[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 375, August 17, 2024

Sun Aug 18 08:01:24 EDT 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 375, August 17, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
New England Classic Gaming is having an Electronics & Computer Retro Swap
Meet on Aug. 24 starting at 9 AM CST, at the Norfolk Public Library in
Norfolk, Massachusetts (2 Liberty Lane):
  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61557290357725

VCF-Midwest has moved (slightly) again to the 50,000 square foot "Convention
North" space (they sold out of table space with the original "Exploration
Hall" area which was 33,000 square feet at the Renaissance Schaumburg
Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL. Sept 7-8, 2024 (Sept 6 evening (Friday)
is reserved for vendors, etc to set up). They have added multiple hotels
which people can book into, as the original sold out quickly.
  https://vcfmw.org/

The World of Retro Computing 2024 is September 14-15 in Kitchener,
Ontario, Canada (west of Toronto). This year it is located in the old
Goudies Department Store, 8 Queen Street North. Free admission, and this
covers all kinds of retro computers. Some people in the Coco community are
planning on going, and I believe that Stacy Vetzal from the Coco Facebook
group is planning on having a booth:
  https://worldofretrocomputing.com/2024-worc-expo

Tandy Assembly for 2024 has been announced for Sep 27-29, 2024. An update
from Pete on August 9 - they have now sold out of tables for the show! And
another announcement - Steve Leininger, the designer of the TRS-80, is
the keynote speaker!
  http://www.tandyassembly.com/speakers.html
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
  http://www.tandyassembly.com/

Also that weekend is the Amigos next live ICC (International Computer
Club), which will be at 4 PM EST on September 28. This is for all retro
computers & gaming consoles. It streams live on their Twitch channel and
YouTube channels)

The Dragon Meetup is 100% official now: October 12-13, 2024 at the Museum
of Technology in Cambridge, England:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3776261519300156/

Retro Computer Festival 2024: November 9-10, 2024
Centre for Computing History, Cambridge, England
In the early stages of planning for this year, this is (I believe) the
largest general retro computing show in the UK (it's their VCF style show),
covering all retro machines. Tickets can be ordered online for individual
days or both days.
All of their events (including separate entries for both days) at the
bottom of this page:
  https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/30677/What-s-On/
The Saturday event specifically:

https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/

VCF East dates for next year have been confirmed April 25-27, 2025 -
same facility as this year. Info Age Science Museum, Wall, NJ.

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) During our show last week, La Coco Strangiato (Bob Emery) was
simultaneously streaming his live Artemis keyboard version 2 build:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/ta0UH46UPgM?si=qKmL7ABsVO1yKfdb

2) CocoTown released his Game Revolutions Cycle 18 video titled "Projectiles
as objects" as he finally starts arming the player's buggy:
  https://youtu.be/cHgqTXR3itc?si=ZdXBGKr-BjHMeY5o

3) Taylor and Amy did a special little show where they present Veronica
(from the "Veronica Explains" YouTube channel) with a Coco 2... that needs
a little fixin' (it's currently outputting many shades of grey). With a
shout out to The Coco Nation too!:
  https://youtu.be/CLs-osjMkio?si=fXYOpS0JqpWXBSvS

4) ugBASIC has had multiple updates again this week in it's Beta branch,
including several Coco related ones (dated Aug 13):
 - Added support for keyboard driver under Coco & Coco 3 (and others)
 - Added support for KEY SPEED, LINE INPUT, native RELEASE on WAIT KEY
 - Fixed XOR opcode for 6809
  https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/changelog/beta

5) Tim Lindner wrote a blog post (and accompanying program) to go through
every video mode that a Color Computer can produce from the VDG chip which
he is calling "SAM/VDG Sizzler". He also made 4 videos to correspond with
the four major implementations of the SAM/VDG combo (including the Coco
3's GIME which emulates the older chips... mostly).
Blog post:
  http://tlindner.macmess.org/?p=1046
Github with source and DSK image to download:
  https://github.com/tlindner/VDGSIZZLE
Videos:
Coco 1/2 (regular Coco 2's)
  https://archive.org/details/siz-cc-1
Coco 2B (with T1 VDG)
  https://archive.org/details/siz-cc-2b_202408
Coco 3 with 1986 GIME
  https://archive.org/details/siz-cc-3-86
Coco 3 with 1987 GIME
  https://archive.org/details/siz-cc-3-87

6) Sheldon MacDonald has a video update on Facebook showing some of the
graphics routines he has running in CG3 (128x96x4):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161520668192641/

7) Thomas Cherryhomes (main driver behind Fujinet) posted information and
sample code for the Atari 8 bits on the high score scoreboard feature in
Fujinet, and asks if anyone would like to implement this on the Coco:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161520551942641/

MC-10
-----
1) japhyriddle On YouTube posted a YouTube Short, which shows him using an
MC-10 as a "guitar" using a program he wrote back in 2016 (and with some
effects added to the normal MC-10 sound output). He says in the description
that he sold the MC-19 not long after he recorded this:
  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Pxv-9y-RuZs

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) John Whitworth announced on the Dragon Facebook group that he has new
versions of the Dragon power boards - both basic and Deluxe versions:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3780039292255712/

2) Phil Harvey-Smith posted further photos of his "new" Dragon 64 - 3D
printed case (in multiple pieces), repro motherboard, and now most of the
keyboard keys are filled:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3779905235602451/

3) Jess B's Tech Dept. on YouTube fixes up a Dragon 32 she got by adding
a new power supply (from Julian, I believe?):
  https://youtu.be/ssnDHPJ5Rx0?si=UFE2JHAs1H0xmwg8

4) David Mitchell (Davy's Retro Corner on YouTube) posted a video showing
his generating Mandelbrot fractals in SG4 (64x32x9). It's based on multiple
other programs for Mandelbrot he looked at:
  https://youtu.be/J2UJUaqJ2H0?si=sEzh32nrsFr-50oK

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Ken at Canadian Retro Thing released another video in his single game
on multiple computers series. This time round it's part 1 of Sea Dragon -
this round covering Apple II, Atari 8 bit, & Coco. A part 2 will cover 3
more machines:
  https://youtu.be/Zv1Y_uS_kyw?si=36y8WTIXuMZ54Si3
And he just released part 2 with 3 more systems:
  https://youtu.be/AkJFE15x5IM?si=6LBcj4FMN1UAY7U3

2) Jim Gerrie has ported Labyrinth (by Aardvark for the Coco with Extended
BASIC) to the MC-10 with either the MCX-128 or MCX-SD installed (which
adds Extended BASIC and more RAM). It's a 3D shooter that is quite good
for a BASIC game:
  https://youtu.be/lnAIH8bei0M?si=RkYyJPpWC6BcK-82
And he did an update late in the week, with some graphic changes and speed
up's (he explains one in the description and with voiceover on the video):
  https://youtu.be/V4RAB2FWPIs?si=xO-vXeoVUzdaNhin
He also updated Lunar Lander, based on a fix done by Martin C. Martin
where he found a bug this June in the original 55 year old code:
  https://youtu.be/n7_Tv_Hkk-A?si=TrS60jQJpWPaIasi

3) David Mitchell (Davy's Retro Corner on YouTube) has released a new
version of his Flipping Bits game for the MC-10, this time compiled with
Greg Dionne's BASIC compiler for extra speed:
  https://youtu.be/99ud-QOBXEY?si=wBR1AtPuhN3z6VF-
You can download the cassette image for the MC-10 compiled version from
his github:

https://github.com/daftspaniel/RetroCornerRedux/tree/main/Tandy/MC-10/Originals/FlipBits/media

4) Carlos Camacho uploaded the BASIC sourcecode to a Japanese game ported
from Prolog to Coco BASIC. The player makes and sells Tofu, apparently
(I haven't tried it):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161517273482641/

5) Jim Gerrie pointed out on Facebook that Inufuto has started releasing
their new game OSOTOS for the dozens and dozens of retro machines they
support with their cross compiler. Coco and MC-10 versions are not up yet,
but some of the machines that are are ones that use the same 6847 chip as
the MC-10 & Coco have, so we can get a good idea what it will look like
(see PC-6001 for example). Looks like Pengo with platforms, maybe?:
  http://inufuto.web.fc2.com/8bit/osotos/

6) Tricob1974 on YouTube put up a long play video showing how to solve the
5th level of Climb, a 16K ML game by Andrew Pakerski that first appeared
on Chromasette January 1984 (this was on the Game On Challenge not too
long ago). This way we finally get to see the levels that are invisible:
  https://youtu.be/fvRKEsd4vOA?si=zNW_OJcNIknSUVUu

7) agamingchannelbyLRU on YouTube put up numerous gameplay videos to
achieve high scores for a variety of retro computers. Included this week
is Jet Boot Colin for the Dragon 32:
  https://youtu.be/RHUGLzeRfMU?si=9AQnv-LG7GVWcu_8

8) Chronologically Gaming on YouTube and Twitch has returned to active
duty after a long summer break. This week he covered a couple of games
relevant to us:
Dragon 32: 747 Flight Simulator from DACC:
  https://youtu.be/OlubigHbEks?si=-_FnO998OBl24aMY&t=1820
Coco: Avenger from The Cornsoft Group:
  https://youtu.be/uKuBN4Q_Xug?si=19NBWtABTY_BW_NW&t=326

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

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R. Allen Murphey <exile at weylan-yutani.com>
Weylan-Yutani Corporation
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