[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 305, March 18 2023

Sun Mar 19 21:13:55 EDT 2023

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 305, March 18 2023
===============================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) La Coco Strangiato put up a video building an external drive
bay to connect both a Gotek and a 3.5" floppy drive to his Coco 3
(it also has a demo of his Color Fog program):
  https://youtu.be/Aa4BXwQKIzE

2) TRS-80 Computer Programming posted a very early start of a 3rd
game project - doing an Ultima style game for the Coco 1/2 in BASIC:
  https://youtu.be/ukxVB0jYCcE

3) Richard Kelly has a new 1 liner bouncing dot demo - version 2.00,
that speeds up from the original version by his avoiding multiplication
and using an array instead (a graphical version is in the comments):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160530990547641/

4) Fred Salerno posted on the Coco group on Facebook a link to a
YouTube video from Epcot Educational Media (Disney): "Living With
Computers: which is from the early 1980's. It includes a Coco 1
amongst some other early home computers:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160530990547641/
The video:
  https://youtu.be/G34BYV0UlKY

5) For those of you running NitrOS9 on a real Coco with a CocoSDC
AND a 6309... you may want to hold off doing the latest CocoSDC
firmware update. There have been multiple reports of it crashing on
boot after the change, and reverting the CocoSDC firmware back to a
previous version fixes the issue. It appears to be a timing issue,
so we may have to slow down the driver or something similar. For most
people EOU/6809 version did work ok, although one person reported
even that didn't work. I hope to have some time try it myself this
upcoming week, after failing to do that this past week, to see if I
can figure out what code is causing the issue (from NitrOS9's end):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160528217757641/

6) Carl England uploaded his utility CRUSH to the Color Computer
Archive. This utility will compress BASIC programs more drastically
than most utilities of this type; it can get rid of line #'s,
unnecessary bytes, etc. and even make BASIC lines up to 32K in
length! NOTE: He had a bugfix version uploaded a couple of days later;
make sure that you get the most recent version.
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160528199037641/

7) Allen Huffman - I think based on Carl's CRUSH utility being released
- did a blog post delving into how BASIC string size limits work -
and affect things like INPUT and LINEINPUT as well as entering lines
of code. This includes the ability to WRITE lines longer than 255
characters, but what BASIC does when you try and read them back from
tape or disk:

https://subethasoftware.com/2023/03/14/these-lines-are-just-too-long-for-color-basic/#comment-35680
Allen has also been posting photos from some of the various CocoFests
he has attended over the years:
  https://www.facebook.com/subethasoftware

8) An interesting discussion topic on Facebook was started by Jim
Mullis, who asked "Can the downfall of the CoCo line be directly linked
to its lack of quantity and quality of it's video games (when compared
to other home computers)?". The 40+ comments go all over the place,
so I think it would make an interesting topic to discuss here:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160536857927641/

9) Ron Klein posted that XRoar for the Coco-Pi has been updated with
an optional new Work In Progress version of XRoar 1.3. This includes
initial supprot for middle-button paste, and a new highly experimental
snapshot option:

https://coco-pi.com/new-xroar-1-3-git-cvbs-20230312-1-package-available-for-coco-pi/

10) Multiple Coco people were on last weekend's TRS-80 Trash Talk Live
episode #31, including myself. There were many more people on the
panel than I had expected (and unlike us, they actually limit their
show to 2 hours(!?)), so I didn't do a demonstration of NitrOS9/EOU
like I was planning on (hopefully on a future show I can). Instead
I talked about it for a bit, and also The Coco Nation Show:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/Bk5D21zvaI8?feature=share

11) Vintage Geek on YouTube put up a video "Can ChatGPT Write a Program
for the Color Computer?"... find out in his almost 15 minute video
(and maybe compare results from when Allen Huffman tried the same
thing earlier). Note - some St. Patrick's Day coding is attempted,
amongst other things:
  https://youtu.be/5O3JrAW_5O8

MC-10
-----
1) Taylor and Amy have made.... an MC-10 laptop?
  https://youtu.be/4zbNa-9jG1I

2) Our very own Ken of Canadian Retro Things has finally gotten the
MCX32-SD RAM/BASIC/SD Card upgrade for his MC-10, and goes through
it in his video:
  https://youtu.be/Kship8EF4n4

3) Jim Gerrie posted a video showing his updated MC-10 demo called
"Halloween Boogaloo". It's an update to the original program which
was for a 2013 programming contest. This one has has been compiled
with Greg Dionne's MC-10 BASIC compiler:
  https://youtu.be/eDeWOdeHKco

4) The Laird's Lair release a video of "5 Obscure Computers from
Famous PC Companies". One of the 5 is the MC-10:
  https://youtu.be/04rE2ZPtnrg?t=694

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) John Whitworth posted in the Dragon Facebook group that he has
the Dragon Power Supply Unit boards (in kit form) in stock again at
DragonPlus Electronics:

https://www.dragonplus-electronics.co.uk/product/dragon-psu-board-kit-version-jan-2022/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) As a companion piece to the port of the Doctor Who game we showed
last week from Jim Gerrie, Jim has now posted a blog about his port:

https://jimgerrie.blogspot.com/2023/03/doctor-who-adventure-jeremy-guggenhiem.html
He also posted his port of Camel from Creative Computing in 1979 -
which I think is the same game that Paul Shoemaker ported recently
to the Coco 1/2 (although he fancied it up quite a bit):
  https://youtu.be/U96kwi8zm4A

2) Paul Shoemaker uploaded a new video to the Coco Facebook group
showing his progress with his animated text arcade game "Coco Ladder"
(inspired by the CP/M game "Ladder"). He has added sound, fancied
up the title screen a bit, has the basic game mechanics working,
and has 5 levels designed:

https://www.facebook.com/paul.shoemaker.169/videos/734974034827600/?idorvanity=2359462640

3) Tim & AJ of Sibling Rivalry have released a video showing Coco
Ice Hockey - originally by Intellectronics and then by Computerware:
  https://youtu.be/1y58NY6tOzM

4) Chronologically Gaming covered a couple more Coco programs - both
BASIC games from Spectral Associates from 1981. Laser Attack (Laser
Command) (2:58) and Lothar's Labyrinth (32:28). Spoiler - he is not
too impressed (the speedup POKE would have helped both of them a bit):
  https://youtu.be/eccLJoJjwEk
On a different episode he briefly covered Mars / Mars II, a 1981 text
adventure game by Aardvark:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yEvynSm_FQ&t=2643s
And Nuclear Submarine Adventure from Aardvark:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI_Pr11i_4Y&t=182s

5) It looks like Inufuto is releasing a new game for dozens of
platforms: Cracky.
Download and all video links page:
  http://inufuto.web.fc2.com/8bit/cracky/
The MC-10 version is out now, ahead of the Coco 1/2 and Coco 3 versions
(which were not up as of a few hours ago):
  https://youtu.be/bSNNGsr4S5U

6) Retro Core on YouTube has another "Battle of the Ports" video up
- this time featuring Moon Cresta. This had an official port to the
Coco and Dragon, but was only sold in the UK (I have no idea why they
didn't try selling it in the U.S.; it is a good port). Unfortunately
whatever copy he grabbed doesn't work - it shows the title screen
and then crashes:
  https://youtu.be/bNvIAlQ8pSU

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

Please trim any replies to *just* the specific item replied to.

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