[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 390, November 30, 2024

[R. Allen Murphey]

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 390, November 30, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle


Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
Virtual Coco/Tandy Fest is January 25, 2025, and now has it's own website
site up: Mark Overholser is the driving force for it, and can give updates
on speakers, etc.
  https://tandyretroshow.com/

VCF-SoCal - Feb 15-16 (Hotel Fera in Orange, California.
  https://www.vcfsocal.com/

VCF East is April 4-6, 2025 - same facility as this year. Info Age Science
Museum, Wall, NJ.
  https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/

CocoFest is May 2-3, 2025 (with takedown on the morning of May 4/Sunday) at
the Holiday Inn & Suites in Carol Stream (Wheaton), Illinois. Hotel rooms
at the special Fest rate are available now ($122/night for two queens or
1 king bed), and apply for May 2-5. You will need to use the Group Rate
code of G30 to get this rate, and getting the special rate ends April
7. Bookings for tables will be going up in January.
  https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
Tables go on sale January 1 at noon, Central standard time.

VCF-SW in Texas has been booked with dates: June 20-22, 2025 at the Davidson
Gundy Alumni Center, University of Texas, Dallas, Texas.
Tables & Tickets will go on sale January 2025. $20/adult ($25 if bought
at the door), $10/student ($15 at the door). 17 and under are free (with
accompanying adult). Tables are $50.
  https://www.vcfsw.org/

Tim Lindner let me know that next year's Portland Retro Gaming Expo runs
from October 17-19 in 2025 (they just had this years Sept 27-29).
  https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/


Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) Ron Klein posted a blog update for the Coco Pi Project, including the
latest on how it is being built and different ways you can install it:
  https://coco-pi.com/coco-pi-project-update-2024-11-27/

2) Wi-Fi Sheep on YouTube put up a more full length video of the Cambridge
Retro Computer Festival 2024 (he showed us some Coco / Dragon stuff
specifically after the show). One area of interest is the special 6847
display, showing a variety of computers that used the same VDG as the Coco
1/2, MC-10/Alice, and Dragon 32/64 used:
  https://youtu.be/9y8GMrjAPyo?si=4ifWr5MxIwIwz8S0&t=599

3) Ciaran Anscomb has announced that XRoar 1.7.3 has been released. This
fixed some bugs that crept into 1.7.2:
  http://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/

4) Daniel Wilson of the Think Tank Podcast, interviewed Wes Kussmaul, the
creator of the online system Delphi. Like the older Compuserve, Delphi
was filled with forums, downloads, etc. and they had an agreement with
Rainbow magazine to run Coco forums, which Rainbow had a monthly column
mentioning which new downloads, etc. were newly added. It goes through how
Delphi started as an online encyclopedia to what he is doing now. It also
covers Daniel's history with the Coco 2:
 
https://aithinktankpodcast.com/articles/f/the-early-days-of-the-internet---show-9
YouTube video version of the interview:
  https://youtu.be/J5EREYob3N4?si=fb40RTann_RZZBmC

5) David Collins posted a video on Facebook in the Motorola 6809/6309/6800
Assembly Language programming group showing his HB63C089M single board 6309
based computer, and showing a text based Mandelbrot set being generated
using a 6309 assembly program. It completes it in about .3 seconds... an
that's writing it to a virtual terminal.
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/posts/3528218010804889/


MC-10
-----
1) Jim Gerrie released an MC-10 port of "A Spacecraft Simulator" originally
written by Gary Sivak for BYTE magazine, November 1979.:
  https://youtu.be/kPrI6feDyKA?si=7nvafJSi9EEpjY3U


Dragon 32/64
------------
1) robcfg on the World of Dragon Forums has announced a new utility,
DragonCas2 (sequel to DragonCas_GUI). He has also released a test version
for Windows:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=11212
Direct link:
  https://bitbucket.org/robcfg/dragoncas2/src/master/

2) Julian Brown posted an update for his RAM replacement board for his
Dragon 32 repro board. This is a simpler design that he hopes fixes a
bug. From some testing yesterday, it is working better than his earlier
version, but still isn't fully working... yet:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3878989832360657/

3) Richard Harding has posted some high resolution original artwork for
Dragon software titles, this time in poster format (23" x 15.5") at 300 DPI:
  http://dragondata.co.uk/Publications/posters-8/POSTERS-8.html

4) YouTube channel Retro4u received a fair number of UK computers that he
goes through, including a Dragon 32:
  https://youtu.be/nw_U6KVrcUQ?si=B-OWOL4ZQXdqj8PZ&t=279

5) German YouTube channel MIGs Yesterchips (ran by the Yesterchips Museum)
received a Dragon 32 as a hardware donation, and need a little repair
to get the color working. Rather than doing a video showing he complete
testing, etc. he goes into figuring out was wrong with some photos, making
a shorter video:
  https://youtu.be/O46BTTJSN_I?si=GxhPeVTia1uuGeif

6) Henry Gernhardt III put up part 2 of his video series on creating both the
hardware and software for a USB keyboard interface for the Coco (and Dragon):
  https://youtu.be/MjQjr-vsv1U?si=x_uDEwFEVlWPaIB3

7) A follow up to last week's episode where a person in the live chat
revealed that he was the author of Hidden BASIC that was sold by Spectrum
Projects in 1983, and he was trying to find a copy. Well, Paul Fiscarelli
found a copy, and it is now on the archive!
  https://colorcomputerarchive.com/

8) RetroTechTime put up a YouTube short with some photos of an "extensive
Coco collection" that he saved from getting thrown out (I think there are
other Tandy, non-Coco items included as well):
  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6bVAYD8Xtjo
He did a same style video showing a few photos of Tandy/TRS80 collection:
  https://youtube.com/shorts/nxxXPBciDQ8?si=b5ttuG6UtfWjGhgs


Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Lee Perkins put up a video update for his port of the Cloud Kingdoms game
to the Coco 3 - showing level selection and game play of a few different
levels, completing them. Note: At this stage, you can't get damaged,
so it's a bit easier to play than the final version will be (it's also
better for testing):
  https://youtu.be/WxmSOFYJwSA?si=Vin-AHgGGQ2UgyTu

2) Pere Serrat has released the 6th & 7th Supersprite FM+ upgraded games
packs, with the new colour palette. The 6th pack includes:
Flype 2.0
Foggy's Quest
Funky Fungus Level 1
Funky Fungus Level 2
Funky Fungus Level 3
Funky Fungus Level 4
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11211
And the 7th has:
Forward to the Past
Bubble Frenzy 1.1
Gherbert Groundhog In Save the Date
The Goblin
Mr. Hair and the Kitty Katakombs
Janky Joe
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11213

3) Emerson Costa posted in the Motorola 6847 group on Facebook about a Mine
Sweeper port (called Campo Minado) written in BASIC for the CCE MC-1000
computer... a Z80 based machine that used the same video chip as the Coco
1/2, Dragon 32/64 and MC-10/Alice. It is done in 256x192x2 PMODE 4:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/173737063356725/posts/1659108941486189/
Github link (note that the info.txt is in Portuguese, since this was
written by Emerson in Brazil):
 
https://github.com/ensjo/mc1000-software/blob/master/emerson/Campo%20minado/info.txt

4) The NMI channel on YouTube release a YouTube short showing Clowns and
Balloons running on his Coco 3 with a CM-8 (Which unfortunately just shows
black and white graphics with no artifacting
  https://youtube.com/shorts/Rm3Q7MIlKc8?si=3yUJJxA1jZq5vgLT

5) Jostive Fiverzer did a longplay game video of Dave Edson's Catch 'Em
from Aardvark Software:
  https://youtu.be/WsE5m5o3UYA?si=R_lgkQhcWlYybJiC
He also did one of Computerware's Shark Treasure by Greg Anderson:
  https://youtu.be/38CUyQu6el4?si=W6oOPTYTpqo2QHbR

6) Tim and AJ do their first Coco game in awhile that *isn't* Dungeons of
Daggorath - Paul Shoemaker's new release, Lava Hero. AJ loves the game:
  https://youtu.be/62kx9ZsdyBo?si=bWcj4xHktY1tWEbA

7) Guillaume Major announced that he has made a Coco port of Kings Quest VI:
Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (which was backported to the AGI engine to run on
older PC's by Brandon Kouri... and that's the same engine that the Coco 3
versions of Sierra games use) available on the Color Computer Archive. He
posted some screenshots on the Coco Facebook group:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162095029932641/
The webpage for the original PC backport:
  https://kq6agi.com/

8) The Amigos did their annual Thanks-For-Giving Marathon (8 hours of
game playing on a variety of platforms), and a "Super Cut" version (thanks
Aaron!) sans game loading times and general banter (although the latter *is*
one of the reasons to watch and listen to the Amigos!) cut down to just over
5 hours is now up on their YouTube channel. The Coco is represented early on
with One on One, Dino Wars and Demon Attack (although their Dino Wars seems
corrupt - there is no way normally to kill your opponent with just one bite):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoY7cU3LCCE&t=2320s
(If you want to see the full 8 hour version with banter and loading/switching
systems - check out their Twitch page)


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

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