[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 337, November 4, 2023

Sun Nov 5 09:35:38 EST 2023

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 337, November 4, 2023
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

- The interview with Doug Masten (author of The Contras) with co-interviewee
Glen Dahlgren of Sundogs Systems that was originally going to happen
on August 19 is being postponed, due to a fairly major surgery. We are
shooting for around October/November depending on doctor's orders.

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
VCF SoCal: Feb 17-18, 2024 in Orange, California
Hotel Fera - Events Center
100 The City Drive, Orange, CA 92868
  https://vcfsocal.com/index.html

CocoFest: May 4-5, 2024 in Carol Stream, Illinois (near Chicago)
Holiday Inn & Suites
  https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/

BoatFest 3: June 14-16, 2024
Social Event Space
Hurricane, WV

https://www.ticketsource.us/boatfest2024/boatfest-retro-computer-expo-2024/e-raedpb

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) I missed this last week (I had it mentioned in my notes but since there
is not website I accidentally skipped over it: The original authors of
the newsletter "TRS-80 Computing" (renamed Color Computing for the last 2
official issues) and published from June 1987 until October of 1991), Joe
Ahern and David McNally have showed up recently in the Coco community again,
and have uploaded all issues of their magazine - including a previously
unreleased, unfinished version of what was to be the final issue in February
of 1992. They started this newsletter when they were only in grade 8 (!),
and it was originally only sold to friends and relatives and a few teachers
at their middle school. It ended as they were getting close to finishing
high school. Some issues are on the Color Computer Archive already, and
now the remainder will be uploaded:
  (I have all of them downloaded to take a look at it in the Coco Nation
  11-04 folder).

2) Iain Lee published a column in the UK based Retro Gamer magazine about
the Coco and The Coco Show specifically in their retrorader column:
  (Downloaded to take a look at it in the Coco Nation 11-04 folder).

3) Bob Emery (La Coco Strangiato on YouTube) put up a video about modern
cassette alternatives and how well they work with the Coco:
  https://youtu.be/rLCOD-pIoJE?si=_LEq2ebwZm90ZgLd

4) TRS-80 Retro Programming put up a video showing a Geometric graphing
tool in BASIC that he is working on:
  https://youtu.be/T5JatIYrsVc?si=Ok1bq0uvgfbqTp8f

5) Coco Town has Game Revolutions Part 5: Self Modifying Code on YouTube
now. This to push the speed up of his Moon Patrol clone even faster than
his earlier straight stack blasting. And then he lets us know that his
next few videos will be about MAME - since he found a bug in it:
  https://youtu.be/APpR1Ls7e0M?si=P823b-ChJYYkcKq0

6) DragonPyEmulator 0.9.1 was released yesterday. This is a Dragon 32/64 and
Coco 1/2/2b emulator written entirely in Python (3.x or PyPy). The author
mentions that it is not meant to be a 2nd XRoar, but more for learning. The
current version runs the Dragons/Coco's in text mode, as well as "single
board computer" ROM's sbc09, Simple6809 and Multicomp6809. It also includes
a "rudimentary" BASIC editor:
  https://pypi.org/project/DragonPyEmulator/0.9.1/

7) The Digicool Things webpage has an update to a "minimalist Europe
Card Bus (MECB)" computer. The author had asked for a recommnedation
for a BASIC to port to it, and after finding an article by Grant Searle,
he chose Extended BASIC from the Coco as a base:

https://digicoolthings.com/minimalist-europe-card-bus-mecb-some-6809-basic-fun/

8) Mr. Dave6309 put up a video on his YouTube channel showing his further
progress in making some optimized graphics routines for Coco 3 BASIC:
  https://youtu.be/0lrX1NylZjE

MC-10
-----
1)

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Richard Harding posted his interview with Brian Moore - the 2nd Managing
Director for Dragon Data:
  http://dragondata.co.uk/history/Gallery/brian_moore/brian_moore.html

2) Julian Brown has an update on his reproduction / enhanced motherboard
for the Dragon 32, as he fills his latest enhanced version with parts as
they arrive (currently revision 3 with no RAM or ROM but powers up):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3581223812137262/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Jim Gerrie ported "Electron" by Frank O'Connor, a type-in game for the
TI-99/4A from Home Computing Weekly Sept 13, 1983, to the MC-10:
  https://youtu.be/uF0X1uHfMCw?si=aAJcDqhTpHYUazri
He also ported "Watchman" originally by Scott Davidson (based on the
original version by Mac Oglesby from way back in February of 1975) from
Creative Computing May/June 1978:
  https://youtu.be/ecbt_Pcb8CI?si=_kjAAOTxcLMvd-r8
He also did Penguino - a clone of Pango from the IBM PC with CGA - itself
a clone of the arcade Pengo. Jim did this one for the Retrospectiva BASIC
game contest back in 2012:
  https://youtu.be/7vdgmHB3BMk?si=vtjSFI36J6o-GUG4
He also did a long play-through of his port to the MC-10 of Lance Micklus'
original Star Trek III from 1978 (in 3 parts - totaling almost an hour!). And
he blogged about the port:
Blog post:

https://jimgerrie.blogspot.com/2023/11/star-trek-iii-by-lance-micklus-1978.html
Playthrough in 3 parts
  https://youtu.be/gPRsE94syDY?si=MQQTc-AZiyehFUWg
  https://youtu.be/0D7Wvy0PCKU?si=vZiqoioTWPVYL2Cl
  https://youtu.be/H10M0vFhSrg?si=yL8bWldQFCJlGs8p

2) Retro Magazine World published an article on The Water of Life - A
BASIC Dragon 32/64 graphics game originally published Abacus in November
of 1982. Since it is in Extended BASIC, the ASCII source code should work
on a 32K Extended BASIC Coco 1/2 as well.
Original article in Italian with listing:
  https://www.retromagazine.net/the-water-of-life-dragon-32-64-basic/
Google translate of article to English (note: the listing gets corrupted
here, at least in my browser):

https://www-retromagazine-net.translate.goog/the-water-of-life-dragon-32-64-basic/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

3) Ken of Canadian Retro Things (gee... who's he?) did a comparison of Moon
Patrol ports on 3... errr, 4 platforms - 2 official licensed versions and
2 clones. Which one wins, and why?
  https://youtu.be/94IKEf1Y8S4?si=gJfrU0Zx28O5IQrb

4) Richard Kelly has released (we are a little late, sorry) a DSK image
in the Coco group on Facebook with Halloween themed games - both his own
and some others from T&D:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161003234917641/

5) Games that Weren't got more information from Simon Hardy for 3 more
games that didn't get to a release on the Dragon:
AcePak Software - Drawcaster Australian Pools & Drawcaster British Pools:
  https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2023/11/acepak-software-titles/
Cable Software - "Eager Edna" - multi-screen game for Dragon 32 written in
ML in late 1984 - had a news snippet in Dragon User December 1984, and was
shown off at the 6809 Show... but then cancelled due to "technical issues".
  https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2023/11/eager-edna/
Quickbeam Software - a clone of Uridium (itself a C64 game) that was
announced in their catalog in March 1987, and may have been shown at a
6809 event in 1988. Reportedly cancelled due to the shrinking market for
the Dragon, and developer Dave Gibbons decide to work on 16 bit platforms
instead.
  https://www.gamesthatwerent.com/2023/11/metal-on-metal/

6) Chronologically Gaming covered "Across the Rubicon" from Ark Royal
Games for the Coco:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgNIOkkGTQc&t=1443s

=======================================
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