[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 316, June 10, 2023

Sun Jun 11 11:57:47 EDT 2023

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 316, June 10, 2023
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Nick Marentes and I will be interviewing Ron Bull - who ran the Bull's Barn
Coco website 20 years ago, as well as being the co-organizer of PennFest
1999 and PennFest 2000

Next week (June 17) we have Dave, the man behind the new YouTube channel
Coco Town, on for an interview!
June 23, Ken and I will hopefully be reporting live from BoatFest while
Mark Overholser hosts the news, and Sloopy hosts the Game On Challenge.
August 12 we have Matt Harper on (developer of Wizard's Den sold by Tom
Mix Software).
August 19 we have a special treat - the original programmer of The Contras
for Sundog Systems, Doug Masten - and Glen Dahlgren who ran Sundog (and
who has been on the show several times before, including during our Dave
Dies interview) will be on to help co-interview Doug about one of the most
ambitious Coco 3 games done at that time (1991-1993)

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) Coco Town on YouTube (who is our guest next week) has released the 2nd
episode of his using Coco floating point routines in the BASIC ROM from
assembly, this time exploring how the fractional parts for the 5 byte
floating point numbers work, passing strings to BASIC from assembly, etc.:
  https://youtu.be/KawKWmiJoZA
He also has a short video announcement: The source code for programs that
he has shown on his channel for the Coco are now available for download!
Announcement:
  https://youtu.be/lYK_JaKfnjI
Downloads:
  https://cocotownretro.wordpress.com/

2) Allen Huffman posted on his blog about his being part of the phone
phreaking scene when he was young, and going through a few of the programs
that generated the extra tones, the various colored "boxes" and scanning
for computers by going through phone numbers. I dabbled with this a bit
myself back in my pre-Coco 3 days:

https://subethasoftware.com/2023/06/06/phreak-philes-modem-scanning-in-the-late-1980s/

3) Ron Klein posted about a few updates that are now available for the
Coco Pi:
TRS80GP emulator added (this was originally an emulator strictly for the
Z80 based b&w TRS-80's, but now has MC-10 and Coco 1/2 support added):
  https://coco-pi.com/new-trs80gp-emulator-added-to-coco-pi/
XRoar 1.4.1 - official release with new composite color tweaks, initial
mouse middle button paste, many more controls available from the GUI for
GTK+ and Windows, fixes to sync bytes for DMK disk files, and more:
  https://coco-pi.com/new-xroar-1-4-1-package-available-for-coco-pi/
New update to ugBAsic
  https://coco-pi.com/new-update-for-ugbasic-now-available-for-coco-pi/
Also, I think it was his birthday this past week?

4) ChibiAkumas has updated his Coco 3 page for his assembly language
programming series, which includes information on the MMU, GIME registers,
etc:
  https://www.chibiakumas.com/6809/coco3.php

5) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube put up another "side video" - this
one called "Nostalgia-inducing retro graphics", where he asks viewers if
they know/remember any of the graphics shown (definitely some from tape
and print magazines, the Color and Extended BASIC manuals, etc.):
  https://youtu.be/25QpWBQ2jCE

6) Michael Furman release episode 5 of his FLEX series on YouTube (Nick
Marentes will like the tail end of the intro):
  https://youtu.be/uBkrlUfA_5Q
He has also announced that the Frank Hogg Laboratories port of Flex to the
Coco, version 5.0.4, is available for download from the Internet Archive
(and hopefully the Color Computer Archive soon), thanks to his efforts
on fixing the existing DSK images. Also, the "Color Utilities" disk and
"ED" editor from FHL, and TSC (Technical Systems Consultants - original
authors of Flex in the late 1970's) Extended Basic all are now available
for download. The announcement, details and download links:
  http://www.ocs.net/2023/06/08/general-availability-of-fhl-color-flex-5-04/

MC-10
-----
1) Jim Gerrie released his port of "Mastermind Codebreaker', originally
by Lloyd Milligan in RT-11 BASIC, from the October 1977 issue of BYTE
magazine. This program is used to figure out solutions for the Mastermind
board game (of which there are multiple versions on the Coco as well):
  https://youtu.be/N8ahDklX3Bs

2) Robert Sieg put up a screen shot showing some ideas for large characters
using the SG6 (64x48) mode on the MC-10:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/6149232501870187/

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) David Mitchell released another video & software download showing a
graphics demo for the Dragon 32, originally by Dr. Tim Langdell from his
book 35 Programs for the Dragon 32. He notes that it eventually will crash
with an ?FC ERROR:
Video:
  https://youtu.be/NGxv51xqM6A
Github sourcecode download:

https://github.com/daftspaniel/RetroCornerRedux/tree/main/Dragon/TypeIns/Snowflake

2) Tony Jewell posted a photograph he just discovered this week, showing
photos from inside the Eurohard Dragon plant in Spain at it's inauguration
from December 19, 1984:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3474913886101589/
The full article with more pictures:

https://fundceri.org/extremadura-en-imagenes/dragon-data-los-microordenadores-fabricados-en-extremadura

English Translation (for some reason google translate for a website is
not working for me):
  "Progress belongs to those who imagine the future." Today in
  #ExtremaduraEnImágenes we delve into a time when only a few saw the
  Information Society as a revolution, reliving through our gallery the
  inauguration of the Dragon microcomputer factory, which took place on
  December 19, 1984.
  At the beginning of the eighties, a large British toy company called
  Mettoy sought to enter the new world of personal computing that was
  beginning to have a great commercial projection worldwide. Mettoy, based
  in Wales, created the Dragon Data company seeking to manufacture a home
  microcomputer, thus emerging the Dragon 32 computer (named for its 32
  Kilobytes of RAM).
  In 1984, a corporation called Eurohard, S.A. was founded in Spain with
  the aim of entering the personal computing market. Taking advantage of
  the cancellation of the purchase of Dragon Data by Radio Shack, Eurohard,
  with the help of different Spanish entities, bought the company in August
  1984, moving its headquarters from Wales to Spain and establishing, on
  the one hand, its commercial headquarters in Madrid and, on the other,
  its computer factory in Casar de Cáceres (Extremadura).
  With the Dragon 200 model, Eurohard won on February 6, 1985 a contest
  of the Ministry of Culture of the Junta de Extremadura for the supply of
  computer systems to educational centers. For this reason, in Extremadura,
  the computer made by the new company Dragon Data was popular among
  schoolchildren. He then tried to achieve the same at the national level
  by submitting the team in a bid to win the Ministry of Culture's Project
  Athenea contest.
  Today in #ExtremaduraEnImágenes we rescue from our Photo Library the
  inauguration of the Dragon microcomputer factory, which took place on
  December 19, 1984. The event was attended by, among others, those who
  on those dates were:
     Mr. Juan Carlos Rodríguez Ibarra (President of the Junta de
     Extremadura).
     D. Manuel Veiga López (president of the Provincial Council of
     Cáceres).
     D. Eugenio Álvarez Gómez (Minister of Industry and Energy)."

Tony also found an article in the "Tales from the Vault" series for the
IEEE Life Members newsletter called "Dealing with Dragons", written by
John Haine. John was a member of PA consulting back in 1982 (they designed
the Dragon). The article covers the hardware fix they came up with for a
"ghost" vertical feature that showed up on early Dragon 32's screens, and
how they figured it out. And why companies doing designs should have more
robust understanding of what they are doing when they design something just
to save money. (NOTE: several current Dragon experts mention both missing
and incorrect information in this article, but that may be because it was
written 20 years after the author was involved).
  https://lmnewsletter.ieee.org/2020/12/01/dealing-with-dragons/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) YouTube channel HamataroFan2002 did a 3 minute play video of the
official Frogger on the Coco (he has recently done a lot of the official
Frogger ports):
  https://youtu.be/FYgczaM910I

2) Chronologically Gaming covered a few Coco games this week that were
released around April 1982.
The Great Word Game:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVyWJ91s20Y&t=1588s
Color Scarfman:
  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1841473152?t=00h14m43s
Storm:
  https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1841473152?t=00h41m37s
I was also a guest on his show yesterday, where I gave my opinion on
Scarfman and Storm, as well as the other games he did from April 1982.

3) David Mitchell has another Dragon type in game - Drastar 4, originally
by Brian Morely and published in the August 1984 issue of Dragon User
magazine. He has both the video and BASIC source available for download
(as usual, David has added a bit - he added the speed up POKE and the
title screen):
Video:
  https://youtu.be/VCQQjyn6fj8
Download:

https://github.com/daftspaniel/RetroCornerRedux/tree/main/Dragon/TypeIns/Drastar4
He also posted a link to the specific Dragon User magazine that it came from:

https://archive.worldofdragon.org/browse/downloads/Magazines/Dragon%20User/1984/DragonUser_0884.pdf

=======================================
Get connected with more of the CoCo, Dragon and MC-10 community here:
https://thecoconation.com/community/

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-- 
Robert "Exile In Paradise" Murphey <exile at weylan-yutani.com>
Weylan-Yutani Corporation