793a6b6b1c25130@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <136B910C-AD67-4BC3-ABB1-9A6CEE8AB40C@pobox.com> Should we build the FAQ at www.cocopedia.com ? Sent from my iPhone 3GS Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/allenhuffman Stalk me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/allenhuffman http://twitter.com/atthefaire - AtTheFaire.com http://twitter.com/disneyfanscom - DisneyFans.com http://twitter.com/dmrenfaire - Des Moines Ren Faire http://twitter.com/festint - Iowa/Nebraska Ren/Pirate Fests On Aug 3, 2009, at 10:50 AM, Rogelio Perea wrote: > It has been a while since the CoCo FAQ has been circulated... on and > off I > have been looking for the latest edition to start that thing again, > most > likely needs updating to bring it up to speed. > > No FAQ will give it all, but at least provide for an organized > starting > point. > > > -- Rogelio > > > > On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Stephen Adolph > wrote: > >> I must say, >> >> Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it seems that is >> suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place No >> offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to understand >> floppy >> compatibility and set up. >> >> Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source. If I've >> missed it, please point me to the best places to learn about setting >> up the Coco! >> >> thanks, Steve > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From theother_bob at yahoo.com Mon Aug 3 12:15:32 2009 From: theother_bob at yahoo.com (theother_bob) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 09:15:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] observation In-Reply-To: <5631e580908030850i7dd9030fs9793a6b6b1c25130@mail.gmail.com> References: <5631e580908030850i7dd9030fs9793a6b6b1c25130@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <794953.21205.qm@web81506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I think we all need to make more of an effort to get it all organized in the CoCo wiki. Also, a searchable index of Rainbow articles will make relevant info much easier to find, once that is done. My website includes an archive of Paul DiMarni's FAQ, whicfh I think I tried to add to the wiki at one time. Currently I'm getting ready to move my site from Geocities since it is shutting down. Will Bob www.geocities.com/theother_bob ----- Original Message ---- From: Rogelio Perea To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Sent: Monday, August 3, 2009 10:50:53 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] observation It has been a while since the CoCo FAQ has been circulated... on and off I have been looking for the latest edition to start that thing again, most likely needs updating to bring it up to speed. No FAQ will give it all, but at least provide for an organized starting point. -- Rogelio On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Stephen Adolph wrote: > I must say, > > Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it seems that is > suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place No > offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to understand floppy > compatibility and set up. > > Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source. If I've > missed it, please point me to the best places to learn about setting > up the Coco! > > thanks, Steve -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From petrander at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 12:58:38 2009 From: petrander at gmail.com (Fedor Steeman) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 18:58:38 +0200 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: References: <9efa17da0907310754m35fe23e0ta67392641b867b86@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Hmmm.... Something about the numbers is messed up now! I went from 130 points to 26??? Are the counts reset at regular intervals? 2009/8/1 Aaron Wolfe > If you let me know which code listings are difficult like that, I > might be able to get a better scan. > I have had great success with Abby Fine in its "BASIC" recognition > mode on the online Rainbows > found at maltedmedia. If it worked I could just paste in the text. > Might save some time. > -Aaron > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 10:54 AM, Sean wrote: > > I was having fun until I got a code-checking one, almost every 'M' was > > turned into an 'H', no '=' was correct, along with many, many, many > > other OCR errors. > > I'd be amazed if I actually got them all. That one hurt! > > > > > > On Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 2:42 AM, Fedor Steeman > wrote: > >> Hi, > >> > >> Regarding Tom Lindner's excellent Rainbow digitization system: I thought > a > >> little competition would not harm. In any case it is a great idea with > the > >> top contributor list! > >> > >> I have now crept up into the top 3 and gaining in on 68.151.107.163 > followed > >> by Robert. It won't be long until I am number two! :-) :-) > >> > >> See if y'all can beat that score, suckers! MUHAHAHA!! Hasta la vista! > >> > >> Fedor > >> > >> -- > >> Coco mailing list > >> Coco at maltedmedia.com > >> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > >> > > > > -- > > Coco mailing list > > Coco at maltedmedia.com > > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From wschaub at steubentech.com Mon Aug 3 13:03:47 2009 From: wschaub at steubentech.com (William Schaub) Date: Mon, 03 Aug 2009 13:03:47 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about file transfers from PC In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A771873.9000102@steubentech.com> Drivewire 2.0 came with a floppy disk and a basic program you could run to make a version of hdb-dos that you could loadm and exec to get drivewire to work without any roms and a real disk drive. I find that you can still use this version of hdb-dos for DECB but not for booting OS9. if all you want to do is copy disks back and forth that might be your answer if it is still possible to buy the drivewire 2.0 software by special request. it does work with drivewire 3.0 server but a coco3 works at coco2 speed instead. I think it would be nice if they made the drivewire 2.0 floppy image available for people in your situation that don't need to boot into os9 from drivewire. Stephen Adolph wrote: > Hi all, > > If I understand the drivewire product, > > I need to have a switchable EEPROM containing the HDB-DOS image, and > standard DOS, in order to use drivewire AND my floppies. > > IE when it is time to access files via PC, reboot the machine with the > drivewire software available in the cartridge, and if I want to use > the floppies, switch back to normal DOS. > > Gee, that seems a bit clumsy to me. > > >From reading the drivewire documentation, it seems that a drivewire > package was available that loaded from RS-DOS. > > To me, that seems like the right thing to do. > > The way it stands, if I were to use the "eeprom adapter" to upgrade my > FD-501 with the HDB-DOS image, I end up with a pretty clumsy set up > (assuming I still want to use my floppy drives, which I do) because > HDB-DOS does not support floppies, so I have to switch the eeprom > (which is hidden by the case cover) and reboot. > > > Do I have an accurate understanding? > > > Thanks. > Steve > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From tlindner at macmess.org Mon Aug 3 13:55:53 2009 From: tlindner at macmess.org (tim lindner) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 10:55:53 -0700 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: References: <9efa17da0907310754m35fe23e0ta67392641b867b86@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5b0704c10908031055w391bf54bq2c535902352cc5e9@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Fedor Steeman wrote: > Hmmm.... Something about the numbers is messed up now! I went from 130 > points to 26??? Are the counts reset at regular intervals? Yes they are. Only the last four days are tallied. The idea is to keep people motivated. :) -- tim lindner From dml_68 at yahoo.com Mon Aug 3 15:12:38 2009 From: dml_68 at yahoo.com (Derek) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 12:12:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <881751.82727.qm@web30206.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I put in a 1.44MB 3.5" Drive inline with my FD-501 5.25" drive and I am able to use 1.44MB disks just fine. I dont get 1.44MB storage but when I do a dskini on the 1.44Mb Disks they work fine and have for me for the past 2 years or so. I actually also use Darren's disk utility for XP and format them for 80 tracks and also write disk images to them directly and never had a problem. ** Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization ** --- On Mon, 8/3/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: From: Stephen Adolph Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Date: Monday, August 3, 2009, 5:47 AM Hi, Another dumb question- A 3.5 inch drive will work like a 720k drive simply by placing a DD (720k) disk into the drive, right? So, to use a 3.5 inch floppy with Nirtos-9, one merely needs to have it be plugged in, and make sure to use 720k floppies.???The disk drive will operate correctly. (?) Interestingly, I have 3 different versions of the same Panasonicn JU-257.? Only one of them can be selected to be drive 0 or 1. I think I have read that, in the coco, you want to use hard drive selects...no twisted cables. thanks, Steve -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From dml_68 at yahoo.com Mon Aug 3 15:13:50 2009 From: dml_68 at yahoo.com (Derek) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 12:13:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] dm3 Paint .pic files In-Reply-To: <20090803032042.GC29216@virgo.sdc.org> Message-ID: <136074.75977.qm@web30207.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Please do let us know. I have been making some disks with images and viewing them on my coco3 so this would be helpful. ** Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization ** --- On Sun, 8/2/09, Willard Goosey wrote: From: Willard Goosey Subject: [Coco] dm3 Paint .pic files To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Date: Sunday, August 2, 2009, 8:20 PM I'm sure no one here will be surprised to learn I was wrong about the Deskmate 3 PAINT files.? They are 160x175 16-color bitmaps, and they do indeed have palette information, starting at 0x3700.? Then there's some other data, but I don't know what it might be.? Maybe just junk bytes. Anyway, I'm pretty much happy with my PIC2VEF converter for them. Give me a couple of days to make a nice lha and tranfer it to a networked computer, and I'll upload it to the CoCo ftp sites. Willard -- Willard Goosey? goosey at sdc.org Socorro, New Mexico, USA I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. ? -- R.E. Howard -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From goosey at virgo.sdc.org Mon Aug 3 15:30:16 2009 From: goosey at virgo.sdc.org (Willard Goosey) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 13:30:16 -0600 Subject: [Coco] dm3 Paint .pic files In-Reply-To: <136074.75977.qm@web30207.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20090803032042.GC29216@virgo.sdc.org> <136074.75977.qm@web30207.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20090803193016.GA22763@virgo.sdc.org> On Mon, Aug 03, 2009 at 12:13:50PM -0700, Derek wrote: > Please do let us know. I have been making some disks with images and > viewing them on my coco3 so this would be helpful. Certainly. I thought I had it ready, but, thinking about it, I do believe I may have a bug. :-( Let me play with it a little more. Willard -- Willard Goosey goosey at sdc.org Socorro, New Mexico, USA I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. -- R.E. Howard From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 16:13:32 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 16:13:32 -0400 Subject: [Coco] some progress... Message-ID: Thanks for all the helpful comments. I've made some progress. * I made 2 Nitros-9 disks using an old pc and a 360k drive * I got my coco3 to boot Nitros-9 * I've fiddled with my drive settings with reasonable success have not yet played with 3.5 inch drives, But, I am struggling right now with why I would go to Nitros-9-- * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in Nitros-9 * so, software on RS-DOS disks and virtual disks are not usable in Nitros-9 But, as someone pointed out, HDB-DOS is available as a .DSK for Nitros-9, making it a bit easier to use HDB-DOS that it is for an RS-DOS system (or DECB system?). Making .DSKs is a pain in the neck when you don't have a dedicated machine with an appropriate floppy installed, ... and you don't (yet) have HDB-DOS to help you. cheers, Steve From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Mon Aug 3 16:34:24 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 13:34:24 -0700 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <687E8C9BCF9946B9B5B65E1059ECAF7B@Shasta> Hi, > * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in Nitros-9 Wrong. You just need the proper disk driver, I assume that NitrOS-9 has this already. Then you need the proper program. I used sdisk so someone else will have to supply the name. > * so, software on RS-DOS disks and virtual disks are not usable in > Nitros-9 Again wrong, others can supply the details. I am talking about a real CoCo 3 system so virtual disks have to be transferred to a real floppy. I have one 5 - 1/4" drive and one 3.5" drive in my system and with a toggle switch can change which drive is /D0 and which drive is /D1. With two identical OS-9 boot disks, one a 5 - 1/4" disk and one 3.5" disk, I can even swap drives when OS-9 is running. I have many pairs of disks identical except for the size. My floppy drives have the jumpers for drive selection, that might be hard with a 3.5" drive that does not. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Adolph" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 1:13 PM Subject: [Coco] some progress... > Thanks for all the helpful comments. I've made some progress. > * I made 2 Nitros-9 disks using an old pc and a 360k drive > * I got my coco3 to boot Nitros-9 > * I've fiddled with my drive settings with reasonable success > > have not yet played with 3.5 inch drives, > > But, I am struggling right now with why I would go to Nitros-9-- > > * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in Nitros-9 > * so, software on RS-DOS disks and virtual disks are not usable in > Nitros-9 > > But, as someone pointed out, HDB-DOS is available as a .DSK for > Nitros-9, making it a bit easier to use HDB-DOS that it is for an > RS-DOS system (or DECB system?). > > Making .DSKs is a pain in the neck when you don't have a dedicated > machine with an appropriate floppy installed, ... and you don't (yet) > have HDB-DOS to help you. > > cheers, Steve > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From mechacoco at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 16:43:48 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 14:43:48 -0600 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5d802cd0908031343r418f0895hb6119e314020fc97@mail.gmail.com> On 8/3/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > Thanks for all the helpful comments. I've made some progress. > > But, I am struggling right now with why I would go to Nitros-9-- > > * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in Nitros-9 > * so, software on RS-DOS disks and virtual disks are not usable in Nitros-9 > You do know that NitrOS-9 (OS-9) is a completely separate environment from the Basic interpreter in ROM (RSDOS), right? Under NitrOS-9, the ROM is out of the picture and you are in a multi-tasking, unix-like operating system with a command shell. The file system used under NitrOS-9 is not compatible with RSDOS. When you want to use the Basic interpreter or run programs on an RSDOS disk, you don't boot into NitrOS-9. Darren From badfrog at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 16:49:32 2009 From: badfrog at gmail.com (Sean) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 15:49:32 -0500 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: <687E8C9BCF9946B9B5B65E1059ECAF7B@Shasta> References: <687E8C9BCF9946B9B5B65E1059ECAF7B@Shasta> Message-ID: <9efa17da0908031349u43e21926pa6002b1907ca09bc@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: > Hi, > >> * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in Nitros-9 > > Wrong. You just need the proper disk driver, I assume that NitrOS-9 has this > already. > > Then you need the proper program. I used sdisk so someone else will have to > supply the name. > I was almost positive there was an OS9 command that could read/write RSDOS disks. It may have been as simple as 'rsdos'. Can't remember for sure. From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 17:28:58 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 17:28:58 -0400 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908031343r418f0895hb6119e314020fc97@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908031343r418f0895hb6119e314020fc97@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: yes I am aware that the OS is different. There are a lot of applications for coco written for the base machine however. It looks to me like you give up on those applications. For example - can I still use EDTASM if I am currently running a Nitros-9 system? Or are you forever just switching back and forth, to suit the task at hand? Sounds like that is the case. cheers. ..Steve On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 4:43 PM, Darren A wrote: > On 8/3/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: >> Thanks for all the helpful comments. ?I've made some progress. >> >> But, I am struggling right now with why I would go to Nitros-9-- >> >> * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in Nitros-9 >> * so, software on RS-DOS disks and virtual disks are not usable in Nitros-9 >> > > You do know that NitrOS-9 (OS-9) is a completely separate environment > from the Basic interpreter in ROM (RSDOS), right? > > Under NitrOS-9, the ROM is out of the picture and you are in a > multi-tasking, unix-like operating system with a command shell. ?The > file system used under NitrOS-9 is not compatible with RSDOS. ?When > you want to use the Basic interpreter or run programs on an RSDOS > disk, you don't boot into NitrOS-9. > > Darren > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 17:29:32 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 17:29:32 -0400 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: <9efa17da0908031349u43e21926pa6002b1907ca09bc@mail.gmail.com> References: <687E8C9BCF9946B9B5B65E1059ECAF7B@Shasta> <9efa17da0908031349u43e21926pa6002b1907ca09bc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: thanks I'll read some more. I tried changing the drive paramters, but of course the directory info is in the wrong track too. Steve On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Sean wrote: > On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Stephen H. > Fischer wrote: >> Hi, >> >>> * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in Nitros-9 >> >> Wrong. You just need the proper disk driver, I assume that NitrOS-9 has this >> already. >> >> Then you need the proper program. I used sdisk so someone else will have to >> supply the name. >> > > I was almost positive there was an OS9 command that could read/write > RSDOS disks. ?It may have been as simple as 'rsdos'. ?Can't remember > for sure. > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From mechacoco at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 17:37:52 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 15:37:52 -0600 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: References: <5d802cd0908031343r418f0895hb6119e314020fc97@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5d802cd0908031437r7f0e91e3p2fd194c220ab0068@mail.gmail.com> On 8/3/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > yes I am aware that the OS is different. > > There are a lot of applications for coco written for the base machine > however. > > It looks to me like you give up on those applications. > > For example - can I still use EDTASM if I am currently running a > Nitros-9 system? You don't boot into NitrOS-9 if you want to run EDTASM. You startup the disk version of EDTASM from within Disk Basic. > Or are you forever just switching back and forth, to suit the task at > hand? Sounds like that is the case. > That is correct. Darren From devries.bob at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 17:33:25 2009 From: devries.bob at gmail.com (Bob Devries) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 07:33:25 +1000 Subject: [Coco] some progress... References: Message-ID: There is an OS-9/NitrOS9 programme called RSDos and/or RSDos Plus which will read and write the RSDos (disk basic) floppies. It's available on RTSI -- Regards, Bob Devries, Dalby, Queensland, Australia Isaiah 50:4 The sovereign Lord has given me the capacity to be his spokesman, so that I know how to help the weary. my blog: http://bdevries.invigorated.org/ ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Adolph" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 6:13 AM Subject: [Coco] some progress... > Thanks for all the helpful comments. I've made some progress. > * I made 2 Nitros-9 disks using an old pc and a 360k drive > * I got my coco3 to boot Nitros-9 > * I've fiddled with my drive settings with reasonable success > > have not yet played with 3.5 inch drives, > > But, I am struggling right now with why I would go to Nitros-9-- > > * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in Nitros-9 > * so, software on RS-DOS disks and virtual disks are not usable in > Nitros-9 > > But, as someone pointed out, HDB-DOS is available as a .DSK for > Nitros-9, making it a bit easier to use HDB-DOS that it is for an > RS-DOS system (or DECB system?). > > Making .DSKs is a pain in the neck when you don't have a dedicated > machine with an appropriate floppy installed, ... and you don't (yet) > have HDB-DOS to help you. > > cheers, Steve > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Mon Aug 3 18:03:30 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 15:03:30 -0700 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: References: <687E8C9BCF9946B9B5B65E1059ECAF7B@Shasta><9efa17da0908031349u43e21926pa6002b1907ca09bc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5647CDB7A9714AE783FA3D38541BDA86@Shasta> Hi, OS-9 is very flexable, in fact you can read and write "FLEX" disks just like "DECB" disks using the special program. I have done both, well, I just read the "FLEX" disks but I often read / wrote "DECB" disks as I was using my own version of "SLED" for the editing of a "DECB" program. But all the program does is to transfer files from "FLEX" or "DECB" disks to OS-9 files or the reverse. > There are a lot of applications for coco written for the base machine > however. > It looks to me like you give up on those applications. Some "DECB" programs can be run using a special program running on OS-9. > Or are you forever just switching back and forth, to suit the task at > hand? Sounds like that is the case. Yes, some "DECB" programs cannot be run at all. What someone did was to patch "DECB" to be able to run under OS-9. Both my floppy drives were 80 Track 2 Sided. The descriptors were set up for 80T 2S but once a OS-9 floppy is formatted with a lesser track / side count, OS-9 will recognize and read the OS-9 floppy just fine. I often read OS-9 35T 1S disks this way. For some of the lesser floppy OS-9 formats I used sformat, part of the sdisk package. The utilities for the standard floppy driver can not do all that sdisk 's sformat can do. Thus I sometimes had to boot with an OS-9 system disk with sdisk. Other times, the standard OS-9 boot disk was used. > I was almost positive there was an OS9 command that could read/write > RSDOS disks. It may have been as simple as 'rsdos'. Can't remember > for sure. That's the name of one of the programs I believe. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Adolph" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 2:29 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] some progress... thanks I'll read some more. I tried changing the drive paramters, but of course the directory info is in the wrong track too. Steve On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Sean wrote: > On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Stephen H. > Fischer wrote: >> Hi, >> >>> * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in >>> Nitros-9 >> >> Wrong. You just need the proper disk driver, I assume that NitrOS-9 has >> this >> already. >> >> Then you need the proper program. I used sdisk so someone else will have >> to >> supply the name. >> > > I was almost positive there was an OS9 command that could read/write > RSDOS disks. It may have been as simple as 'rsdos'. Can't remember > for sure. > From lothan at newsguy.com Mon Aug 3 17:38:05 2009 From: lothan at newsguy.com (Lothan) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 17:38:05 -0400 Subject: [Coco] I should know better In-Reply-To: References: <20090802200024.GB5522@virgo.sdc.org> Message-ID: I think you're right regarding the modules in ROM, but I never got beyond putting OS9Boot in the ROM of one of Bruce Isted's hard drive controllers. I always kept the kernel and other modules in the bootable area of the hard drive to make it easier to update. -------------------------------------------------- From: "Stephen H. Fischer" Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 5:43 PM To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Subject: Re: [Coco] I should know better > Hi, > > It's been a very long time, but I seem to have a memory that the modules > must be in ROM. > > As the CoCo runs OS-9 in RAM only, it may not be good test of the > impression. > > Perhaps the 68 Micro Journal ad's for OS-9 might be a good place to check. > > I also believe that OS-9 could be put into a ROM, if my memory from > decades past is correct. > > SHF > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Willard Goosey" > To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" > Sent: Sunday, August 02, 2009 1:00 PM > Subject: [Coco] I should know better > > >> ...than to believe the Tandy OS-9 manuals. >> >> Just from reading the docs, I was under the impression that, on boot, >> OS-9 scanned through all of memory and linked in any modules it >> found. > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 18:11:35 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 18:11:35 -0400 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: <5647CDB7A9714AE783FA3D38541BDA86@Shasta> References: <687E8C9BCF9946B9B5B65E1059ECAF7B@Shasta> <9efa17da0908031349u43e21926pa6002b1907ca09bc@mail.gmail.com> <5647CDB7A9714AE783FA3D38541BDA86@Shasta> Message-ID: I'm starting to clue in... since I only have 1 360k floppy, and they don't work well under windows anymore, I was struggling with how to transfer files. doh! I can use 720k floppies formatted as 35 tracks per side to transfer 360k .dsk images over to the coco. I installed a 3.5 inch floppy and got it working right off. So, my coco system is 3.5 inch floppy as drive 0 (and 1) 5.25 inch floppy as drive 2 (and 3) I think this is all singing all dancing from here out. I can run Nitros9, DECB whatever. seems fine. Only problem is that I threw out my last 3.5 inch bay adapter so I can't yet mount my small floppy in my FD-501 case.... cheers, Steve On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: > Hi, > > OS-9 is very flexable, in fact you can read and write "FLEX" disks just like > "DECB" disks using the special program. ?I have done both, well, I just read > the "FLEX" disks but I often read / wrote "DECB" disks as I was using my own > version of "SLED" for the editing of a "DECB" program. > > But all the program does is to transfer files from "FLEX" or "DECB" disks to > OS-9 files or the reverse. > >> There are a lot of applications for coco written for the base machine >> however. >> It ?looks to me like you give up on those applications. > > Some "DECB" programs can be run using a special program running on OS-9. > >> Or are you forever just switching back and forth, to suit the task at >> hand? ?Sounds like that is the case. > > Yes, some "DECB" programs cannot be run at all. > > What someone did was to patch "DECB" to be able to run under OS-9. > > Both my floppy drives were 80 Track 2 Sided. > > The descriptors were set up for 80T 2S but once a OS-9 floppy is formatted > with a lesser track / side count, OS-9 will recognize and read the OS-9 > floppy just fine. > > I often read OS-9 35T 1S disks this way. > > For some of the lesser floppy OS-9 formats I used sformat, part of the sdisk > package. > > The utilities for the standard floppy driver can not do all that sdisk 's > sformat can do. > > Thus I sometimes had to boot with an OS-9 system disk with sdisk. > > Other times, the standard OS-9 boot disk was used. > >> I was almost positive there was an OS9 command that could read/write >> RSDOS disks. It may have been as simple as 'rsdos'. Can't remember >> for sure. > > That's the name of one of the programs I believe. > > SHF > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Adolph" > To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" > Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 2:29 PM > Subject: Re: [Coco] some progress... > > > thanks I'll read some more. > I tried changing the drive paramters, but of course the directory info > is in the wrong track too. > > Steve > > On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Sean wrote: >> >> On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Stephen H. >> Fischer wrote: >>> >>> Hi, >>> >>>> * disks created in RS-DOS (35 track) cannot be read or written in >>>> Nitros-9 >>> >>> Wrong. You just need the proper disk driver, I assume that NitrOS-9 has >>> this >>> already. >>> >>> Then you need the proper program. I used sdisk so someone else will have >>> to >>> supply the name. >>> >> >> I was almost positive there was an OS9 command that could read/write >> RSDOS disks. It may have been as simple as 'rsdos'. Can't remember >> for sure. >> > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Mon Aug 3 18:52:14 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 15:52:14 -0700 Subject: [Coco] some progress... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0FBDC20ED38F45AEA1DBC2AE052365ED@Shasta> > I'm starting to clue in... > since I only have 1 360k floppy, and they don't work well under > windows anymore, I was struggling with how to transfer files. > doh! I can use 720k floppies formatted as 35 tracks per side to > transfer 360k .dsk images over to the coco. Look up PCDOS for reading / writing MSDOS floppies under OS-9. SHF From pfitchjr at bellsouth.net Mon Aug 3 18:54:16 2009 From: pfitchjr at bellsouth.net (Paul Fitch) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 18:54:16 -0400 Subject: [Coco] observation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5696CF0AB5914CE08BCB7AF1D29B9141@Dell3Gig> I agree with John. Back when it mattered, and standards were non-existant or in flux, everybody needed that info. These days its not a life skill anymore, so we forgot. You might actually find more of the day-to-day knowledge you are looking for in some of the Compuserve and FIDO digests from the mid-80's to the early 90's. That's when the highest number of "new" people were joining the community and needed their questions answered. > -----Original Message----- > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com > [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of John E. Malmberg > Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 9:49 AM > To: coco at maltedmedia.com > Subject: Re: [Coco] observation > > Stephen Adolph wrote: > > I must say, > > > > Given the huge amount of coco information out there, it > seems that is > > suprisingly disorganised, and spread out all over the place No > > offence, but I've got to do a lot of digging just to > understand floppy > > compatibility and set up. > > The COCO can use up to 3 industry standard double sided double density > 5.25 or 3.5 inch floppy drives. High density 3.5 inch drives > will work in 720K mode. The industry standard was set long > before anyone heard of an IBM PC. > > 1.2M floppy drives do not fully support writing 320 K > floppies, but should be usable to read them on a COCO, if you > are just trying to copy disks to some other media. > > There is a hardware mode for the oldest controller that > alleges to allow it to work with hi-density 5.25 drives and > presumably 3.5 inch drives in high density mode. > > 8 inch floppies require some more hardware hacks similar to > the 5.25 hi-density drives. > > > Unless I simply have not found the comprehensive source. If I've > > missed it, please point me to the best places to learn > about setting > > up the Coco! > > Sorry, I do not have any bookmarks handy. Floppy information > used to be generally known and available until the PC > documentation dumbed it down. > > -John > wb8tyw at qsl.net > Personal Opinion Only > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From pfitchjr at bellsouth.net Mon Aug 3 18:56:23 2009 From: pfitchjr at bellsouth.net (Paul Fitch) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 18:56:23 -0400 Subject: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies In-Reply-To: <200908031000.04835.gene.heskett@verizon.net> References: <200908031000.04835.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: Floppydisk.doc sells them, and 5.25" disks to. I just bought some. Haven't tried them yet, but they were new in the box. > -----Original Message----- > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com > [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Gene Heskett > Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 10:00 AM > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Subject: Re: [Coco] question about 3.5 inch floppies > > On Monday 03 August 2009, Stephen Adolph wrote: > >Hi, > > > >Another dumb question- > > > >A 3.5 inch drive will work like a 720k drive simply by placing a DD > >(720k) disk into the drive, right? > > > Generally, yes. Unforch, finding DD disks can be > frustrating. Taping over the HD hole usually doesn't work as > the switch in record drive currents then results in a weak > recording, one that may or may not be readable an hour later. > > >So, to use a 3.5 inch floppy with Nirtos-9, one merely needs to have > >it be plugged in, and make sure to use 720k floppies. The > disk drive > >will operate correctly. (?) > > If the descriptor is properly dmoded for 720k, usually yes. > > >Interestingly, I have 3 different versions of the same Panasonic > >JU-257. Only one of them can be selected to be drive 0 or 1. > > > >I think I have read that, in the coco, you want to use hard drive > >selects...no twisted cables. > > That is best. The drive cable adapters can, if all traces > are there, be where the drive select signals are swapped > around, allowing one of the fixed at drive 1 drives to be > used as 0 or 2. Terminations on 3.5" drives could be a > problem too, and one should check to see if the pc's twisted > cable also somehow enables the terminators for drive 0, out > on the twisted end of the cable. Its not something I have > attempted here, my drive 0 is a 5.25, 360k drive, 2 is a 720k > 5.25, and one is whatever is plugged in at the time, boot > default for drive 1 is a 720k here. > > >thanks, Steve > > > >-- > >Coco mailing list > >Coco at maltedmedia.com > >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > > -- > Cheers, Gene > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: > soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." > -Ed Howdershelt (Author) > The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who > wants them. > > > The people rule. > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From pfitchjr at bellsouth.net Mon Aug 3 19:10:55 2009 From: pfitchjr at bellsouth.net (Paul Fitch) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 19:10:55 -0400 Subject: [Coco] nitros-9 support In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <03FB2EA5D06649B898FCC05CD3969775@Dell3Gig> Your best bet on the drives is Cloud9 until you get your "sea" legs under you. There are also several good new to OS-9 books/PDFs out there. I would suggest the following: PDF books: Getting Started with NitrOS9 Mastering OS-9 on the Coco III. The NitrOS-9 Level II Windowing System Inside OS-9 Level II Installing and Configuring NitrOS9 and HDB-DOS Hard Copy Books: The Complete Rainbow Guide to OS-9 The Complete Rainbow Guide to OS-9 Level II With these on your bookshelf, the majority of your questions will be answered. > -----Original Message----- > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com > [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Adolph > Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 10:05 AM > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Subject: [Coco] nitros-9 support > > Hi folks, > > NITROS-9 web site does not have all that much information. > > Site mentions a wiki on sourceforge, but it's not really a wiki is it? > Where is all the wiki stuff? > > So, > > Where can I get the information I need to be able to- > > 1) select compatible floppy drives for NITROS-9 > 2) install said floppies in my FD-501 enclosure, such that > they are compatible with NITROS-9 > > and finally, > > 3) I'm wondering if I am writing to the correct forum. Is > there a better place to go to get user support for COCO? > > thanks, > Steve > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 21:20:38 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 21:20:38 -0400 Subject: [Coco] flat panel LCD TVs - WAS Re: nitros-9 support Message-ID: Hey, thanks. I'll do some reading and get up to speed. Since I don't have a multipak, and for now I think I can live with floppies, I'll just keep on doing what I am doing, which is re-learning coco. Now that my drive story is sorted, and my file transfer story is sorted, I need to sort out my monitor now. I'm thinking that a used 13 inch flat panel TV with composite input would be the ticket. Anyone ever use one of those as a coco3 monitor? ..Steve On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 7:10 PM, Paul Fitch wrote: > Your best bet on the drives is Cloud9 until you get your "sea" legs under > you. ?There are also several good new to OS-9 books/PDFs out there. ?I would > suggest the following: > > PDF books: > > Getting Started with NitrOS9 > Mastering OS-9 on the Coco III. > The NitrOS-9 Level II Windowing System > Inside OS-9 Level II > Installing and Configuring NitrOS9 and HDB-DOS > > Hard Copy Books: > > The Complete Rainbow Guide to OS-9 > The Complete Rainbow Guide to OS-9 Level II > > With these on your bookshelf, the majority of your questions will be > answered. > > > > > > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com >> [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Stephen Adolph >> Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 10:05 AM >> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts >> Subject: [Coco] nitros-9 support >> >> Hi folks, >> >> NITROS-9 web site does not have all that much information. >> >> Site mentions a wiki on sourceforge, but it's not really a wiki is it? >> ?Where is all the wiki stuff? >> >> So, >> >> Where can I get the information I need to be able to- >> >> 1) select compatible floppy drives for NITROS-9 >> 2) install said floppies in my FD-501 enclosure, such that >> they are compatible with NITROS-9 >> >> and finally, >> >> 3) I'm wondering if I am writing to the correct forum. ?Is >> there a better place to go to get user support for COCO? >> >> thanks, >> Steve >> >> -- >> Coco mailing list >> Coco at maltedmedia.com >> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco >> > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From coco+list at jeanpaulsamson.com Mon Aug 3 22:07:18 2009 From: coco+list at jeanpaulsamson.com (J.P. Samson) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 20:07:18 -0600 Subject: [Coco] flat panel LCD TVs - WAS Re: nitros-9 support In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Aug 3, 2009, at 7:20 PM, Stephen Adolph wrote: > I'm thinking that a used 13 inch flat panel TV with composite input > would be the ticket. > > Anyone ever use one of those as a coco3 monitor? In theory, yes. But I have a 13" Sharp LCD TV that doesn't seem to sync up correctly to the CoCo's output (via composite). I suppose the deinterlacers in an LCD TV could cause some weird problems. Note that you still will likely have troubles reading 80-column text using just the composite output. -- JP From twospruces at gmail.com Mon Aug 3 22:27:06 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 22:27:06 -0400 Subject: [Coco] flat panel LCD TVs - WAS Re: nitros-9 support In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: oh. Did not know that. The problem I am mostly trying to address, is the resolution for reading 80 column text. What is the best solution? thanks, steve On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 10:07 PM, J.P. Samson wrote: > On Aug 3, 2009, at 7:20 PM, Stephen Adolph wrote: >> >> I'm thinking that a used 13 inch flat panel TV with composite input >> would be the ticket. >> >> Anyone ever use ?one of those as a coco3 monitor? > > In theory, yes. ?But I have a 13" Sharp LCD TV that doesn't seem to sync up > correctly to the CoCo's output (via composite). ?I suppose the deinterlacers > in an LCD TV could cause some weird problems. ?Note that you still will > likely have troubles reading 80-column text using just the composite output. > > -- JP > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From coco+list at jeanpaulsamson.com Mon Aug 3 22:36:05 2009 From: coco+list at jeanpaulsamson.com (J.P. Samson) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 20:36:05 -0600 Subject: [Coco] flat panel LCD TVs - WAS Re: nitros-9 support In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5CA06A6A-FA0B-4FA2-A007-25C6CAC3687F@jeanpaulsamson.com> On Aug 3, 2009, at 8:27 PM, Stephen Adolph wrote: > Did not know that. > The problem I am mostly trying to address, is the resolution for > reading 80 column text. > What is the best solution? Your best bet is to use Roy Justus' RGB-to-VGA converter hardware. It lets you hook up the RGB-Analog output on the underside of the CoCo 3 to a computer monitor with a VGA input. Here's a review: http://coco.clubltdstudios.com/articles/revjustusvga.html You can contact Roy by e-mail: RJRTTY [at] aol.com There's usually a waiting list of several months to buy an adapter, unfortunately. Roy's makin'em as fast as he can. The advantage of using composite output over RGB is if you are using CoCo 1/2 programs that use high-res graphics with artifact colors. The RGB connection reproduces these graphics in true black-and-white. -- JP From goosey at virgo.sdc.org Tue Aug 4 00:11:16 2009 From: goosey at virgo.sdc.org (Willard Goosey) Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 22:11:16 -0600 Subject: [Coco] pic2vef Message-ID: <20090804041116.GA20279@virgo.sdc.org> My utility to convert Deskmate 3 PIC files to VEF files is available at http://www.sdc.org/~goosey/os9/pic2vef.lzh And it has been uploaded to www.rtsi.com and ftp.maltedmedia.com, and will appear in the proper directories when the site maintainers see fit. ;-) I requested /OS9/OS9_6X09/GRAPHICS for rtsi. Please let me know if there are any problems/suggestions/bugs/rants/raves/etc with or for it. Willard -- Willard Goosey goosey at sdc.org Socorro, New Mexico, USA I search my heart and find Cimmeria, land of Darkness and the Night. -- R.E. Howard From aawolfe at gmail.com Tue Aug 4 09:19:20 2009 From: aawolfe at gmail.com (Aaron Wolfe) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 09:19:20 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <5b0704c10908031055w391bf54bq2c535902352cc5e9@mail.gmail.com> References: <9efa17da0907310754m35fe23e0ta67392641b867b86@mail.gmail.com> <5b0704c10908031055w391bf54bq2c535902352cc5e9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 1:55 PM, tim lindner wrote: > On Mon, Aug 3, 2009 at 9:58 AM, Fedor Steeman wrote: >> Hmmm.... Something about the numbers is messed up now! I went from 130 >> points to 26??? Are the counts reset at regular intervals? > > Yes they are. Only the last four days are tallied. > > The idea is to keep people motivated. :) > I think both a 4 day leader board and an all time hero list would be more motivating :) Also, some tasks are much more difficult than others. Perhaps 1 point for verifying article pages, 2 for boxing ads, 3 for ocr check, etc. etc. Just my $0.02 -Aaron > -- > tim lindner > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From wb8tyw at qsl.net Tue Aug 4 09:27:45 2009 From: wb8tyw at qsl.net (John E. Malmberg) Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 08:27:45 -0500 Subject: [Coco] flat panel LCD TVs - WAS Re: nitros-9 support In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Stephen Adolph wrote: > oh. > Did not know that. > The problem I am mostly trying to address, is the resolution for > reading 80 column text. > What is the best solution? As you have already been given a solution, some background as to why what you tried did not work. An 80 column display requires a monitor bandwidth of about 5 to 8 Mhz. Because of the way that composite video works in the US, it is limited to a bit less than 3.8 Mhz. In the video there is a color sync burst at 3.58 Mhz to keep the colors aligned. The composite video circuit generally has a low pass filter to separate the displayed video from the color burst. In the old days, there were hacks published to convert black and white TVs to have direct video input. I tried one, and with the hardware I had, I could only get 72 characters to be readable. So to get higher resolutions than about 40 characters on a traditional color TV, you need to separate feeds for at least each color. In the old days, an analog circuit of the bandwidth needed for the color computer was very expensive. Setting up a circuit with discrete color inputs like the COCO 3 Monitor did, was relatively cheap, however it made the monitor matched to a specific computer. -John wb8ytw at qsl.net Personal Opinion Only From twospruces at gmail.com Tue Aug 4 10:25:46 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 10:25:46 -0400 Subject: [Coco] coco sub 64k memory modes Message-ID: Just to confirm, If I read what I've seen correctly, 32K bank switching is controlled by 4 registers FFDE/FFDF (TY) defines the use of the upper 32k for either the ROMs or RAM FFD4/FFD5 (P1) defines the use of the lower 32k for RAM, when in ROM ACTIVE (not all RAM mode) ex. To set all ram mode, one would write to FFDF To set first page of RAM active, and ROMS active, write to FFDE, FFD4 And, to jump into all ram mode, you would (in machine language) (assuming default 32k operation) * write to FFD4 (ensure normal P1 setting) * start loop * write to FFDE (to go into RAM/ROM mode) * get a byte D from address A * write to FFDF(switch to all RAM mode) * write byte D to address A * end loop sound reasonable? thanks, Steve From farna at att.net Tue Aug 4 10:46:52 2009 From: farna at att.net (Frank Swygert) Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:46:52 -0400 Subject: [Coco] nitros-9 support Message-ID: <4A7849DC.3080703@att.net> "Mastering OS-9 on the CoCo 3" can be downloaded here: ftp://maltedmedia.com/coco/Farna/ You will also find an OS-9 "Quick Reference Guide" that will be useful, even with Nitros-9, though some of the commands will be different. Same for "Mastering OS-9", but there is enough similarity that the OS-9 books are great guides for Nitros-9. If someone wants to edit that guide for Nitros-9 let me know and I'll get you a text file, then format what you've done back into booklet form. Needs to be a Nitros user, of course! Added commands are no problem, just use the same format. For general Color Computer use/repair/upgrading/etc., you really need to get "Tandy's Little Wonder" also. On page 100 in the Appendix is a "CoCo Users Guide" written specifically for the novice. Lee Duell wrote it so that someone who inherited his CoCo system would be able to pull it out of the boxes and figure everything out without too much trouble. There are sections on upgrade, all the peripherals, repairs, and pin-outs for all the connectors -- literally anything you want to know about the physical computer. There's a Nitros-9 section, but it just describes the OS and how it came about, not how to run it. ------------ Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2009 19:10:55 -0400 From: "Paul Fitch" Subject: Re: [Coco] nitros-9 support To: "'CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts'" Message-ID: <03FB2EA5D06649B898FCC05CD3969775 at Dell3Gig> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Your best bet on the drives is Cloud9 until you get your "sea" legs under you. There are also several good new to OS-9 books/PDFs out there. I would suggest the following: PDF books: Getting Started with NitrOS9 Mastering OS-9 on the Coco III. The NitrOS-9 Level II Windowing System Inside OS-9 Level II Installing and Configuring NitrOS9 and HDB-DOS Hard Copy Books: The Complete Rainbow Guide to OS-9 The Complete Rainbow Guide to OS-9 Level II With these on your bookshelf, the majority of your questions will be answered. -- Frank Swygert Publisher, "American Motors Cars" Magazine (AMC) For all AMC enthusiasts http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html (free download available!) From mechacoco at gmail.com Tue Aug 4 11:53:30 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 09:53:30 -0600 Subject: [Coco] coco sub 64k memory modes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> On 8/4/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > Just to confirm, > If I read what I've seen correctly, > > 32K bank switching is controlled by 4 registers > > FFDE/FFDF (TY) defines the use of the upper 32k for either the ROMs or RAM > > FFD4/FFD5 (P1) defines the use of the lower 32k for RAM, when in ROM > ACTIVE (not all RAM mode) > > ex. > > To set all ram mode, one would write to FFDF > > To set first page of RAM active, and ROMS active, write to FFDE, FFD4 > > > And, to jump into all ram mode, you would (in machine language) > (assuming default 32k operation) > > * write to FFD4 (ensure normal P1 setting) > * start loop > * write to FFDE (to go into RAM/ROM mode) > * get a byte D from address A > * write to FFDF(switch to all RAM mode) > * write byte D to address A > * end loop > > > sound reasonable? > First off, if you are using a CoCo 3 then it runs in All RAM mode by default, so there usually isn't any need to do this. Your example is mostly correct for a 64K CoCo 1 or 2. You don't need to touch P1 (FFD4, FFD5) because your code will be executing in whatever page happens to be current (normally 0). If you changed the page your code would disappear and the machine would likely crash. Furthermore when in All RAM mode, P1 has no significance. You also need to remember to mask interrupts during the loop, as in the following example: ORCC #$50 LDX #$8000 LP STA $FFDE LDD ,X STA $FFDF STD ,X++ CMPX #$FE00 BNE LP ANDCC #$AF RTS Darren From twospruces at gmail.com Tue Aug 4 12:07:05 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 12:07:05 -0400 Subject: [Coco] coco sub 64k memory modes In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Darren, Really? to me this implies that the 8k roms get copied to upper RAM on power up. That appears to happen quickly. Neat. So, with a coco3 I can easily apply ROM patches, or even just wipe it clean and shove in a new rom, then jump to the appropriate address to restart non-destructively. ..steve On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 11:53 AM, Darren A wrote: > First off, if you are using a CoCo 3 then it runs in All RAM mode by > default, so there usually isn't any need to do this. > From mechacoco at gmail.com Tue Aug 4 12:34:02 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 10:34:02 -0600 Subject: [Coco] coco sub 64k memory modes In-Reply-To: References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> On 8/4/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > Hi Darren, > Really? to me this implies that the 8k roms get copied to upper RAM > on power up. That appears to happen quickly. > > Neat. > Yes. The CoCo 3 has a 32K ROM. The lower 16K contains mostly the same code you would find in an Extended Basic CoCo 1/2. During startup, the ROM (along with the Disk Basic ROM if present) is copied to RAM and then the CoCo 1/2 code is patched in a few places to call new routines in Super Extended Color Basic. Darren From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Tue Aug 4 13:17:50 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 10:17:50 -0700 Subject: [Coco] coco sub 64k memory modes In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <68EDEA1703264D289F656C3FDE805D5D@Shasta> Don't forget the picture of the developers is in the rom also. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Darren A" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 9:34 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] coco sub 64k memory modes > On 8/4/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: >> Hi Darren, >> Really? to me this implies that the 8k roms get copied to upper RAM >> on power up. That appears to happen quickly. >> >> Neat. >> > > Yes. The CoCo 3 has a 32K ROM. The lower 16K contains mostly the same > code you would find in an Extended Basic CoCo 1/2. During startup, > the ROM (along with the Disk Basic ROM if present) is copied to RAM > and then the CoCo 1/2 code is patched in a few places to call new > routines in Super Extended Color Basic. > > Darren From afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk Tue Aug 4 13:19:54 2009 From: afra at aurigae.demon.co.uk (Phill Harvey-Smith) Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 18:19:54 +0100 Subject: [Coco] coco sub 64k memory modes In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A786DBA.7040208@aurigae.demon.co.uk> Darren A wrote: > On 8/4/09, Stephen Adolph wrote: > Yes. The CoCo 3 has a 32K ROM. The lower 16K contains mostly the same > code you would find in an Extended Basic CoCo 1/2. During startup, > the ROM (along with the Disk Basic ROM if present) is copied to RAM > and then the CoCo 1/2 code is patched in a few places to call new > routines in Super Extended Color Basic. Which of course begs the question could SECB be patched to work on a 64K CoCo 1/2, hardware differences aside. Cheers. Phill. -- Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general eccentric ! "You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush. From mechacoco at gmail.com Tue Aug 4 13:53:56 2009 From: mechacoco at gmail.com (Darren A) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 11:53:56 -0600 Subject: [Coco] coco sub 64k memory modes In-Reply-To: <4A786DBA.7040208@aurigae.demon.co.uk> References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> <4A786DBA.7040208@aurigae.demon.co.uk> Message-ID: <5d802cd0908041053l77c7e43ayda9892b9e49beb99@mail.gmail.com> On 8/4/09, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote: > > Which of course begs the question could SECB be patched to work on a 64K > CoCo 1/2, hardware differences aside. > Except for ONERR GOTO and ONBRK GOTO I can't think of anything in SECB that doesn't require the CoCo 3 hardware. Darren From leonard23 at verizon.net Tue Aug 4 14:59:39 2009 From: leonard23 at verizon.net (Leonard Miller) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 11:59:39 -0700 Subject: [Coco] [Color Computer] Check out my photos on Facebook Message-ID: Hi colorcomputer at yahoogroups.com, I set up a Facebook profile where I can post my pictures, videos and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it. First, you need to join Facebook! Once you join, you can also create your own profile. Thanks, Leonard To sign up for Facebook, follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1406474971&k=Z5FXQVRZ3VWDUCBGUGY2YRQ&r colorcomputer at yahoogroups.com was invited to join Facebook by Leonard Miller. If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please click on the link below to unsubscribe. http://www.facebook.com/o.php?k=e5d473&u=1674567860&mid=e28249G63cfe0b4G0G8 Facebook's offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304 From invite+kjdmu~m-ud3i at facebookmail.com Tue Aug 4 15:01:07 2009 From: invite+kjdmu~m-ud3i at facebookmail.com (Leonard Miller) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 12:01:07 -0700 Subject: [Coco] Check out my photos on Facebook Message-ID: Hi coco at maltedmedia.com, I set up a Facebook profile where I can post my pictures, videos and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it. First, you need to join Facebook! Once you join, you can also create your own profile. Thanks, Leonard To sign up for Facebook, follow the link below: http://www.facebook.com/p.php?i=1406474971&k=5WEZZ3WR3Z2M5BD1QB55UVUW2TF&r coco at maltedmedia.com was invited to join Facebook by Leonard Miller. If you do not wish to receive this type of email from Facebook in the future, please click on the link below to unsubscribe. http://www.facebook.com/o.php?k=b90c7c&u=100000124244815&mid=e282a1G5af317e2134fG0G8 Facebook's offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304 From petrander at gmail.com Tue Aug 4 15:44:35 2009 From: petrander at gmail.com (Fedor Steeman) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 21:44:35 +0200 Subject: [Coco] Copied manuals: Scan or throw out? Message-ID: Hi all, For my ongoing manual scanning effort, I have now only a relatively minor stack left of copied manuals. Remember: These are not original 'copies' just 'copies' made of the original on a copying machine somewhere during the eighties. Copied manual that are scanned in are thrown out. I am in doubt whether I should scan the following in, or if someone else already scanned in a better copy and thus I can throw these out. Can anyone help out? Thnx! 1. OS-9 Pascal V2.0 User's Manual by Dragon Data Ltd. 2. OS-9 Interactive debugger 3. Microware OS-9 Assembler 4. Color Profile 5. The Rainbow Book of Adventures 6. TRS-80 Color Computer Quick Reference Guide (1982) 7. VIP Speller 8. Extended Basic User's Manual by Technical Systems Consultants (1979) I have three more binders with stuff left, so more coming up.... Cheers, Fedor From pfitchjr at bellsouth.net Tue Aug 4 19:04:03 2009 From: pfitchjr at bellsouth.net (Paul Fitch) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 19:04:03 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Copied manuals: Scan or throw out? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <3F2BEFDEC58149E097CAF3F9A9B11A02@Dell3Gig> The only ones I don't remember seeing ( and downloading) are Items 4 thru 7. > -----Original Message----- > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com > [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Fedor Steeman > Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 3:45 PM > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Subject: [Coco] Copied manuals: Scan or throw out? > > Hi all, > For my ongoing manual scanning effort, I have now only a > relatively minor stack left of copied manuals. Remember: > These are not original 'copies' just 'copies' made of the > original on a copying machine somewhere during the eighties. > Copied manual that are scanned in are thrown out. > > I am in doubt whether I should scan the following in, or if > someone else already scanned in a better copy and thus I can > throw these out. Can anyone help out? Thnx! > > 1. OS-9 Pascal V2.0 User's Manual by Dragon Data Ltd. > 2. OS-9 Interactive debugger > 3. Microware OS-9 Assembler > 4. Color Profile > 5. The Rainbow Book of Adventures > 6. TRS-80 Color Computer Quick Reference Guide (1982) 7. VIP > Speller 8. Extended Basic User's Manual by Technical Systems > Consultants (1979) > > I have three more binders with stuff left, so more coming up.... > > Cheers, > > Fedor > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From twospruces at gmail.com Tue Aug 4 19:51:02 2009 From: twospruces at gmail.com (Stephen Adolph) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 19:51:02 -0400 Subject: [Coco] floppy set up Message-ID: There are quite a few little gotchas in floppy set up. I realize most of you guys have moved on, but for newbies this is "interesting"- * you've got the difference in pinout wiring at the controller * cable wiring differences (twist/notwist/missing pins etc) * the changing standards in how drives have used the drive selects * matching motor on, drive selects and side selects to the drive you wish to use * compatibility issues - number of tracks, rotation speed, sectors/track So far, it seems like the verdict has to be that 3.5 inch 1.44 floppies are just fine to use with the coco. Yes they are a bit different than the 720k cousins, but close enough. Yes, all you get in coco mode is 40 tracks. You should use 720k floppies. Yes you will need to mess around with your cables, maybe make a new one, maybe modify your existing one. I found the pinout/schematic/service manual for the TEC FB-501 - it is buried in the Model 100 DVI service manual. I also have the service manual for the old Tandon 5.25 floppy. As I said, all the info is out there but it is seriously spread out! The nice thing is, that 720k format is still possible to be used on an XP machine, so it is possible therefore to make real disks from .DSKs on the PC. At least this can be made to work - unlike the situation for the Model 100, which has a whole different approach to things. Thanks for the help. I feel like I could write a document on the subject now, but it should be on a wiki somewhere. In M100 land, one of the guys started a pretty useful wiki. Why don't one of you long time keeners do one like this, and then we can all contribute our little pieces. see www.bitchin100.com/wiki Steve From 6809er at bjork-huffman.net Tue Aug 4 19:47:01 2009 From: 6809er at bjork-huffman.net (Steve Bjork) Date: Tue, 04 Aug 2009 16:47:01 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <5d802cd0908041053l77c7e43ayda9892b9e49beb99@mail.gmail.com> References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> <4A786DBA.7040208@aurigae.demon.co.uk> <5d802cd0908041053l77c7e43ayda9892b9e49beb99@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> "The Shack" re-branding RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The Shack" as well as re-building corporate culture. This will be kicked off by a launch celebration in both San Francisco and New York featuring "14 foot tall laptops" streaming the images from their webcams from one city to the other, live music in both locations, as well as television coverage of the event.[14] The event will take place in Times Square and Justin Herman Plaza on August 6-8, 2009, starting each morning at 6AM Eastern and lasting until Midnight. To help promote the rebranding internally, employees were given T-shirts, travel mugs, and EGrips, all branded with the new "The Shack" logo. These internal promotional items were bundled with a 5 minute long, highly stylized and edited video with an introduction from the CEO explaining what "The Shack" is. Tandy is gone and so is Radio Shack in a few days. Yes, some of called the stores "the shack" in the past, but the press and public will new start calling them "The Shaft" for how you feel when you walk out of their stores. From tlindner at macmess.org Tue Aug 4 20:19:26 2009 From: tlindner at macmess.org (tim lindner) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 17:19:26 -0700 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> Aaron Wolfe wrote: > I think both a 4 day leader board and an all time hero list would be > more motivating :) I understand. I should have said more motivating for new users. I think an all-time leader board is a good idea. I might take that up this weekend. > Also, some tasks are much more difficult than others. Perhaps 1 point > for verifying article pages, 2 for boxing ads, 3 for ocr check, etc. > etc. I would need more convincing for this to be implemented. :) -- tim lindner tlindner at macmess.org Bright From dml_68 at yahoo.com Tue Aug 4 23:28:43 2009 From: dml_68 at yahoo.com (Derek) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 20:28:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> Message-ID: <397708.12630.qm@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Nothing like taking 80 years of brand name build up and flushing it down the toilet. This ranks as one of the worst corporate decisions ever... ** Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization ** --- On Tue, 8/4/09, Steve Bjork <6809er at bjork-huffman.net> wrote: From: Steve Bjork <6809er at bjork-huffman.net> Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Date: Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 4:47 PM "The Shack" re-branding RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The Shack" as well as re-building corporate culture. This will be kicked off by a launch celebration in both San Francisco and New York featuring "14 foot tall laptops" streaming the images from their webcams from one city to the other, live music in both locations, as well as television coverage of the event.[14] The event will take place in Times Square and Justin Herman Plaza on August 6-8, 2009, starting each morning at 6AM Eastern and lasting until Midnight. To help promote the rebranding internally, employees were given T-shirts, travel mugs, and EGrips, all branded with the new "The Shack" logo. These internal promotional items were bundled with a 5 minute long, highly stylized and edited video with an introduction from the CEO explaining what "The Shack" is. Tandy is gone and so is Radio Shack in a few days. Yes, some of called the stores "the shack" in the past, but the press and public will new start calling them "The Shaft" for how you feel when you walk out of their stores. -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From alsplace at pobox.com Tue Aug 4 23:31:52 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 22:31:52 -0500 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> <4A786DBA.7040208@aurigae.demon.co.uk> <5d802cd0908041053l77c7e43ayda9892b9e49beb99@mail.gmail.com> <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> Message-ID: On Aug 4, 2009, at 6:47 PM, Steve Bjork wrote: > "The Shack" re-branding Wow. Although we lost the "T" in TRS-80 awhile ago (and I didn't even realize that had happened until probably a year or two ago!), now we lose the "R"... Well, S-80 users of the world, unite! -- A From coco+list at jeanpaulsamson.com Tue Aug 4 23:43:43 2009 From: coco+list at jeanpaulsamson.com (J.P. Samson) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 21:43:43 -0600 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <397708.12630.qm@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <397708.12630.qm@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Aug 4, 2009, at 9:28 PM, Derek wrote: > Nothing like taking 80 years of brand name build up and flushing it > down the toilet. This ranks as one of the worst corporate decisions > ever... > > --- On Tue, 8/4/09, Steve Bjork <6809er at bjork-huffman.net> wrote: > > Tandy is gone and so is Radio Shack in a few days. To be honest, does anyone under the age of 40 even know what a radio shack refers to--the historical, dictionary definition? (Wikipedia to the rescue on that one!) That's probably the big reason for dumping the name. Anyway, I'd prefer the Radio Shack name not be associated with the poor excuse for an electronics retailer that remains! Might as well call it "Crap Shack". Here in Canada, Radio Shack is long gone. Many years ago, it was bought out by Circuit City and eventually retitled "The Source". Radio Shack made another go later at re-entering the market, but that attempt folded pretty quickly. This year, "The Source" was purchased by Bell, and assumedly it will be turned into a retailer dedicated to selling Bell Canada's cell phone, satellite TV, and Internet service. -- JP From theother_bob at yahoo.com Wed Aug 5 00:38:37 2009 From: theother_bob at yahoo.com (theother_bob) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 21:38:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> References: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> Message-ID: <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ---- From: tim lindner To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2009 7:19:26 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? Aaron Wolfe wrote: > I think both a 4 day leader board and an all time hero list would be > more motivating :) I understand. I should have said more motivating for new users. I think an all-time leader board is a good idea. I might take that up this weekend. > Also, some tasks are much more difficult than others. Perhaps 1 point > for verifying article pages, 2 for boxing ads, 3 for ocr check, etc. > etc. I would need more convincing for this to be implemented. :) -- tim lindner tlindner at macmess.org Bright Since they appear to be randomly disributed, I'm sure over time they would be distributed evenly enough to be statistically inconsequential, especially for the highest contributors. Bob. From wrcousert at yahoo.com Wed Aug 5 01:06:35 2009 From: wrcousert at yahoo.com (Bill Cousert) Date: Tue, 4 Aug 2009 22:06:35 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> <4A786DBA.7040208@aurigae.demon.co.uk> <5d802cd0908041053l77c7e43ayda9892b9e49beb99@mail.gmail.com> <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> Message-ID: <318090.94724.qm@web38403.mail.mud.yahoo.com> >From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:RadioShack#.22THE_SHACK.22_Creative_Platform "THE SHACK" Creative Platform My name is Wendy Dominguez, and I work for RadioShack Corporation. I see that the Wikipedia community has added a new section to our article titled, ?The Shack re-branding.? I?d like to share more information to clarify and expand on this initiative. RadioShack is not changing its name. The name of the Company and all of our stores will remain RadioShack. THE SHACK is a new brand creative platform that RadioShack will unveil on August 6, 2009. Our customers will experience the campaign through television, print and digital media, as well as a three-day launch event taking place in New York City and San Francisco. You can find more information in our press release: http://ir.radioshackcorporation.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=400656. The new advertising will place greater emphasis on mobility and wireless products from leading brands. However, the sentence in this section about a ?telemarketing campaign? aimed at post-paid customers is not related to THE SHACK brand campaign. We suggest that this sentence be moved, as it is currently presented out of context.--139.60.210.5 (talk) 19:29, 3 August 2009 (UTC)RadioShack Communications ________________________________ From: Steve Bjork <6809er at bjork-huffman.net> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2009 4:47:01 PM Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... "The Shack" re-branding RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The Shack" as well as re-building corporate culture. This will be kicked off by a launch celebration in both San Francisco and New York featuring "14 foot tall laptops" streaming the images from their webcams from one city to the other, live music in both locations, as well as television coverage of the event.[14] The event will take place in Times Square and Justin Herman Plaza on August 6-8, 2009, starting each morning at 6AM Eastern and lasting until Midnight. To help promote the rebranding internally, employees were given T-shirts, travel mugs, and EGrips, all branded with the new "The Shack" logo. These internal promotional items were bundled with a 5 minute long, highly stylized and edited video with an introduction from the CEO explaining what "The Shack" is. Tandy is gone and so is Radio Shack in a few days. Yes, some of called the stores "the shack" in the past, but the press and public will new start calling them "The Shaft" for how you feel when you walk out of their stores. -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From Rich.Ries at Honeywell.com Wed Aug 5 09:01:09 2009 From: Rich.Ries at Honeywell.com (Ries, Rich (NY80)) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 09:01:09 -0400 Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> "RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The Shack" as well as re-building corporate culture. ... Tandy is gone and so is Radio Shack in a few days." Odd thoughts: (1) There is a book out called "The Shack." Wonder if the lawyers are starting to drool... (2) Tandy lost me when (a) they went to PC-clones and (b) they stopped carrying the electronic components they used to. Sure the components were over-priced, but if you really REALLY needed a part for a project, you could usually get it. --Rich From aawolfe at gmail.com Wed Aug 5 10:07:27 2009 From: aawolfe at gmail.com (Aaron Wolfe) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 10:07:27 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 12:38 AM, theother_bob wrote: > > > > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: tim lindner > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2009 7:19:26 PM > Subject: Re: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? > > Aaron Wolfe wrote: > >> I think both a 4 day leader board and an all time hero list would be >> more motivating :) > > I understand. I should have said more motivating for new users. I think > an all-time leader board is a good idea. I might take that up this > weekend. > >> Also, some tasks are much more difficult than others. ?Perhaps 1 point >> for verifying article pages, 2 for boxing ads, 3 for ocr check, etc. >> etc. > > I would need more convincing for this to be implemented. :) > > -- > tim lindner > tlindner at macmess.org ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?Bright > > > > Since they appear to be randomly disributed, I'm sure over time they would be distributed evenly enough to be statistically inconsequential, especially for the highest contributors. > > Bob. Aye, but you can simply hit refresh to have a tedious task replaced with an easier one, so the nice random distribution is destroyed by the evil nature of man :) Human nature being what it is, I think using a leader board to motivate will have the side effect of making easy tasks more desirable than difficult tasks. Probably not a big deal considering the project, but that was why I thought giving more credit for doing more difficult tasks might be a good idea. From alsplace at pobox.com Wed Aug 5 10:44:26 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 09:44:26 -0500 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: References: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <0F2761D0-C9F6-4E77-B22A-014CDFE88D37@pobox.com> I just heard from Nancy Myers (of CoCoPro Dave and Nancy) and she was trying to track down something she had published in Rainbow around 1990. I mentioned this project but didn't know the details. Can someone help track down her article? From briang0671 at sbcglobal.net Wed Aug 5 13:43:31 2009 From: briang0671 at sbcglobal.net (Brian Goers) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:43:31 -0500 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <0F2761D0-C9F6-4E77-B22A-014CDFE88D37@pobox.com> References: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <0F2761D0-C9F6-4E77-B22A-014CDFE88D37@pobox.com> Message-ID: <4A79C4C3.9010504@sbcglobal.net> Allen Huffman wrote: > I just heard from Nancy Myers (of CoCoPro Dave and Nancy) and she was > trying to track down something she had published in Rainbow around 1990. > I mentioned this project but didn't know the details. Can someone help > track down her article? > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > What is the name of the article or can you describe what we are looking for? -- Brian Goers Glenside Computer Club Vice President of Special Events From alsplace at pobox.com Wed Aug 5 14:03:02 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 13:03:02 -0500 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <4A79C4C3.9010504@sbcglobal.net> References: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <0F2761D0-C9F6-4E77-B22A-014CDFE88D37@pobox.com> <4A79C4C3.9010504@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <390528A2-63F2-451A-BC9D-AB408F657335@pobox.com> It's a poem she submitted - not sure. Sent from my iPhone 3GS Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/allenhuffman Stalk me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/allenhuffman http://twitter.com/atthefaire - AtTheFaire.com http://twitter.com/disneyfanscom - DisneyFans.com http://twitter.com/dmrenfaire - Des Moines Ren Faire http://twitter.com/festint - Iowa/Nebraska Ren/Pirate Fests On Aug 5, 2009, at 12:43 PM, Brian Goers wrote: > Allen Huffman wrote: >> I just heard from Nancy Myers (of CoCoPro Dave and Nancy) and she was >> trying to track down something she had published in Rainbow around >> 1990. >> I mentioned this project but didn't know the details. Can someone >> help >> track down her article? >> >> -- >> Coco mailing list >> Coco at maltedmedia.com >> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco >> > What is the name of the article or can you describe what we are > looking for? > > -- > Brian Goers > Glenside Computer Club > Vice President of Special Events > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From wschaub at steubentech.com Wed Aug 5 14:16:49 2009 From: wschaub at steubentech.com (William Schaub) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:16:49 -0400 Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> References: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> Message-ID: <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> Ries, Rich (NY80) wrote: > "RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The Shack" > as well as re-building corporate culture. ... Tandy is gone and so is > Radio Shack in a few days." > > Odd thoughts: > (1) There is a book out called "The Shack." Wonder if the lawyers are > starting to drool... > (2) Tandy lost me when (a) they went to PC-clones and (b) they stopped > carrying the electronic components they used to. Sure the components > were over-priced, but if you really REALLY needed a part for a project, > you could usually get it. > > Item #2 is the one that did it for me. I swear they just want to make themselves irrelevant and go out of business. They certainly removed every reason they really had to exist and set them apart from other retail stores. I really want to see the old Radio Shack return or at least a chain a lot like what RS used to be. Actually I think a return of 8 bit microcomputers (or any small easily understood and programmable machine at the hardware level) would be great as a way to bring up a new generation of software developers. I know I wouldn't be where I am today without being exposed to the coco at home and apple II and c64 machines (and of course early pcs and macs) at school. There really is no substitute today for the simple home computers of the 80s where you could read the manual and get started right away learning how computers work and learning programming. but not only that but learning that the computer really is just a simple machine that executes instructions given to it and not some horribly complex magic box that nobody knows about. I'm not seriously suggesting people use such systems for normal computing, just that they should be used for early introduction to computers so that people have a hands on practical introduction to computers and software on a simple easily understood system. so they can learn the basic overall concepts that they can apply to larger more modern systems. From pfitchjr at bellsouth.net Wed Aug 5 18:10:19 2009 From: pfitchjr at bellsouth.net (Paul Fitch) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 18:10:19 -0400 Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> References: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> Message-ID: <54445EC8F7F94CA4A3ACB385377A1617@Dell3Gig> I agree with the spirit of what you said, but not the text. You don't need an 8-bit machine when you have an emulator. You could basically have any machine you wanted. I suspect todays high-end PCs are probably capable of emulating the early CRAYS. So you want you kids to learn about computing, fire up VCC or Mess or Mocha. We might as well make these uSoft machines do something usefull for once. > -----Original Message----- > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com > [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of William Schaub > Sent: Wednesday, August 05, 2009 2:17 PM > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Subject: Re: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding > > Ries, Rich (NY80) wrote: > > "RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as > "The Shack" > > as well as re-building corporate culture. ... Tandy is gone > and so is > > Radio Shack in a few days." > > > > Odd thoughts: > > (1) There is a book out called "The Shack." Wonder if the > lawyers are > > starting to drool... > > (2) Tandy lost me when (a) they went to PC-clones and (b) > they stopped > > carrying the electronic components they used to. Sure the > components > > were over-priced, but if you really REALLY needed a part for a > > project, you could usually get it. > > > > > Item #2 is the one that did it for me. I swear they just want > to make themselves irrelevant and go out of business. > They certainly removed every reason they really had to exist > and set them apart from other retail stores. > > I really want to see the old Radio Shack return or at least a > chain a lot like what RS used to be. > > Actually I think a return of 8 bit microcomputers (or any > small easily understood and programmable machine at the > hardware level) would be great as a way to bring up a new > generation of software developers. I know I wouldn't be where > I am today without being exposed to the coco at home and > apple II and c64 machines (and of course early pcs and macs) > at school. > > There really is no substitute today for the simple home > computers of the 80s where you could read the manual and get > started right away learning how computers work and learning > programming. but not only that but learning that the computer > really is just a simple machine that executes instructions > given to it and not some horribly complex magic box that > nobody knows about. I'm not seriously suggesting people use > such systems for normal computing, just that they should be > used for early introduction to computers so that people have > a hands on practical introduction to computers and software > on a simple easily understood system. so they can learn the > basic overall concepts that they can apply to larger more > modern systems. > > > > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From hyperfrog at gmail.com Wed Aug 5 18:33:17 2009 From: hyperfrog at gmail.com (Christian Lesage) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:33:17 -0400 Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> References: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> Message-ID: <4A7A08AD.3000408@gmail.com> William Schaub wrote: > Actually I think a return of 8 bit microcomputers (or any small easily > understood and programmable machine at the hardware level) would be > great as a way to bring up a new generation of software developers. I > know I wouldn't be where I am today without being exposed to the coco > at home and apple II and c64 machines (and of course early pcs and > macs) at school. Let's face it: We, old lads (35+), love those 8-bit clunkers for they remind us our childhood, our first computing experiences, or both. This is why I collect 8-bit computers, and I suspect that in 25 years from now, 35+ people will collect PSP, Game Boy Advance, and iPhone devices for the same reasons. If you were to sell late seventies/early eighties type of computers (e.g. 1-MHz, 8-bit CPU w/ 64KB RAM) nowadays, I predict that 95% of your clientele would be old nostalgic chaps like us. I also predict you wouldn't sell millions of them... We are strange birds, aren't we? Christian From robert.gault at worldnet.att.net Wed Aug 5 18:47:44 2009 From: robert.gault at worldnet.att.net (Robert Gault) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:47:44 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <0F2761D0-C9F6-4E77-B22A-014CDFE88D37@pobox.com> References: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <0F2761D0-C9F6-4E77-B22A-014CDFE88D37@pobox.com> Message-ID: <4A7A0C10.9090604@worldnet.att.net> Allen Huffman wrote: > I just heard from Nancy Myers (of CoCoPro Dave and Nancy) and she was > trying to track down something she had published in Rainbow around 1990. > I mentioned this project but didn't know the details. Can someone help > track down her article? > "Computer Widow's Tale: STUFF" by Nancy Meyers, The Rainbow, August, 1990, p92. I don't think the project has reached this issue yet. From alsplace at pobox.com Wed Aug 5 18:50:32 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 17:50:32 -0500 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <4A79C4C3.9010504@sbcglobal.net> References: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <0F2761D0-C9F6-4E77-B22A-014CDFE88D37@pobox.com> <4A79C4C3.9010504@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <501DA72A-765B-4DCD-83D2-6B4BEC7C33D0@pobox.com> Brian -- does this help? "A computer widow's tale" The poem itself is "Stuff". and "I think it was the issue that has a shell and a teal cover. Maybe August or Sept. '90." -- Allen -- Over 125,000 digital pics from Disney, Theme Parks, and Ren Fests! Visit http://www.AtTheFaire.com or http://www.DisneyFans.com http://facebook.com/allenhuffman - http://twitter.com/allenhuffman http://twitter.com/disneyfanscom - http://twitter.com/atthefaire 2010: 30th Anniversary - Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo) - http://www.coco30.com From alsplace at pobox.com Wed Aug 5 18:51:10 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 17:51:10 -0500 Subject: [Coco] Rainbow Digitization: Competition? In-Reply-To: <4A7A0C10.9090604@worldnet.att.net> References: <1j3xp60.1epfn8e90f0xkM%tlindner@macmess.org> <749809.55912.qm@web81503.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <0F2761D0-C9F6-4E77-B22A-014CDFE88D37@pobox.com> <4A7A0C10.9090604@worldnet.att.net> Message-ID: <67DFA628-367A-4E24-9DAA-E1F7F88CED35@pobox.com> Wow, I sent my previous message out too soon -- way to go, Robert!!! > "Computer Widow's Tale: STUFF" by Nancy Meyers, The Rainbow, August, > 1990, p92. -- Over 125,000 digital pics from Disney, Theme Parks, and Ren Fests! Visit http://www.AtTheFaire.com or http://www.DisneyFans.com http://facebook.com/allenhuffman - http://twitter.com/allenhuffman http://twitter.com/disneyfanscom - http://twitter.com/atthefaire 2010: 30th Anniversary - Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer (CoCo) - http://www.coco30.com From wrcousert at yahoo.com Wed Aug 5 19:58:38 2009 From: wrcousert at yahoo.com (Bill Cousert) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 16:58:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: <4A7A08AD.3000408@gmail.com> References: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> <4A7A08AD.3000408@gmail.com> Message-ID: <758239.64808.qm@web38401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I think someone like Radio Shack could do it and make some money. Remember those video games a few years ago that were shaped like joysticks? They were complete Atari 2600 VCS systems complete with a rather large library of games. I think they sold for about $25. Why not do the same for the Color Computer? It could be a small cube, perhaps three or four inches wide with a USB port for a keyboard and SVGA or HDMI out. It could use standard flash memory sticks instead of floppy drives Now here's how you could make it a little interesting. Include a CD or DVD with a software development kit and have a contest. Top prize maybe $100,000. Encourage todays youth to push the Color Computer to its limits. ________________________________ From: Christian Lesage To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Sent: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 3:33:17 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding If you were to sell late seventies/early eighties type of computers (e.g. 1-MHz, 8-bit CPU w/ 64KB RAM) nowadays, I predict that 95% of your clientele would be old nostalgic chaps like us. I also predict you wouldn't sell millions of them... We are strange birds, aren't we? Christian -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From alsplace at pobox.com Wed Aug 5 20:01:39 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 19:01:39 -0500 Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: <758239.64808.qm@web38401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> <4A7A08AD.3000408@gmail.com> <758239.64808.qm@web38401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Aug 5, 2009, at 6:58 PM, Bill Cousert wrote: > Remember those video games a few years ago that were shaped like > joysticks? They were complete Atari 2600 VCS systems complete with a > rather large library of games. I think they sold for about $25. They couldn't keep the Atari Flashback 2 in stock when it first came out -- I looked all over town trying to find one. (Mmmm, COMBAT on an HDTV...) Some of those handhelds are Nintendo 8-bit machines, and I have also seen a Sega Genesis as well as a Commodore 64. (The original Atari Flashback unit was an NES, with the games just ported.) So, Radio Shack could have, if nothing else, brought out a PC TRS-80 Model I/III or CoCo emulator. The 25th anniversary of the Model I passed with only a press release, if I recall. -- A From badfrog at gmail.com Wed Aug 5 20:08:23 2009 From: badfrog at gmail.com (Sean) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 19:08:23 -0500 Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: References: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> <4A7A08AD.3000408@gmail.com> <758239.64808.qm@web38401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <9efa17da0908051708n3d6be6e3ub3fc99514f8c3214@mail.gmail.com> You can actually hack those Flashback 2 systems and put a 2600 cartridge port on it. All the pins were included on the circuit boards. Not 100% of games are supported, but fairly close. http://www.atarimuseum.com/fb2hacks/page1.htm On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 7:01 PM, Allen Huffman wrote: > On Aug 5, 2009, at 6:58 PM, Bill Cousert wrote: >> >> Remember those video games a few years ago that were shaped like >> joysticks? They were complete Atari 2600 VCS systems complete with a rather >> large library of games. I think they sold for about $25. > > They couldn't keep the Atari Flashback 2 in stock when it first came out -- > I looked all over town trying to find one. ?(Mmmm, COMBAT on an HDTV...) > > Some of those handhelds are Nintendo 8-bit machines, and I have also seen a > Sega Genesis as well as a Commodore 64. (The original Atari Flashback unit > was an NES, with the games just ported.) > > So, Radio Shack could have, if nothing else, brought out a PC TRS-80 Model > I/III or CoCo emulator. The 25th anniversary of the Model I passed with only > a press release, if I recall. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?-- A > > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > From hyperfrog at gmail.com Wed Aug 5 20:09:58 2009 From: hyperfrog at gmail.com (Christian Lesage) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:09:58 -0400 Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: <758239.64808.qm@web38401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> <4A7A08AD.3000408@gmail.com> <758239.64808.qm@web38401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A7A1F56.3010605@gmail.com> Bill Cousert wrote: > I think someone like Radio Shack could do it and make some money. > > Remember those video games a few years ago that were shaped like joysticks? They were complete Atari 2600 VCS systems complete with a rather large library of games. I think they sold for about $25. > > Why not do the same for the Color Computer? Because the CoCo was not such a great gaming platform when compared to the Commodore 64, and it never enjoyed a popularity comparable to that of the Commodore 64 or the Atari 2600! From wrcousert at yahoo.com Wed Aug 5 20:46:03 2009 From: wrcousert at yahoo.com (Bill Cousert) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 17:46:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding In-Reply-To: <9efa17da0908051708n3d6be6e3ub3fc99514f8c3214@mail.gmail.com> References: <5AE7680A1972BC48AF472EE23543615F03818442@DE08EV808.global.ds.honeywell.com> <4A79CC91.10904@steubentech.com> <4A7A08AD.3000408@gmail.com> <758239.64808.qm@web38401.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <9efa17da0908051708n3d6be6e3ub3fc99514f8c3214@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <359415.95107.qm@web38406.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Apple didn't do anything for the 30th anniversary of the Apple II (2007) or the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh back in January. No mention whatsoever on their web. Oh well. The 50th anniversary of both the TRS-80 and the Apple II is just around the corner... On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 7:01 PM, Allen Huffman wrote: > > So, Radio Shack could have, if nothing else, brought out a PC TRS-80 Model > I/III or CoCo emulator. The 25th anniversary of the Model I passed with only > a press release, if I recall. > > -- A > > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From operator at coco3.com Wed Aug 5 21:20:44 2009 From: operator at coco3.com (Roger Taylor) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:20:44 -0500 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> References: <5d802cd0908040853tf5bb02araf872a639af79cd5@mail.gmail.com> <5d802cd0908040934g6fc63e5axbeaf76f9740468f4@mail.gmail.com> <4A786DBA.7040208@aurigae.demon.co.uk> <5d802cd0908041053l77c7e43ayda9892b9e49beb99@mail.gmail.com> <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.1.20090805194829.0517d030@coco3.com> At 06:47 PM 8/4/2009, you wrote: >"The Shack" re-branding > >RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The >Shack" as well as re-building corporate culture. This will be kicked >off by a launch celebration in both San Francisco and New York >featuring "14 foot tall laptops" streaming the images from their >webcams from one city to the other, live music in both locations, as >well as television coverage of the event.[14] The event will take >place in Times Square and Justin Herman Plaza on August 6-8, 2009, >starting each morning at 6AM Eastern and lasting until Midnight. To >help promote the rebranding internally, employees were given >T-shirts, travel mugs, and EGrips, all branded with the new "The >Shack" logo. These internal promotional items were bundled with a 5 >minute long, highly stylized and edited video with an introduction >from the CEO explaining what "The Shack" is. > >Tandy is gone and so is Radio Shack in a few days. > >Yes, some of called the stores "the shack" in the past, but the >press and public will new start calling them "The Shaft" for how you >feel when you walk out of their stores. The rebranding is nothing but a last gasp from a failed business model that has persisted while other businesses change with U.S. culture. The shack has stuck with what used to work for them and it took them WAY too long to figure out "it ain't really working". When they ditch the electronic hobbyist items, it'll be a sad day, but then that's life. Also, this is the most intimidating store I've had to shop in. Even Wal-Marts faulty security poles we have to deal with today doesn't compare to the experience I feel when I walk into a shack just trying to round up a few electronic components. There's no peaceful shopping in a shack. So I try my best to not go anymore. >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Roger Taylor http://www.wordofthedayonline.com From operator at coco3.com Wed Aug 5 21:26:30 2009 From: operator at coco3.com (Roger Taylor) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:26:30 -0500 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <397708.12630.qm@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> <397708.12630.qm@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.1.20090805202230.0517da70@coco3.com> At 10:28 PM 8/4/2009, you wrote: >Nothing like taking 80 years of brand name build up and flushing it >down the toilet. This ranks as one of the worst corporate decisions ever... Correct me if I'm wrong, but Coca-Cola and UPS both made changes right before their 100th anniversary? This works for huge companies, but you're probably right that it doesn't seem smart for RS who's already changed their logo recently, unless I'm getting old and it just seems like it was a few years ago. -- Roger Taylor http://www.wordofthedayonline.com From gene.heskett at verizon.net Wed Aug 5 23:02:10 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:02:10 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.1.20090805194829.0517d030@coco3.com> References: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> <6.2.5.6.1.20090805194829.0517d030@coco3.com> Message-ID: <200908052302.10343.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Wednesday 05 August 2009, Roger Taylor wrote: >At 06:47 PM 8/4/2009, you wrote: >>"The Shack" re-branding >> >>RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The >>Shack" as well as re-building corporate culture. This will be kicked >>off by a launch celebration in both San Francisco and New York >>featuring "14 foot tall laptops" streaming the images from their >>webcams from one city to the other, live music in both locations, as >>well as television coverage of the event.[14] The event will take >>place in Times Square and Justin Herman Plaza on August 6-8, 2009, >>starting each morning at 6AM Eastern and lasting until Midnight. To >>help promote the rebranding internally, employees were given >>T-shirts, travel mugs, and EGrips, all branded with the new "The >>Shack" logo. These internal promotional items were bundled with a 5 >>minute long, highly stylized and edited video with an introduction >>from the CEO explaining what "The Shack" is. >> >>Tandy is gone and so is Radio Shack in a few days. >> >>Yes, some of called the stores "the shack" in the past, but the >>press and public will new start calling them "The Shaft" for how you >>feel when you walk out of their stores. > >The rebranding is nothing but a last gasp from a failed business >model that has persisted while other businesses change with U.S. >culture. The shack has stuck with what used to work for them and it >took them WAY too long to figure out "it ain't really working". When >they ditch the electronic hobbyist items, it'll be a sad day, but >then that's life. > >Also, this is the most intimidating store I've had to shop in. Even >Wal-Marts faulty security poles we have to deal with today doesn't >compare to the experience I feel when I walk into a shack just trying >to round up a few electronic components. There's no peaceful >shopping in a shack. So I try my best to not go anymore. I would hope that the person claiming to be a shack shill, is faithfully reading this, and will take some of our opinions back to someplace it might have an effect. Besides the other squawks in this thread, and the fact that I'm an opinionated old fart AND a broadcast engineer, not to mention a C.E.T., rant mode is ON: Hear me, Mr. Shack shill, closely: The old radio shack that had a good hobbiest selection of electronic parts was usually our first line of defense for keeping small town America radio and yes, tv stations too, on the air, cuz we could, if we were smart enough, generally cobble something together to replace our broken whatsis and whichamigidguits. Slowly that has gone away over the last 15 years, largely because you, Radio Shack, has lost sight of the original mission, which we think was intended to intro the people who were curious enough to want to learn, something about how electronics thingies worked, and make some money doing it. You had the parts we needed to not only experiment and learn, but to fix that which broke. That was 25 years ago. Then you thought you make some money with this newfangled thing called a computer, so at the beginning you didn't want to risk much, so you gave us a z80 based Model 1, which sold for $799 when it was first shipped. It sold just enough at that sky high price to show you there was a potential market, so you went looking for something a bit lower priced, and came up with the 4k color computer for a couple hundred less. As for the beloved 'coco' the rest is all old history to _this_ group. Then came a series of less than stellar stuff based on the intel cpu's, all so cheaply built they couldn't run any applications or games but yours. Now deader than a dodo of course. All along the line you treated anything electronic as something to squeeze every dollar you could out of the production costs, regardless of how badly it was crippled by so doing. CRT's in your monitors were half the number of dots per linear inch the competition was selling for 50 bucks less for instance, so using one of them was eye straining at best, and unusable much of the time. For an example, the CM8, sold for CoCo3's, only had enough resolution to be usable at a width 40 screen because text was unreadable at width 80. Why do you think that back then, phillips/maggy was selling an 8CM515 for 100 bucks more, and 4 out of 5 of them were going to Coco3 users? Then the amiga hit the tv stations, and we kept phillips/maggy in business for much of a decade, making decent rgb driveable, ntsc scan rate monitors including their 8cm135. For several years, the fancy graphics you saw on tv was all generated, sometimes in real time, by one of the better amigas. Those graphics were in large part possible because we had monitors good enough to show us the mistakes. You could have had 90% of that business if you would have used the same razor sharp crt in yours. Now your thing is cell phones and digital cameras. I wouldn't touch one of your cell phones because of the contract language, and the digital camera selection is from the decidedly low end of the line stuff. No one at the shack today has a clue as to whether or not I can plug in a usb cable, mount it as a disk drive, and copy the pix off to my computer for printing like I can right now with my aged Olympus C3020. No one manning your stores even has a clue what I'm talking about. Stock answer is that you've got this photo printer for sale, only $300 by the time I get all the supplies for it. Guess what? Its a toy! I don't do very many of that size, which I can do 4 up on a sheet, but if its worth printing, I do a full borderless 8.5x11. And I probably do them in higher color fidelity, not to mention with full 100 year archival dyes, than your gizmo, for about $2 a print including my time. On an old, 4 color, epson C82. That thing is amazing. I have sold prints of weddings, several times, and I just went as a guest. I could go on, but the examples I've mentioned are symptomatic of poor management decisions for the last 25 years. Had you jumped on the m68k bandwagon and given us another, better amiga, the world might just not be so ruled by wintel cpu's with largely broken architectures that are now demanded because of the legacy software out there that wouldn't have a clue what to do if it suddenly didn't have to work around the broken intel design from the gitgo. Heck, I would have thought you would have learned from the z80 debacle. My mistake. There are lots of far better cpu architectures out there than intel and its clones. How about the arm cpu that can run at 200mhz using 1/4 watt of power? Or the 500 mhz version that runs on 2 watts? Both run linux natively. But because that's (wintel crap) what I can get, that's what I'm running here, an AMD quad core phenom 9550 at 2.1Ghz, burns 65 watts sleeping, and 4Gb of ram is almost enough to make it do what I want to do, which, come to think of it, is everything. Oh, and tell your money folks that when I have $20K in the bank (which I generally do in my checking account, I've written checks for the last 3 vehicles I've purchased), and I've been a presence in your stores as a customer for 20 years in the same 2 stores, I am not about to go home and get a birth certificate so I have 2 bits of identity on me when I want to buy $50 worth of stuff and pay by check. You just pi$$ed in my cherrios with that bit of nonsense. /rant. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. The doctrine of human equality reposes on this: that there is no man really clever who has not found that he is stupid. -- Gilbert K. Chesterson From hyperfrog at gmail.com Wed Aug 5 23:54:49 2009 From: hyperfrog at gmail.com (Christian Lesage) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:54:49 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <200908052302.10343.gene.heskett@verizon.net> References: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> <6.2.5.6.1.20090805194829.0517d030@coco3.com> <200908052302.10343.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4A7A5409.2060005@gmail.com> The world changes, and so does the "Shack". I don't know many people who will even try to repair their cellular phone when it's broken. It's just too small, too integrated to be practical. Replacing a burnt transistor in a 1975 hi-fi amplifier is one thing. Troubleshooting a defective iPhone, PSP, MP3/4 player, or cellular phone is another... Of course, you can identify some obvious problems like a broken audio jack or power connector, but what do you do when a BGA chip is fried? In the unlikely event that you succeed in pinpointing the exact problem, most often, you will have to replace the whole PCB anyway... but you will end up replacing the damn device, because they no longer make new PCBs, or they're just too expensive compared to the price of newer and better devices. So my point is: The electronic parts market has shrunk, and it's just not profitable enough for a nation-wide chain of stores to carry a wide range of parts like they used to in the 70s and the 80s, unless they focus on this particular market (which means they stop selling computers, TVs, DVD players, radios, phones, toys, etc. -- which is I guess is a lot more profitable), and close all of their stores but those located in 300k+ cities. By the way, the TRS-80 Model I sold for $599 (4K Level I) in the USA, and I don't think it was a "sky high price". Well, of course, it was a lot of money back in 1979, but it was also very cheap for a personal computer -- an Apple II w/ 4K sold for $1300 in 1977. Christian From alsplace at pobox.com Thu Aug 6 01:05:30 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 00:05:30 -0500 Subject: [Coco] Nancy Myers poem found Message-ID: <89D3F384-4270-4C33-83AE-8DDF077B6B8F@pobox.com> And she writes: "I got it, I got it...OMG, I can't believe I'd ever see it again. Thank you Robert, Tom and you Allen. " Not sure what she's doing but she will send us a link when it's posted... Sent from my iPhone 3GS Follow me on Twitter - http://twitter.com/allenhuffman Stalk me on Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/allenhuffman http://twitter.com/atthefaire - AtTheFaire.com http://twitter.com/disneyfanscom - DisneyFans.com http://twitter.com/dmrenfaire - Des Moines Ren Faire http://twitter.com/festint - Iowa/Nebraska Ren/Pirate Fests From lamune at doki-doki.net Thu Aug 6 02:37:12 2009 From: lamune at doki-doki.net (Mike Pepe) Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2009 23:37:12 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <397708.12630.qm@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4A78C875.2000009@bjork-huffman.net> <397708.12630.qm@web30208.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I think it's just a scam to sink the stock price, snap it up for a fraction of the cost, and then revert to the old brand and make a ton of money. See "New Coke" -Mike > -----Original Message----- > From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco- > bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Derek > Sent: Tuesday, August 04, 2009 8:29 PM > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > > Nothing like taking 80 years of brand name build up and flushing it > down the toilet. This ranks as one of the worst corporate decisions > ever... > > > > ** Mistrust Authority. Promote Decentralization ** > > > > > --- On Tue, 8/4/09, Steve Bjork <6809er at bjork-huffman.net> wrote: > > From: Steve Bjork <6809er at bjork-huffman.net> > Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" > Date: Tuesday, August 4, 2009, 4:47 PM > > "The Shack" re-branding > > RadioShack is in the process of re-branding the company as "The Shack" > as well as re-building corporate culture. This will be kicked off by a > launch celebration in both San Francisco and New York featuring "14 > foot tall laptops" streaming the images from their webcams from one > city to the other, live music in both locations, as well as television > coverage of the event.[14] The event will take place in Times Square > and Justin Herman Plaza on August 6-8, 2009, starting each morning at > 6AM Eastern and lasting until Midnight. To help promote the rebranding > internally, employees were given T-shirts, travel mugs, and EGrips, all > branded with the new "The Shack" logo. These internal promotional items > were bundled with a 5 minute long, highly stylized and edited video > with an introduction from the CEO explaining what "The Shack" is. > > Tandy is gone and so is Radio Shack in a few days. > > Yes, some of called the stores "the shack" in the past, but the press > and public will new start calling them "The Shaft" for how you feel > when you walk out of their stores. > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > > > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > > No virus found in this incoming message. > Checked by AVG - www.avg.com > Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.35/2270 - Release Date: > 07/29/09 06:12:00 From farna at att.net Thu Aug 6 07:31:37 2009 From: farna at att.net (Frank Swygert) Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 07:31:37 -0400 Subject: [Coco] "The Shack" re-branding Message-ID: <4A7ABF19.2050806@att.net> I agree in principal, but there actually IS a decent substitute -- the BASIC Stamp and similar micro controllers. Projects using them do exactly what you describe. They are a little more difficult to work with though, and require a larger computer to program. Something simple like the CoCo with a more accessible I/O buss (no plug in cards -- or a card with wire-wrap, spring clip, or screw terminals that has a physical connection to the board such as anchor screws near the connector) with it's own simple video (composite would do, but basic VGA would be better) and keyboard would be easier to use. That or maybe just a USB connection and a program that would allow accessing the board with a special terminal program/emulator (monitor program). I think some of them work like that now. Plugging into another computer does take some of the "charm" away, but also makes it cheap. Then the whole machine could be programmed and set up to do some robotic task. Face it, PCs are ubiquitous and older ones are cheap to free. As long as the monitor program would run okay on a P4 that should be fine. Make the monitor in Windows and Linux versions, or just a Linux live CD to make things simpler. Emulators don't have the charm of the CoCo, but functionally can be the same. It's the hardware portion, using it as a controller for some project, that can't really be emulated. Working on the emulator then downloading to a dumb box with just a USB port and the I/O connections would be fine -- as long as no display was needed. Limitations again.... ----------- Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 14:16:49 -0400 From: William Schaub Actually I think a return of 8 bit microcomputers (or any small easily understood and programmable machine at the hardware level) would be great as a way to bring up a new generation of software developers. I know I wouldn't be where I am today without being exposed to the coco at home and apple II and c64 machines (and of course early pcs and macs) at school. There really is no substitute today for the simple home computers of the 80s where you could read the manual and get started right away learning how computers work and learning programming. but not only that but learning that the computer really is just a simple machine that executes instructions given to it and not some horribly complex magic box that nobody knows about. I'm not seriously suggesting people use such systems for normal computing, just that they should be used for early introduction to computers so that people have a hands on practical introduction to computers and software on a simple easily understood system. so they can learn the basic overall concepts that they can apply to larger more modern systems. -- Frank Swygert Publisher, "American Motors Cars" Magazine (AMC) For all AMC enthusiasts http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html (free download available!) From farna at att.net Thu Aug 6 08:08:40 2009 From: farna at att.net (Frank Swygert) Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:08:40 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... Message-ID: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> I don't know about UPS, but obviously you're not referring to the "New Coke" fiasco back in the 80s! You can change the look of the bottle, but don't mess with the contents! RS can be TS, just keep the small pieces and parts you can't get anywhere else in most towns. A few have specialty radio/electronic parts stores, but they can be hard to find. Mail order takes a while! I used a generic 12 port molex connector when I wired my car stereo years ago so I wouldn't have any trouble changing it out. Not cut and spliced wires (car is a customized 63 Rambler, so no factory connector), just get a male molex connector and put it in the factory stereo harness. So if I do that again (just got the last one from the local RS) I'll have to mail order a connector from somewhere. Maybe RS will keep the "file drawer" parts they stock now. Not many, but better than nothing. Too bad they don't realize they don't sell many of those parts anymore because they don't keep stock up, or stock enough! Just the most popular ones won't do, you need all the parts for a project, not everything but one or two parts! They decided to focus on retail sales and keep a few parts as a side-line. Not too bad, but there were already lots of retail places -- Circuit City (worked for them!), Best Buy, etc. Why get in competition with them? Oh well, someone else's decision. --------- Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 20:26:30 -0500 From: Roger Taylor > >Nothing like taking 80 years of brand name build up and flushing it > >down the toilet. This ranks as one of the worst corporate decisions ever... > Correct me if I'm wrong, but Coca-Cola and UPS both made changes right before their 100th anniversary? This works for huge companies, but you're probably right that it doesn't seem smart for RS who's already changed their logo recently, unless I'm getting old and it just seems like it was a few years ago. -- Frank Swygert Publisher, "American Motors Cars" Magazine (AMC) For all AMC enthusiasts http://farna.home.att.net/AMC.html (free download available!) From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Thu Aug 6 14:18:58 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 11:18:58 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> Message-ID: Hi, Here in Silicon Valley, it is no better. >From a high of over two dozen electronic surplus stores, the number has shrunk to three and I expect the number to go to zero soon. Five years ago I made one of my last trips to the surplus store that was perhaps the first one here, and has moved five times. There was a sign outside I read from the expressway that another move was going to happen about a year ago. It did not move. I noted that all of the IC boxes were upside down indicating no stock. I have in my electronics room more parts that can be used by experimenters than I saw in the store perhaps. Some continue online, Jameco has become the number one place to get parts like I could get by walking into just about any one of the two dozen years ago. Web orders only now, but I am able to drive toward San Francisco to pick up the order. The last time I paid more for the shipping than the part ordered. ---------------------------- Why did the parts disappear? Simple, the companies that were selling the excess parts to the surplus stores are no longer using them. And the companies that bought them no longer have any need to buy them. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Swygert" To: Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 5:08 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > just keep the small pieces and parts you can't get anywhere else in most > towns. > -- > Frank Swygert From wrcousert at yahoo.com Thu Aug 6 14:36:41 2009 From: wrcousert at yahoo.com (Bill Cousert) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 11:36:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> Message-ID: <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Just about all electronics these days are disposable. It's cheaper to buy a new one than fix the old. I bought a Vivitar digital camera a few years ago for $100. I cracked the LCD display and called to see how much it cost to fix. They said $150 plus labor. I tossed it in the trash. But I don't think the situation is as bad as it looks. 30 years ago, a TRS-80 model I with dual drives, expansion interface and 48k RAM cost nearly $5,000 (probably more than $10,000 in 2009 dollars). Today I can get a really nice notebook computer for less than $400. I think the savings more than make up for it. ________________________________ From: Stephen H. Fischer To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2009 11:18:58 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... Hi, Here in Silicon Valley, it is no better. > From a high of over two dozen electronic surplus stores, the number has shrunk to three and I expect the number to go to zero soon. Five years ago I made one of my last trips to the surplus store that was perhaps the first one here, and has moved five times. There was a sign outside I read from the expressway that another move was going to happen about a year ago. It did not move. I noted that all of the IC boxes were upside down indicating no stock. I have in my electronics room more parts that can be used by experimenters than I saw in the store perhaps. Some continue online, Jameco has become the number one place to get parts like I could get by walking into just about any one of the two dozen years ago. Web orders only now, but I am able to drive toward San Francisco to pick up the order. The last time I paid more for the shipping than the part ordered. ---------------------------- Why did the parts disappear? Simple, the companies that were selling the excess parts to the surplus stores are no longer using them. And the companies that bought them no longer have any need to buy them. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Frank Swygert" To: Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 5:08 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > just keep the small pieces and parts you can't get anywhere else in most towns. > -- Frank Swygert -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From hyperfrog at gmail.com Thu Aug 6 15:23:11 2009 From: hyperfrog at gmail.com (Christian Lesage) Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:23:11 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A7B2D9F.6040404@gmail.com> Bill Cousert wrote: > But I don't think the situation is as bad as it looks. 30 years ago, a TRS-80 model I with dual drives, expansion interface and 48k RAM cost nearly $5,000 (probably more than $10,000 in 2009 dollars). 5 grands? I don't think so. Here are the 1979 prices: TRS-80 Model I System w/ 16K RAM Level II....... $988 (includes monitor) Expansion Interface w/ 32K RAM............................ $697 Disk Drive #0........................................................... $499 (includes TRS-DOS) Disk Drive #1........................................................... $499 That's "only" $2,683. And in 1980, the first two item were about $100 cheaper ($849 and $597 respectively). On the other hand, I agree that some printers were quite expensive (ranging from $220 to $1600). > Today I can get a really nice notebook computer for less than $400. I think the savings more than make up for it. > Well, in terms of money, it looks like it makes sense. But the cheap prices don't make up for the huge, growing electronic waste problem that the world is facing. Moreover, we no longer can buy "Made in the USA" (or Canada, Australia, France, UK, etc.) consumer electronic devices, which means we "benefit" from some other people's cheap labor in other parts of the world... probably the same people to whom we ship some of our hazardous electronic waste. From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Thu Aug 6 15:46:20 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 12:46:20 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <873803E7A9BF438AA21BE87C7E0A4107@Shasta> Hi, You are missing my point, how is the next generation of Electrical Engineers going to get started? I got my first interest in electronics in a very small town (~700) in Wisconsin where there was a TV store and repair business I worked for a short time. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Cousert" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 11:36 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > Just about all electronics these days are disposable. It's cheaper to buy > a new one than fix the old. From gene.heskett at verizon.net Thu Aug 6 16:13:59 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:13:59 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <873803E7A9BF438AA21BE87C7E0A4107@Shasta> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <873803E7A9BF438AA21BE87C7E0A4107@Shasta> Message-ID: <200908061613.59953.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Thursday 06 August 2009, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: >Hi, > >You are missing my point, how is the next generation of Electrical Engineers >going to get started? That is the pure heart of the matter right there Stephen, at least for the sort of engineer I was/am, one who wasn't then a board swapper, but ran the problem down to the part that failed and replaced that part. I was quite adept with a scope probe by the time I celebrated my 17th birthday, and a month or so worth of 9th grade was as far as I got, I went out to fix tv's for a living. >I got my first interest in electronics in a very small town (~700) in >Wisconsin where there was a TV store and repair business I worked for a >short time. Chuckle, my town was over in Iowa, about 250 people, had a hardware store that sold the first tv ever sold there in town. As for service shop, nada, this 15 year old boy was already fixing the simpler stuff, and probably did at least 20% of the fixing that was done, the rest were usually shoved in the trunk and taken to some shop in Des Moines IA, about 50 miles or a little less. I fixed that first tv a couple of times, an RCA 630TS. [...] -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. And furthermore, my bowling average is unimpeachable!!! From alsplace at pobox.com Thu Aug 6 16:30:38 2009 From: alsplace at pobox.com (Allen Huffman) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 15:30:38 -0500 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <200908061613.59953.gene.heskett@verizon.net> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <873803E7A9BF438AA21BE87C7E0A4107@Shasta> <200908061613.59953.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: What Iowa town, Gene? From wrcousert at yahoo.com Thu Aug 6 16:35:44 2009 From: wrcousert at yahoo.com (Bill Cousert) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 13:35:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <4A7B2D9F.6040404@gmail.com> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A7B2D9F.6040404@gmail.com> Message-ID: <587425.76120.qm@web38408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> My memory is a little corrupted. I had a friend who had spent about $5k on a similar system. Maybe it was the printer that made up the difference. How will engineers get their start? I don't know. As time goes on, I'm certain we'll see this trend continue. Some people think we'll be soon using 3D printers to create our own electronics at home. When they break we'll toss them in the compost pile and print out another one. The Rep Rap (http://www.reprap.org) may be the first generation of that 3D printer. Click on the URL and watch the video if you have a few minutes. ________________________________ From: Christian Lesage To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2009 12:23:11 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... Bill Cousert wrote: > But I don't think the situation is as bad as it looks. 30 years ago, a TRS-80 model I with dual drives, expansion interface and 48k RAM cost nearly $5,000 (probably more than $10,000 in 2009 dollars). 5 grands? I don't think so. Here are the 1979 prices: TRS-80 Model I System w/ 16K RAM Level II....... $988 (includes monitor) Expansion Interface w/ 32K RAM............................ $697 Disk Drive #0........................................................... $499 (includes TRS-DOS) Disk Drive #1........................................................... $499 That's "only" $2,683. And in 1980, the first two item were about $100 cheaper ($849 and $597 respectively). On the other hand, I agree that some printers were quite expensive (ranging from $220 to $1600). > Today I can get a really nice notebook computer for less than $400. I think the savings more than make up for it. > Well, in terms of money, it looks like it makes sense. But the cheap prices don't make up for the huge, growing electronic waste problem that the world is facing. Moreover, we no longer can buy "Made in the USA" (or Canada, Australia, France, UK, etc.) consumer electronic devices, which means we "benefit" from some other people's cheap labor in other parts of the world... probably the same people to whom we ship some of our hazardous electronic waste. -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From gene.heskett at verizon.net Thu Aug 6 17:07:55 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:07:55 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <200908061613.59953.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200908061707.55843.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Thursday 06 August 2009, Allen Huffman wrote: >What Iowa town, Gene? Redfield, home of the "Redfield Reds" brickyards. 2 of them back then, no idea if there is still a brickyard there now. One of them was slowly undermining the northwest edge of town 60 years ago. -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. You should never bet against anything in science at odds of more than about 10^12 to 1. -- Ernest Rutherford From t.fadden at cox.net Thu Aug 6 17:20:32 2009 From: t.fadden at cox.net (Tim Fadden) Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:20:32 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <873803E7A9BF438AA21BE87C7E0A4107@Shasta> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <873803E7A9BF438AA21BE87C7E0A4107@Shasta> Message-ID: <4A7B4920.7080302@cox.net> Stephen H. Fischer wrote: > Hi, > > You are missing my point, how is the next generation of Electrical > Engineers going to get started? > > I got my first interest in electronics in a very small town (~700) in > Wisconsin where there was a TV store and repair business I worked for > a short time. > > SHF > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Cousert" > To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" > Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 11:36 AM > Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > > >> Just about all electronics these days are disposable. It's cheaper to >> buy a new one than fix the old. > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > Thats an easy answer! From 3rd world countries where all the electronic scrap is shipped, and put in huge dumps to be scavenged. I watched a tv show a while back showing this and of the many entrepenures that scavenge, the stuff, fix it up, and sell it. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the old electronic parts on ebay didn't get shipped back here from there! hahaha The US is going down the tubes, and is already a mere shadow of its former self. Tim Fadden From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Thu Aug 6 19:21:37 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 16:21:37 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <200908061707.55843.gene.heskett@verizon.net> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net><200908061613.59953.gene.heskett@verizon.net> <200908061707.55843.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: <4E6159474F94456B93C5D23DC2942FE7@Shasta> Hi, > undermining the northwest edge of town I can one up you on that. They want to change the course of the river in mine. WARNING "Adobe Shockwave Player" required. http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Lake_Belle_View/VRTour/belle2.html Click on the ">". Then click on "Next" Then click on "Click here for view of best buy plan 3" Just look for the Red car on the right. I could put my ice skates, cross highway 69 and skate many miles upstream. I only fell through the ice once. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Heskett" To: Cc: "Allen Huffman" Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 2:07 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > On Thursday 06 August 2009, Allen Huffman wrote: >>What Iowa town, Gene? > > Redfield, home of the "Redfield Reds" brickyards. 2 of them back then, no > idea if there is still a brickyard there now. One of them was slowly > undermining the northwest edge of town 60 years ago. > > -- > Cheers, Gene From gene.heskett at verizon.net Thu Aug 6 21:57:28 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:57:28 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <4E6159474F94456B93C5D23DC2942FE7@Shasta> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <200908061707.55843.gene.heskett@verizon.net> <4E6159474F94456B93C5D23DC2942FE7@Shasta> Message-ID: <200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Thursday 06 August 2009, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: >Hi, > >> undermining the northwest edge of town > >I can one up you on that. > >They want to change the course of the river in mine. > >WARNING "Adobe Shockwave Player" required. > >http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Lake_Belle_View/VRTour/belle2.html > Sorry, that must be a winderz only file format, firefox wants to download an x-director application of some sort in order to play it. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but at the moment I'm running on an older BEFSR41 router, and I don't trust anything generated by windows. >Click on the ">". > >Then click on "Next" > >Then click on "Click here for view of best buy plan 3" > >Just look for the Red car on the right. > >I could put my ice skates, cross highway 69 and skate many miles upstream. I >only fell through the ice once. > >SHF > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Gene Heskett" >To: >Cc: "Allen Huffman" >Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 2:07 PM >Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > >> On Thursday 06 August 2009, Allen Huffman wrote: >>>What Iowa town, Gene? >> >> Redfield, home of the "Redfield Reds" brickyards. 2 of them back then, no >> idea if there is still a brickyard there now. One of them was slowly >> undermining the northwest edge of town 60 years ago. >> >> -- >> Cheers, Gene > >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. Atlanta makes it against the law to tie a giraffe to a telephone pole or street lamp. From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Thu Aug 6 23:03:43 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 20:03:43 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net><200908061707.55843.gene.heskett@verizon.net><4E6159474F94456B93C5D23DC2942FE7@Shasta> <200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: <643B2C8F5FAE48428B13F09EBE5951FB@Shasta> Hi, I suspected that you might have problems. I really would like to convert Belle2 to some more reasonable format. So far, no luck. When it disappears from the web I will have no way of looking at it. As far as I can tell, the congress has stopped funding "pork" projects. Perhaps it might be converted to a "stimulus" program as it appears ready to go. Even the town has some people unhappy that they would get too little dredging for their part of the cost. When I lived there the water was ~ 3 feet deep, the U of WI study and the army planned to dredge just a small part in the middle for the fish. The depth of the "Mill Pond" might be only one foot deep now. I did ask for the original pictures which the army sent to me so I do have the current / before the project is done, pictures of my childhood home. But there are 3-4 other Shockwave pictures in the set of other locations I would like to keep. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Heskett" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 6:57 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > On Thursday 06 August 2009, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: >>Hi, >> >>> undermining the northwest edge of town >> >>I can one up you on that. >> >>They want to change the course of the river in mine. >> >>WARNING "Adobe Shockwave Player" required. >> >>http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Lake_Belle_View/VRTour/belle2.html >> > Sorry, that must be a winderz only file format, firefox wants to download > an > x-director application of some sort in order to play it. Maybe I'm being > paranoid, but at the moment I'm running on an older BEFSR41 router, and I > don't trust anything generated by windows. > >>Click on the ">". >> >>Then click on "Next" >> >>Then click on "Click here for view of best buy plan 3" >> >>Just look for the Red car on the right. >> >>I could put my ice skates, cross highway 69 and skate many miles upstream. >>I >>only fell through the ice once. >> >>SHF >> >>----- Original Message ----- >>From: "Gene Heskett" >>To: >>Cc: "Allen Huffman" >>Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 2:07 PM >>Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... >> >>> On Thursday 06 August 2009, Allen Huffman wrote: >>>>What Iowa town, Gene? >>> >>> Redfield, home of the "Redfield Reds" brickyards. 2 of them back then, >>> no >>> idea if there is still a brickyard there now. One of them was slowly >>> undermining the northwest edge of town 60 years ago. >>> >>> -- >>> Cheers, Gene From PaulH96636 at aol.com Thu Aug 6 23:42:01 2009 From: PaulH96636 at aol.com (PaulH96636 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2009 23:42:01 EDT Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... Message-ID: Very cool panoramic 360 views. -ph From gene.heskett at verizon.net Fri Aug 7 00:59:22 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 00:59:22 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <643B2C8F5FAE48428B13F09EBE5951FB@Shasta> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> <643B2C8F5FAE48428B13F09EBE5951FB@Shasta> Message-ID: <200908070059.22731.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Thursday 06 August 2009, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: >Hi, > >I suspected that you might have problems. > >I really would like to convert Belle2 to some more reasonable format. > Belle2? Never heard of such an animal. Am I living in a cave or something? >So far, no luck. When it disappears from the web I will have no way of >looking at it. > >As far as I can tell, the congress has stopped funding "pork" projects. > >Perhaps it might be converted to a "stimulus" program as it appears ready to >go. > >Even the town has some people unhappy that they would get too little >dredging for their part of the cost. > >When I lived there the water was ~ 3 feet deep, the U of WI study and the >army planned to dredge just a small part in the middle for the fish. > >The depth of the "Mill Pond" might be only one foot deep now. That will give a winter kill for sure. >I did ask for the original pictures which the army sent to me so I do have >the current / before the project is done, pictures of my childhood home. Yeah, I stopped by the house daddy built right after WW-II, and I wired when I was about 12 or 13, while on my way back from saying goodbye to my oldest daughter (cancer) back in the fall of 2007. The new owners had remodeled some, and finally got tired of crawling into the attic to replace blown fuses and swapped it out for a new 200 amp service just a year before I stopped. Someone had added a front porch on the road facing end of it in the intervening years. We had a chuckle over that as they now know who to blame for that wiring job. But it was legal at the time! The shingles were in good shape, but the ridgeline has about a 6" sag in the middle, not bad for an amateur built house that was 60 years old in 2007. Could I ever go 'home'? No, too much else has changed on that 2 or 3 acres in 60 years. All of daddies peach orchard on the north side is gone, probably from lack of care, and the strawberry patch is now a loop thru driveway. >But there are 3-4 other Shockwave pictures in the set of other locations I >would like to keep. Yeah, I know that feeling all too well. >SHF I might brave it tomorrow sometime, I found my 2nd 512 meg CF card for dd-wrt, it booted, so I wrote the sp2 image to it and that boots too. But I haven't cabled it up yet, getting late. >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Gene Heskett" >To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" >Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 6:57 PM >Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > >> On Thursday 06 August 2009, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: >>>Hi, >>> >>>> undermining the northwest edge of town >>> >>>I can one up you on that. >>> >>>They want to change the course of the river in mine. >>> >>>WARNING "Adobe Shockwave Player" required. >>> >>>http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Lake_Belle_View/VRTour/belle2.html >> >> Sorry, that must be a winderz only file format, firefox wants to download >> an >> x-director application of some sort in order to play it. Maybe I'm being >> paranoid, but at the moment I'm running on an older BEFSR41 router, and I >> don't trust anything generated by windows. >> >>>Click on the ">". >>> >>>Then click on "Next" >>> >>>Then click on "Click here for view of best buy plan 3" >>> >>>Just look for the Red car on the right. >>> >>>I could put my ice skates, cross highway 69 and skate many miles upstream. >>>I >>>only fell through the ice once. >>> >>>SHF >>> >>>----- Original Message ----- >>>From: "Gene Heskett" >>>To: >>>Cc: "Allen Huffman" >>>Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 2:07 PM >>>Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... >>> >>>> On Thursday 06 August 2009, Allen Huffman wrote: >>>>>What Iowa town, Gene? >>>> >>>> Redfield, home of the "Redfield Reds" brickyards. 2 of them back then, >>>> no >>>> idea if there is still a brickyard there now. One of them was slowly >>>> undermining the northwest edge of town 60 years ago. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Cheers, Gene > >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. "90% of everything is crap", Its called Sturgeon's law 8) One of the problems is indeed finding the good bits - Alan Cox From brucewcalkins at charter.net Fri Aug 7 05:40:50 2009 From: brucewcalkins at charter.net (Bruce W. Calkins) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 05:40:50 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net><200908061707.55843.gene.heskett@verizon.net><4E6159474F94456B93C5D23DC2942FE7@Shasta> <200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: >> WARNING "Adobe Shockwave Player" required. ============================================== > Sorry, that must be a winderz only file format, firefox wants to > download an x-director application of some sort in order to play it. =============================================== It won't run on my Windows XP 64 bit Pro machine on Firefox either. Even after I upgraded Adobe Shockwave and told NoScript that it was O.K. to run it. If it is that intrusive, It is not needed. They/he can use a more standard format. Bruce W. From johnadonaldson at sbcglobal.net Fri Aug 7 11:46:35 2009 From: johnadonaldson at sbcglobal.net (John Donaldson) Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 10:46:35 -0500 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <587425.76120.qm@web38408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A7B2D9F.6040404@gmail.com> <587425.76120.qm@web38408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A7C4C5B.8000004@sbcglobal.net> Kinda like a crude Star Trek Replicator. John Donaldson Bill Cousert wrote: > My memory is a little corrupted. I had a friend who had spent about $5k on a similar system. Maybe it was the printer that made up the difference. > > How will engineers get their start? I don't know. As time goes on, I'm certain we'll see this trend continue. Some people think we'll be soon using 3D printers to create our own electronics at home. When they break we'll toss them in the compost pile and print out another one. The Rep Rap (http://www.reprap.org) may be the first generation of that 3D printer. Click on the URL and watch the video if you have a few minutes. > > > > > > > ________________________________ > From: Christian Lesage > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2009 12:23:11 PM > Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > > Bill Cousert wrote: > >> But I don't think the situation is as bad as it looks. 30 years ago, a TRS-80 model I with dual drives, expansion interface and 48k RAM cost nearly $5,000 (probably more than $10,000 in 2009 dollars). >> > > 5 grands? I don't think so. Here are the 1979 prices: > > TRS-80 Model I System w/ 16K RAM Level II....... $988 (includes monitor) > Expansion Interface w/ 32K RAM............................ $697 > Disk Drive #0........................................................... $499 (includes TRS-DOS) > Disk Drive #1........................................................... $499 > > That's "only" $2,683. And in 1980, the first two item were about $100 cheaper ($849 and $597 respectively). On the other hand, I agree that some printers were quite expensive (ranging from $220 to $1600). > > >> Today I can get a really nice notebook computer for less than $400. I think the savings more than make up for it. >> >> > > Well, in terms of money, it looks like it makes sense. But the cheap prices don't make up for the huge, growing electronic waste problem that the world is facing. Moreover, we no longer can buy "Made in the USA" (or Canada, Australia, France, UK, etc.) consumer electronic devices, which means we "benefit" from some other people's cheap labor in other parts of the world... probably the same people to whom we ship some of our hazardous electronic waste. > > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > -- From gene.heskett at verizon.net Fri Aug 7 12:10:06 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:10:06 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200908071210.06624.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Friday 07 August 2009, Bruce W. Calkins wrote: >>> WARNING "Adobe Shockwave Player" required. > >============================================== > >> Sorry, that must be a winderz only file format, firefox wants to >> download an x-director application of some sort in order to play it. > >=============================================== >It won't run on my Windows XP 64 bit Pro machine on Firefox either. Even >after I upgraded Adobe Shockwave and told NoScript that it was O.K. to run >it. > >If it is that intrusive, It is not needed. They/he can use a more standard >format. > >Bruce W. > Not to denegrate what Stephen was trying to do in our discussion, but this is typical of a government operation, particularly when they are told to make the data available to the public. They will carefully research what is available, and purposely choose a method, that while publicly available, is so obscure that no one has the secret decoder ring. And of course we didn't get the memo either. :( > >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. Portable, adj.: Survives system reboot. From adit at nationsdial.com Fri Aug 7 15:56:42 2009 From: adit at nationsdial.com (Dean Leiber) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 12:56:42 -0700 Subject: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes In-Reply-To: <9F59442A18CE4271A0C4EF50944AD79E@Dell3Gig> References: <266BB460-4EA1-42DE-98E7-FB606281A34D@verizon.net> <016EA52641A04E4FBD9F4915FAE5877C@Dell3Gig> <4A364493.5090107@mindspring.com> <000901c9edbc$bc3f7640$34be62c0$@rr.com> <4A366833.4060100@mindspring.com><000001c9eddb$1c9afd70$55d0f850$@rr.com><4A369495.7040601@mindspring.com><12CDA2D9F590448191CE291639EBC4F1@Dell3Gig><238D7A1C552D4EA1BFCC7CC2074C2F4B@Dell3Gig><07BB860985DC4EEF91B5D4C5A6A5541A@Dell3Gig><014E2268C8C94EE39766F0E51CCC62B1@Dell3Gig><0EFA1FD1-AC86-4C8E-81DE-F18240079B46@nationsdial.com> <0915D890CD964BEB9E5E533A687D847F@Dell3Gig> <9F59442A18CE4271A0C4EF50944AD79E@Dell3Gig> Message-ID: <8C96A31D-044D-479C-8DBE-9CF1DBE63AE9@nationsdial.com> On Aug 1, 2009, at 1:10 PM, Paul Fitch wrote: > I'm inputting "The Gamers Connection" issues intot he database > right now, > and there is an add in the 1st issue for another magazine I never > heard of, > "the Coco Clipboard". Did this ever get published? Has anyone > scanned them > yet? > > Yes, the CoCoClipboard is archived in the CoCo/OS-9 archive. Is it up on maltedmedia? I haven't checked lately. There are a few issues missing and I'm not sure when they ceased publishing. From the Index in the archive: Readme CoCo Clipboard was a Color Computer Magazine Published from Sept 1987 thru at least April 1990. Unfortunately I do not know what the last issue is. If you have any further issues or the missing issues please contact the archivists. NOTE: The PDF files were created out of TIFF image files and are mostly Bit Map for readability. Some images are grayscale/color as warranted. All Volume 1 issues & Vol 3 Issue 4 were provided as xeroxes, so the quality of the images may be lower than expected. CoCo Clipboard Index Clipboard_V01N01 - Vol 1 No.1 (Sept/Oct 1987) Clipboard_V01N02 - Vol 1 No.2 (Nov/Dec 1987) Clipboard_V01N03 - Vol 1 No.3 (Jan/Feb 1988) Clipboard_V01N04 - Vol 1 No.4 (Mar/Apr 1988) Clipboard_V01N04 - Vol 1 No.5 (May/Jun 1988) ** MISSING ** Clipboard_V01N04 - Vol 1 No.6 (Jul/Ayg 1988) ** MISSING ** Clipboard_V02N01 - Vol 2 No.1 (Sept/Oct 1988) Clipboard_V02N02 - Vol 2 No.2 (Nov/Dec 1988) Clipboard_V02N03 - Vol 2 No.3 (Jan/Feb 1989) Clipboard_V02N04 - Vol 2 No.4 (Mar/Apr 1989) Clipboard_V02N05 - Vol 2 No.5 (May/Jun 1989) Clipboard_V02N06 - Vol 2 No.6 (Jul/Aug 1989) Clipboard_V03N01 - Vol 3 No.1 (Sept/Oct 1989) Clipboard_V03N02 - Vol 3 No.2 (Nov/Dec 1989) Clipboard_V03N03 - Vol 3 No.3 (Jan/Feb 1990) Clipboard_V03N04 - Vol 3 No.4 (Mar/Apr 1990) ** UNKNOWN How Many Issues were Published ** From adit at nationsdial.com Fri Aug 7 15:56:55 2009 From: adit at nationsdial.com (Dean Leiber) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 12:56:55 -0700 Subject: [Coco] CoCo/OS-9 Archive Message-ID: <294905C4-B066-4BB3-97B9-C3B347D0F0C2@nationsdial.com> Judging from Paul's efforts on the database, it appears that there is still stuff in the CoCo/OS-9 Archive (remember the DVDs that Glenside sold at the fest a few times...)that is still not making it up to maltedmedia or onto other CoCo D/L sites, etc. Is there anyone who is willing to U/L the files to Maltedmedia (be warned in its totality it is 13 GB, but a lot of stuff is already up there). The www. os9projects.com site was supposed to take care of that, but things haven't worked out as intended. I'll try and sort out what's in the archive, but not on maltedmedia. Any takers for U/ L duty? I'm on dial-up and it would just be impossible for me to U/L that amount of data. Dean From cwgordon at carolina.rr.com Fri Aug 7 16:22:07 2009 From: cwgordon at carolina.rr.com (Bill) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 16:22:07 -0400 Subject: [Coco] CoCo/OS-9 Archive In-Reply-To: <294905C4-B066-4BB3-97B9-C3B347D0F0C2@nationsdial.com> References: <294905C4-B066-4BB3-97B9-C3B347D0F0C2@nationsdial.com> Message-ID: <002c01ca179c$bcf39ee0$36dadca0$@rr.com> I could help. I have a good deal of HD space available. Plus I have high-speed cable -----Original Message----- From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Dean Leiber Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 3:57 PM To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Subject: [Coco] CoCo/OS-9 Archive Judging from Paul's efforts on the database, it appears that there is still stuff in the CoCo/OS-9 Archive (remember the DVDs that Glenside sold at the fest a few times...)that is still not making it up to maltedmedia or onto other CoCo D/L sites, etc. Is there anyone who is willing to U/L the files to Maltedmedia (be warned in its totality it is 13 GB, but a lot of stuff is already up there). The www. os9projects.com site was supposed to take care of that, but things haven't worked out as intended. I'll try and sort out what's in the archive, but not on maltedmedia. Any takers for U/ L duty? I'm on dial-up and it would just be impossible for me to U/L that amount of data. From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Fri Aug 7 16:48:00 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 13:48:00 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net><200908061707.55843.gene.heskett@verizon.net><4E6159474F94456B93C5D23DC2942FE7@Shasta><200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: <40793B8DE2EA4964B7B0B8AD2E95B1A4@Shasta> Hi, You want to fight the United States Army? SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bruce W. Calkins" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 2:40 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... >>> WARNING "Adobe Shockwave Player" required. > ============================================== >> Sorry, that must be a winderz only file format, firefox wants to >> download an x-director application of some sort in order to play it. > =============================================== > It won't run on my Windows XP 64 bit Pro machine on Firefox either. Even > after I upgraded Adobe Shockwave and told NoScript that it was O.K. to run > it. > > If it is that intrusive, It is not needed. They/he can use a more > standard format. > > Bruce W. From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Fri Aug 7 16:44:31 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 13:44:31 -0700 Subject: [Coco] Nani's Home Town Pictures, River to be rerouted! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi, You can imagine the sheer pleasure in discovering pictures of my childhood home on the web. Prior to that I had to wait 2 years until MS Terra server got around to displaying Belleville, WI. I immediately thought the Satellite took the pictures during the spring flood, that's the source of the silt that is slowly filling up the lake. The army project pictures did not change the idea of the spring flood time period, but when I got the original pictures I realized that the narrow islands with trees where the line of rocks would separate the lake from the river had been washed away during the ~ 40 years I have been away. The MS Terra server view of Belleville, WI shows the path of the river to be changed at the narrow neck of the peninsula which was dredged many decades ago to create an island so that electricity could be generated. A later higher dam was built thus creating the lake and more power. I even have taken a drive along some of the village streets and west to the Argue farm where my mother was born using Google Street View. --------------------------------------- Breaking News I discovered while writing this message! Village of Belleville, WI LAKE GENERAL INFORMATION http://www.bellevillewi.org/pages/lakegeninfo.cfm The project might actually be done. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Thursday, August 06, 2009 8:42 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > Very cool panoramic 360 views. -ph > > -- From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Fri Aug 7 16:57:03 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 13:57:03 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <200908071210.06624.gene.heskett@verizon.net> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net><200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> <200908071210.06624.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Heskett" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 9:10 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > Not to denegrate what Stephen was trying to do in our discussion, but this > is > typical of a government operation, particularly when they are told to make > the > data available to the public. They will carefully research what is > available, > and purposely choose a method, that while publicly available, is so > obscure > that no one has the secret decoder ring. And of course we didn't get the > memo > either. :( What are the alternatives to Adobe shockwave that have more than 0.001% of the market? There might be one in Google's set of products, or is MS's Silverlight one. I looked at the list of programs installed on my Vista Laptop and could only find Adobe Shockwave and MS's Silverlite. SHF From aawolfe at gmail.com Fri Aug 7 17:23:51 2009 From: aawolfe at gmail.com (Aaron Wolfe) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 17:23:51 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net> <200908071210.06624.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: > > ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Heskett" > To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" > Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 9:10 AM > Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > > > >> Not to denegrate what Stephen was trying to do in our discussion, but this >> is >> typical of a government operation, particularly when they are told to make >> the >> data available to the public. ?They will carefully research what is >> available, >> and purposely choose a method, that while publicly available, is so >> obscure >> that no one has the secret decoder ring. ?And of course we didn't get the >> memo >> either. ?:( > > What are the alternatives to Adobe shockwave that have more than 0.001% of > the market? > > There might be one in Google's set of products, or is MS's Silverlight one. > > I looked at the list of programs installed on my Vista Laptop and could only > find Adobe Shockwave and MS's Silverlite. > > SHF Most things that use Shockwave or other proprietary formats can be done using open, standard tools. From what I saw of the presentation (it did not work 100% for me) it did nothing that couldn't have been implemented in HTML/javascript. Of course js is not quite an open standard, but certainly more so than shockwave or silverlight. The upcoming HTML 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5) hold much promise for making these proprietary formats unnecessary. It will be interesting to see what direction the online world takes. -Aaron From briang0671 at sbcglobal.net Fri Aug 7 17:35:15 2009 From: briang0671 at sbcglobal.net (Brian Goers) Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:35:15 -0500 Subject: [Coco] What happened to site? Message-ID: <4A7C9E13.7070409@sbcglobal.net> I did not sign up correctly to the CoCo4 web page the first time. And did not register again, but the site now only shows address not found. What happened? -- Brian Goers Glenside Computer Club Vice President of Special Events From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Fri Aug 7 17:38:01 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 14:38:01 -0700 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net><200908062157.28952.gene.heskett@verizon.net><200908071210.06624.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: <7DCC6B2FD4234961B0F6D25007D9E5D9@Shasta> Do you have any actual programs that can extract the panoramic views to Tiff or JPG. I tried printing the screen but I was very unhappy with the results. I do have software that can stitch individual pictures together which I did with the before pictures. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Wolfe" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 2:23 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: Most things that use Shockwave or other proprietary formats can be done using open, standard tools. From what I saw of the presentation (it did not work 100% for me) it did nothing that couldn't have been implemented in HTML/javascript. Of course js is not quite an open standard, but certainly more so than shockwave or silverlight. The upcoming HTML 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5) hold much promise for making these proprietary formats unnecessary. It will be interesting to see what direction the online world takes. -Aaron From gene.heskett at verizon.net Fri Aug 7 17:40:31 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:40:31 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <200908071210.06624.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: <200908071740.31420.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Friday 07 August 2009, Stephen H. Fischer wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Gene Heskett" >To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" >Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 9:10 AM >Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > >> Not to denegrate what Stephen was trying to do in our discussion, but this >> is >> typical of a government operation, particularly when they are told to make >> the >> data available to the public. They will carefully research what is >> available, >> and purposely choose a method, that while publicly available, is so >> obscure >> that no one has the secret decoder ring. And of course we didn't get the >> memo >> either. :( > >What are the alternatives to Adobe shockwave that have more than 0.001% of >the market? > >There might be one in Google's set of products, or is MS's Silverlight one. > >I looked at the list of programs installed on my Vista Laptop and could only >find Adobe Shockwave and MS's Silverlite. > >SHF Those we have, so flash is no problem, and if I wanted to be an outlaw, there is probably a silverlight codec grabbable from someplace where our patents are considered to be just so much TP. But if the format is Belle2, what wrapper do we use to strip it back down to flash? >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. "We'll look into it": By the time the wheels make a full turn, we assume you will have forgotten about it, too. From gene.heskett at verizon.net Fri Aug 7 17:45:25 2009 From: gene.heskett at verizon.net (Gene Heskett) Date: Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:45:25 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> Message-ID: <200908071745.26041.gene.heskett@verizon.net> On Friday 07 August 2009, Aaron Wolfe wrote: >On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Stephen H. > >Fischer wrote: >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Heskett" >> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" >> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 9:10 AM >> Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... >> >>> Not to denegrate what Stephen was trying to do in our discussion, but >>> this is >>> typical of a government operation, particularly when they are told to >>> make the >>> data available to the public. They will carefully research what is >>> available, >>> and purposely choose a method, that while publicly available, is so >>> obscure >>> that no one has the secret decoder ring. And of course we didn't get the >>> memo >>> either. :( >> >> What are the alternatives to Adobe shockwave that have more than 0.001% of >> the market? >> >> There might be one in Google's set of products, or is MS's Silverlight >> one. >> >> I looked at the list of programs installed on my Vista Laptop and could >> only find Adobe Shockwave and MS's Silverlite. >> >> SHF > >Most things that use Shockwave or other proprietary formats can be >done using open, standard tools. From what I saw of the presentation >(it did not work 100% for me) it did nothing that couldn't have been >implemented in HTML/javascript. Of course js is not quite an open >standard, but certainly more so than shockwave or silverlight. > >The upcoming HTML 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5) hold much >promise for making these proprietary formats unnecessary. It will be >interesting to see what direction the online world takes. > >-Aaron > Probably wrong Aaron, html-5 will not solve the problem because it will not officially set a codec standard, not even in the mud, let alone stone. Everybody on the committee has an axe to sharpen, and no one would give ground to a competitors product. Theora has promise, so does mp4, but they simply couldn't agree, so they agreed to disagree, and that language has been removed from html-5 as it stands, as of 2 weeks or so ago. >-- >Coco mailing list >Coco at maltedmedia.com >http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco -- Cheers, Gene "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) The NRA is offering FREE Associate memberships to anyone who wants them. For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think! From tjseagrove at writeme.com Fri Aug 7 18:49:25 2009 From: tjseagrove at writeme.com (Tom Seagrove) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 18:49:25 -0400 Subject: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes In-Reply-To: <8C96A31D-044D-479C-8DBE-9CF1DBE63AE9@nationsdial.com> References: <266BB460-4EA1-42DE-98E7-FB606281A34D@verizon.net> <016EA52641A04E4FBD9F4915FAE5877C@Dell3Gig> <4A364493.5090107@mindspring.com> <000901c9edbc$bc3f7640$34be62c0$@rr.com> <4A366833.4060100@mindspring.com><000001c9eddb$1c9afd70$55d0f850$@rr.com><4A369495.7040601@mindspring.com><12CDA2D9F590448191CE291639EBC4F1@Dell3Gig><238D7A1C552D4EA1BFCC7CC2074C2F4B@Dell3Gig><07BB860985DC4EEF91B5D4C5A6A5541A@Dell3Gig><014E2268C8C94EE39766F0E51CCC62B1@Dell3Gig><0EFA1FD1-AC86-4C8E-81DE-F18240079B46@nationsdial.com> <0915D890CD964BEB9E5E533A687D847F@Dell3Gig> <9F59442A18CE4271A0C4EF50944AD79E@Dell3Gig> <8C96A31D-044D-479C-8DBE-9CF1DBE63AE9@nationsdial.com> Message-ID: <00d401ca17b1$50bf3940$f23dabc0$@com> Clipboard_V03N04 - Vol 3 No.4 (Mar/Apr 1990) That was the last issue... Tom -----Original Message----- From: coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com [mailto:coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] On Behalf Of Dean Leiber Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 3:57 PM To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Subject: Re: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes On Aug 1, 2009, at 1:10 PM, Paul Fitch wrote: > I'm inputting "The Gamers Connection" issues intot he database > right now, > and there is an add in the 1st issue for another magazine I never > heard of, > "the Coco Clipboard". Did this ever get published? Has anyone > scanned them > yet? > > Yes, the CoCoClipboard is archived in the CoCo/OS-9 archive. Is it up on maltedmedia? I haven't checked lately. There are a few issues missing and I'm not sure when they ceased publishing. From the Index in the archive: Readme CoCo Clipboard was a Color Computer Magazine Published from Sept 1987 thru at least April 1990. Unfortunately I do not know what the last issue is. If you have any further issues or the missing issues please contact the archivists. NOTE: The PDF files were created out of TIFF image files and are mostly Bit Map for readability. Some images are grayscale/color as warranted. All Volume 1 issues & Vol 3 Issue 4 were provided as xeroxes, so the quality of the images may be lower than expected. CoCo Clipboard Index Clipboard_V01N01 - Vol 1 No.1 (Sept/Oct 1987) Clipboard_V01N02 - Vol 1 No.2 (Nov/Dec 1987) Clipboard_V01N03 - Vol 1 No.3 (Jan/Feb 1988) Clipboard_V01N04 - Vol 1 No.4 (Mar/Apr 1988) Clipboard_V01N04 - Vol 1 No.5 (May/Jun 1988) ** MISSING ** Clipboard_V01N04 - Vol 1 No.6 (Jul/Ayg 1988) ** MISSING ** Clipboard_V02N01 - Vol 2 No.1 (Sept/Oct 1988) Clipboard_V02N02 - Vol 2 No.2 (Nov/Dec 1988) Clipboard_V02N03 - Vol 2 No.3 (Jan/Feb 1989) Clipboard_V02N04 - Vol 2 No.4 (Mar/Apr 1989) Clipboard_V02N05 - Vol 2 No.5 (May/Jun 1989) Clipboard_V02N06 - Vol 2 No.6 (Jul/Aug 1989) Clipboard_V03N01 - Vol 3 No.1 (Sept/Oct 1989) Clipboard_V03N02 - Vol 3 No.2 (Nov/Dec 1989) Clipboard_V03N03 - Vol 3 No.3 (Jan/Feb 1990) Clipboard_V03N04 - Vol 3 No.4 (Mar/Apr 1990) ** UNKNOWN How Many Issues were Published ** -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 8.5.392 / Virus Database: 270.13.45/2284 - Release Date: 08/07/09 06:22:00 From adit at nationsdial.com Fri Aug 7 21:05:36 2009 From: adit at nationsdial.com (Dean Leiber) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 18:05:36 -0700 Subject: [Coco] Magazines and Indexes In-Reply-To: <00d401ca17b1$50bf3940$f23dabc0$@com> References: <266BB460-4EA1-42DE-98E7-FB606281A34D@verizon.net> <016EA52641A04E4FBD9F4915FAE5877C@Dell3Gig> <4A364493.5090107@mindspring.com> <000901c9edbc$bc3f7640$34be62c0$@rr.com> <4A366833.4060100@mindspring.com><000001c9eddb$1c9afd70$55d0f850$@rr.com><4A369495.7040601@mindspring.com><12CDA2D9F590448191CE291639EBC4F1@Dell3Gig><238D7A1C552D4EA1BFCC7CC2074C2F4B@Dell3Gig><07BB860985DC4EEF91B5D4C5A6A5541A@Dell3Gig><014E2268C8C94EE39766F0E51CCC62B1@Dell3Gig><0EFA1FD1-AC86-4C8E-81DE-F18240079B46@nationsdial.com> <0915D890CD964BEB9E5E533A687D847F@Dell3Gig> <9F59442A18CE4271A0C4EF50944AD79E@Dell3Gig> <8C96A31D-044D-479C-8DBE-9CF1DBE63AE9@nationsdial.com> <00d401ca17b1$50bf3940$f23dabc0$@com> Message-ID: On Aug 7, 2009, at 3:49 PM, Tom Seagrove wrote: > Clipboard_V03N04 - Vol 3 No.4 (Mar/Apr 1990) > > That was the last issue... > > Tom Thanks Tom! I'll make a note of it! Dean From SFischer1 at Mindspring.com Fri Aug 7 23:43:36 2009 From: SFischer1 at Mindspring.com (Stephen H. Fischer) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 20:43:36 -0700 Subject: [Coco] Nani's Home Town Pictures, River to be rerouted! In-Reply-To: <200908071740.31420.gene.heskett@verizon.net> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net><200908071210.06624.gene.heskett@verizon.net> <200908071740.31420.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: I had to get my old XP laptop out as I do not know where the Temp Internet files are in Vista. The file appears to be from this: http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/Lake_Belle_View/VRTour/belle2.dcr It is 13,136KB It gets a little bigger when zipped. belle2.dcr I found in Temp Internet files. When I copied it the name was changed to belle2[1].dir The "[1]" can be removed but why dcr changed to dir? Vista cannot handle dir, dcr starts Adobe Shockwave. I tried a couple of years ago to try and download a trial version of some Adobe software and got into a loop and could not get out and gave up. ------------------------- >From a search for " adobe .dcr" I found the following: File extension DCR description: Default file extension for Adobe (formerly Macromedia) Director data file. SHF ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Heskett" To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 2:40 PM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > > Those we have, so flash is no problem, and if I wanted to be an outlaw, > there > is probably a silverlight codec grabbable from someplace where our patents > are > considered to be just so much TP. But if the format is Belle2, what > wrapper > do we use to strip it back down to flash? From wrcousert at yahoo.com Sat Aug 8 00:47:04 2009 From: wrcousert at yahoo.com (Bill Cousert) Date: Fri, 7 Aug 2009 21:47:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <4A7C4C5B.8000004@sbcglobal.net> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <531541.38770.qm@web38402.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A7B2D9F.6040404@gmail.com> <587425.76120.qm@web38408.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A7C4C5B.8000004@sbcglobal.net> Message-ID: <938934.76455.qm@web38407.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Very crude, Right now it's limited to parts made out of plastic. The second generation unit will use other materials. Eventually they expect it to be able to build circuits. The goal is to create a unit that can build just about anything you can imagine, including copies of itself. a "Santa Claus Machine".You'll just need raw materials and some open source patterns. I know, this is considerably off topic, but I think this is the future of electronics. The engineers and hobbyists will use cad software to design goodies for the rest of us to print out. ________________________________ From: John Donaldson To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts Sent: Friday, August 7, 2009 8:46:35 AM Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... Kinda like a crude Star Trek Replicator. John Donaldson Bill Cousert wrote: > My memory is a little corrupted. I had a friend who had spent about $5k on a similar system. Maybe it was the printer that made up the difference. > > How will engineers get their start? I don't know. As time goes on, I'm certain we'll see this trend continue. Some people think we'll be soon using 3D printers to create our own electronics at home. When they break we'll toss them in the compost pile and print out another one. The Rep Rap (http://www.reprap.org) may be the first generation of that 3D printer. Click on the URL and watch the video if you have a few minutes. > > > > > > > ________________________________ > From: Christian Lesage > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts > Sent: Thursday, August 6, 2009 12:23:11 PM > Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... > > Bill Cousert wrote: > >> But I don't think the situation is as bad as it looks. 30 years ago, a TRS-80 model I with dual drives, expansion interface and 48k RAM cost nearly $5,000 (probably more than $10,000 in 2009 dollars). >> > > 5 grands? I don't think so. Here are the 1979 prices: > > TRS-80 Model I System w/ 16K RAM Level II....... $988 (includes monitor) > Expansion Interface w/ 32K RAM............................ $697 > Disk Drive #0........................................................... $499 (includes TRS-DOS) > Disk Drive #1........................................................... $499 > > That's "only" $2,683. And in 1980, the first two item were about $100 cheaper ($849 and $597 respectively). On the other hand, I agree that some printers were quite expensive (ranging from $220 to $1600). > > >> Today I can get a really nice notebook computer for less than $400. I think the savings more than make up for it. >> >> > > Well, in terms of money, it looks like it makes sense. But the cheap prices don't make up for the huge, growing electronic waste problem that the world is facing. Moreover, we no longer can buy "Made in the USA" (or Canada, Australia, France, UK, etc.) consumer electronic devices, which means we "benefit" from some other people's cheap labor in other parts of the world... probably the same people to whom we ship some of our hazardous electronic waste. > > > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > -- > Coco mailing list > Coco at maltedmedia.com > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco > > -- -- Coco mailing list Coco at maltedmedia.com http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco From aawolfe at gmail.com Sat Aug 8 01:05:51 2009 From: aawolfe at gmail.com (Aaron Wolfe) Date: Sat, 8 Aug 2009 01:05:51 -0400 Subject: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... In-Reply-To: <200908071745.26041.gene.heskett@verizon.net> References: <4A7AC7C8.9030400@att.net> <200908071745.26041.gene.heskett@verizon.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Gene Heskett wrote: > On Friday 07 August 2009, Aaron Wolfe wrote: >>On Fri, Aug 7, 2009 at 4:57 PM, Stephen H. >> >>Fischer wrote: >>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gene Heskett" >>> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" >>> Sent: Friday, August 07, 2009 9:10 AM >>> Subject: Re: [Coco] A bit more of CoCo history dies... >>> >>>> Not to denegrate what Stephen was trying to do in our discussion, but >>>> this is >>>> typical of a government operation, particularly when they are told to >>>> make the >>>> data available to the public. ?They will carefully research what is >>>> available, >>>> and purposely choose a method, that while publicly available, is so >>>> obscure >>>> that no one has the secret decoder ring. ?And of course we didn't get the >>>> memo >>>> either. ?:( >>> >>> What are the alternatives to Adobe shockwave that have more than 0.001% of >>> the market? >>> >>> There might be one in Google's set of products, or is MS's Silverlight >>> one. >>> >>> I looked at the list of programs installed on my Vista Laptop and could >>> only find Adobe Shockwave and MS's Silverlite. >>> >>> SHF >> >>Most things that use Shockwave or other proprietary formats can be >>done using open, standard tools. ?From what I saw of the presentation >>(it did not work 100% for me) it did nothing that couldn't have been >>implemented in HTML/javascript. ?Of course js is not quite an open >>standard, but certainly more so than shockwave or silverlight. >> >>The upcoming HTML 5 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_5) hold much >>promise for making these proprietary formats unnecessary. ?It will be >>interesting to see what direction the online world takes. >> >>-Aaron >> > Probably wrong Aaron, html-5 will not solve the problem because it will not > officially set a codec standard, not even in the mud, let alone stone. > Everybody on the committee has an axe to sharpen, and no one would give ground > to a competitors product. ?Theora has promise, so does mp4, but they simply > couldn't agree, so they agreed to disagree, and that language has been removed > from html-5 as it stands, as of 2 weeks or so ago. while the removal of ogg support as a requirement is dissapointing, it is still allowable to use the