[Coco] Hi! I'm new here!

[David Gettle]

Welcome.

On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 1:01 PM, Richard E. Crislip <rcrislip at neo.rr.com>
wrote:

> On Sun, 01 Mar 2015 19:42:29 -0500
> Hugo Dufort <hugo at seshat.ca> wrote:
>
> > Hi! I am new in this group, so let me introduce myself, and explain
> > how I got interested in the Coco community and what I expect to find
> > here.
> >
> > My name is Hugo and I'm 41 years old. I live in the southeastern
> > corner of Quebec, Canada.
> >
> > My parents gave me my first computer, a Coco2 with 64kb memory and a
> > tape recorder, when I was in 4th grade (10 years old). I started
> > playing games and learning Basic programming quite fast. I would say
> > I was motivated and perhaps talented. I learned to read binary and
> > hex numbers, and I also learned how to peek/poke in memory. However
> > the possibilities were limited (I had no printer and an old black &
> > white TV) and I've lost many Basic programs due to IO Errors and
> > cassette mismanagement. I spent afternoons playing Wilcatting, Sea
> > Dragon or Zaxxon. Still, I had discovered how to bring up the
> > semigraphic modes, and programmed a few nice games in these modes. I
> > also discovered a pixels pattern that made the pain() function
> > overflow, so I wrote my own better paint() function for pmode4.
> >
> > Things changed when the Coco3 was launched. I kept bugging my parents
> > till they bought me one. Then I pushed until they bought a dual
> > diskette unit, a DMP-105 printer, and the better (white) Joystick. I
> > also received many nice programs such as CocoMax 3 and a banner
> > printing application. I started learning how to better program with
> > the Coco3. I wrote a few useful applications:
> > - A program for reading bitmaps from disk, writing them on screen,
> > dithering and adjusting colors, and printing.
> > - A basic word processor, which I used to write many homeworks and
> > personal files. It worked just fine, had adjustable margins, and even
> > printed accented characters properly.
> > - An utility that physically read disk sectors and tried various
> > cypher values to decode adventure game texts.
> > - A few nice games, which I exchanged for commercial game diskettes
> > at the local computer club (!)
> >
> > I remember I was able to poke my way around the hi-res graphics
> > modes, using a reference page I had photocopied. I also remember
> > mastering the paging functions in the MMU. Go figure.
> >
> > Sadly, when I decided to move to the PC world in 1993, my parents
> > asked me to sell the Coco3 and all the accessories.
> >
> > Later, when I was at the university in 1996, I visited a friend at my
> > old college and learned that they were selling old computer stuff. I
> > was shocked/delighted to find that they were selling a fully equipped
> > Coco3 with 512k, IO prototype boards, joysticks, quad diskette drive,
> > EDTASM+ cartridge with all docs, OS9 Level 2 disks, etc. for 60$. I
> > wasn't rich at the time but managed to find enough money to buy the
> > whole cardboard box. Since I was studying in Computer Science, I
> > started messing around in EDTASM+ and for the first time in my life,
> > programming some actual assembler. OS9 really baffled me -- I never
> > imagined the Coco3 could use such a sophisticated system. At the time
> > I was doing lots of programming at the university on Unix text
> > terminals, and it was nowhere as easy to use as OS9.
> >
> > I didn't have enough space in my university room for both my PC and
> > my Coco3 so I left the latter at my parents' house. At some point,
> > since I was almost never home, my mother decided to redecorate my old
> > room, took many cardboard boxes full of "wires, old books, parts and
> > junk", and simply dumped them on the roadside for someone to take it.
> > So this is how I've lost my second Coco3.
> >
> > I like a good challenge but I don't have much experience in low-level
> > coding. For instance, back in the 1990s, I've programmed a 3D
> > labyrinth/adventure game in Turbo Pascal on my 386dx computer. It
> > used paged memory to access a full 2 mb, dynamic loading of textures,
> > precompiled textures with transparency for faster display, my own
> > 320x200x256 fast library, and a simple scripting language.
> >
> > I havent programmed in assembler or on "challenging" processors since
> > 2001 (I programmed a simple Flash memory management driver for an
> > embedded 8088 system at work), and I have "officially" stopped
> > programming in 2007, but I am still interested in computers. Since I
> > have installed VCC and lots of DSK images, I have rediscovered many
> > games on the Coco3, and I've even configured my OS9 Level 2 shell. It
> > works just fine, though it seems that some of the Coco3 games using
> > some graphical functions are running slow in the emulator.
> >
> > Obviously I don't have access to any Coco-related hardware, but I use
> > emulators. I would like to program a demo and a game using either
> > assembler, or a combination of Basic and my own assembler
> > subroutines. However I am totally lost right now. Reading the
> > documentation, I can't even figure out how to initialize the high-res
> > graphics. I would like to first test the functionalities in Basic
> > (init graphics using pokes/peeks, vertical/horizontal scrolling,
> > memory copy, etc.)
> >
> > Right now I'm trying to figure out the high-res graphics using memory
> > addresses FF90 to FF9F. I also want to understand how to set & move
> > the graphic port adress in memory (MMU banks?) I'd go with 256x200x16
> > and try the scrolling pokes. By the way, is anyone using the 320x225
> > or 256x225 modes? Are they useful? Thanks.
> >
> > Hugo
> >
> >
> >
> > ---
> > L'absence de virus dans ce courrier électronique a été vérifiée par
> > le logiciel antivirus Avast. http://www.avast.com
> >
>
> Welcome to the club! 8-). Join us at the 24th Last CoCoFEST near
> Chicago this coming April if you can. This event is put on by the
> Glenside Color Computer Club, look us up on Google.
>
> --
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