[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 350, February 10, 2024

Sun Feb 11 07:58:19 EST 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 350, February 10, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:
---------------------
None, but a special note: The Amigos are running their 12 hour Amigathon
fundraising charity show today (it started at 8 AM EST). Catch the live
stream on Twitch or YouTube, and you can contribute at:
  Amigathon.com
Proceeds go to the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. They had raised
$880 as of last night, even before the show started. They have been doing
this for 7 years now, and have raised almost $30,000 so far.

Interviews schedule:
--------------------
None upcoming... yet.

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
It should be mentioned that Thomas Cherryhomes will be a speaker at the
show, going over Fujinet - including the Coco version that is currently
a work in progress. Randy Kindig is also confirmed as a speaker now as well.
Also, a couple of color computer exhibitors are now listed as well:
  https://www.vcfsocal.com/exhibitors

Virtual CoCoFEST! Feb 24-25, worldwide!
The Early 2024 Virtual Fest, Sponsored by The Glenside Color Computer Club
and The CoCo Nation.
A Virtual Event to Showcase the Tandy Color Computer, the Dragon Data
Dragon and the Brazilian Clones.
Feb 24th and 25th featuring 1 Hour Presentations, starting at 14:00 (
UTC ), and running for 8-10 Hours.
If you have something to Present to the Community, but won't be able to
attend CoCoFEST! or a VCF Event or the Dragon MeetUp this year, this is
Your Chance to Present your Project to the Community, from the Comfort of
your Own Home, Business or Lair.
Once those who Don't Expect to make it to a Real Life Event, this year
have First Chance to sign up for a presentation slot, the registration
for everyone else will open.

E-mail cocotech at thecoconation.com or contact MarkO(verholser) to register.

Interim Computer Festival: March 23-24.
This is a pre-announcement for a retro computer show in the Pacific
Northwest Area. Details (specifically where, etc.) will be coming later,
and registration will open in January.
  https://sdf.org/icf/

The Indy Classic Computer & Gaming Expo is April 13-14 in Indianapolis.
Crowne Plaza
Randy Kindig of the Floppy Days podcast helps with this one - and he was
our guest not too far back.
  https://indyclassic.org/

CocoFest: May 4-5, 2024 in Carol Stream, Illinois (near Chicago)
Holiday Inn & Suites
  https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest/
Table bookings (the main hall is completely taken up now, and 1 of 14 has
been sold for the hall tables already):
  https://www.tandylist.com/

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

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

VCF SouthWest: June 14-16, 2024 (same weekend as BoatFest)
Davidson-Gundy Alumni Center at University of Texas - Dallas
Dallas, Texas
  https://www.vcfsw.org/
UPDATES:
Also this year they are doing "Shows within the Show", and one of those
is a Tandy Assembly meetup:
  (scroll down on the main page)
Jeff Wires (the host of Chronologically Gaming) is also one of the speakers
at VCF-SW this year!
Speakers list:
  https://www.vcfsw.org/speakers

Tandy Assembly for 2024 has been announced for Sep 27-29, 2024.
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
  http://www.tandyassembly.com/

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) CocoTown has released his first two chapter on doing assembly language
sound on the Coco:
Part 1:
  https://youtu.be/ZT6G4wM3ZIo?si=-diAuyIgQvK0i3qh
Part 2:
  https://youtu.be/CfWlkjrkqP0?si=shn8HbqclqDuAcZ2

2) George Janssen released parts 1&2 of his 3 part Coco 3 assembly language
sprites on a background series, showing background building and sprite
movement, with a couple of different techniques, varying wildly in speed. As
usual, his source code for the lesson is on his channel in the Coco Discord.
Part 1:
  https://youtu.be/r6HIRNByNTE?si=kbG-P7uUpUtSCfn4
Part 2 (this one is a full hour):
  https://youtu.be/av4vO9JPWLw?si=0vkQSsr2F4QzW51v
Part 3:
  https://youtu.be/hg_b-N-A0Fg?si=Qf5Vk3i8BgqNnE_l

3) La Coco Strangiato (Bob) posted a video on YouTube showing him building &
installing his Turbo-X LED Driver board:
  https://youtu.be/iC_9lxrjj7w?si=HCdyIJTXlUBJoKR0

4) TRS-80 Retro Programing did another Coco Ultimate video, this time
covering using the sword and changing direction:
  https://youtu.be/QFu4Ux3Xvn0?si=9vyKAgMGY_vJYgL4
And a second update with all directions for walking working:
  https://youtu.be/08XwpSgu7Wo?si=JJzyxSoqMfI0Xnm-

5) Michael Pittsley posted two videos to show a comparison between the two
most advanced ANSI terminal programs on the Coco - Twilight Terminal (by
John Kowalski) and Netmate (by Roger Taylor) using modern Telnet BBS's. His
Facebook post describes the pros/cons of each, and the videos are on YouTube:
Facebook post:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161150361197641/
Twilight Terminal:
  https://youtu.be/XCG-VXPhajs?si=M1g2SDRsOED1j1Je
Netmate:
  https://youtu.be/1HOMpBkp0Xk?si=3mYBHfq6X1EW8fHY

6) Allen Huffman did part 2 of his blog of writing a port of Rick Adam's
"Lights Out" to plain old Color BASIC:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2024/02/06/lets-write-lights-out-in-basic-part-2/
In addition, he also did a blog post on how the color scheme for Coco 1/2
graphics modes work, how the correlate to the text mode (SG-4) colors,
and how it makes sense as far as the color #'s go in BASIC:

https://subethasoftware.com/2024/02/08/the-9-colors-of-the-cocos-high-resolution-screens/
And finally, a request from Allen (based on CocoTown's recent video going
through the pixel aspect ratios between real Coco 1/2 hardware and MAME)
- pictures from Cocos' on real CRT's and a CM-8:

https://subethasoftware.com/2024/02/09/request-pictures-of-coco-1-2-on-a-tv-and-coco-3-on-tv-cm-8/

7) Tim Lindner put up both a blog post and a video to demonstrate that the
PIA2 address mirrors (memory addresses that duplicate the functions of the
primary ones, due to not being fully address decoded) is smaller on a Coco
3 than a Coco 1/2 ($FF20-$FF2F on a Coco 3; $FF20-$FF3F on a Coco 1/2):
Blog:
  https://tlindner.macmess.org/?p=1005
Video:
  https://youtu.be/lvSHaDOJJPA?si=8uWqhbpDDhHxSwv4

8) TJBChris (Christopher Hyzer), who did a demo some months ago using
the Network II controller with the Coco, had noticed back then that the
the Network 3 controller's (quite different hardware - it used the serial
port, not the cassette port), and came out in 1982) ads mentioned that it
would work with the Coco as clients in the future... but that was never
done. Going through the protocols where it does run (in Chris's case, his
Model 12)... he got it working with the Coco (albeit at 300 baud through
the bitbanger). And will be making a YouTube video to show this soon:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161153177947641/

MC-10
-----
1)

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Julian Brown posted some updates to his updated Dragon motherboard
replacement, where he is working on an issue with line pulses:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3643691482557161/

2) Mike Miller has posted scans of the DREAM Dragon assembler (tape version)
to the Dragon Facebook group:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3641557872770522/
(I have local copy to show as well)

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Jim Gerrie ported another Laser 200/Disk Smith VZ-200 game to the MC-10
- this time "Boulder Pit" AP-Soft in 1985. This one uses Greg Dionne's
MC-10 BASIC compiler for some extra speed, and is a puzzle game mixed
with Boulder Dash. Jim went through at least 3 iterations of this game
this week, and believes that this is the final one, although he hasn't
tested the final level (12):
  https://youtu.be/Yj2aPa2x6UU?si=PCzpjJILJ4up3OPe
He also did a port of Matilda's Monopoly for 2 game (originally written
by David Barker in 1975), but added his own low res graphical board display:
  https://youtu.be/i6camGjJraY?si=R9EriW7xnadLIGPF

2) RetroMels on YouTube did an episode of his "80s Program of the Week" -
featuring Planet Invasion for Colour Computer. He also goes into loading
files from cassette and even on radio programs back in the audio - and
along that line, he includes the audio for the game as part of his YouTube
video so you can load it right from the video (we tried that on our show
some years back too). This is the same channel that we covered recently
on how to archive / digitize tapes:
  https://youtu.be/YJjldG3eIEI?si=QS3BJct3In_NV5y2

3) Rick Adams has released an updated version of Shanghai to run from
disk on his github - which now has the full "win screen". He also found
the original title screen (based on the Amiga version, I believe). And it
makes the "hidden" color set much easier to select (the OS9 version has
had the latter for awhile):
Facebook post (with photos):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161143872672641/
github disk image download:
  https://github.com/yggdrasilradio/shanghai/tree/development/redistribute

4) RichN on Discord, who is working on a Coco 1/2 Spy Hunter, put up
an updated video, showing a couple of the weapons in action, the truck
dropping off the players car, and some more terrain to scroll by (including
water). It looks really good!
  (use local copy of spyhunter_update_02-04-2024.mov)

5) Tricob1974 on YouTube put up a longplay (over 45 minutes!) of Ladderman 2
aka Super Ladderman. Unfortunately the aspect ratio of his emulator screen
capture is way out to lunch (twice as wide as it should be)... I suspect
an older version of MAME was used.
  https://youtu.be/srdEx50oDu8?si=z-BnSi7VTGf-xGZI

6) Chronlogically Gaming is taking a little break, but still streamed some
more of September 1982 releases at the beginning of the week... including
Space War on the Dragon 32:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/3get3kDl3Bk?si=uUaNv-YoXM18GdSV&t=1690

7) agamingchannelbyLRU on YouTube has done some more Dragon gameplay videos
in order to submit scores:
  https://www.youtube.com/@agamingchannelbyLRU/videos

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

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Weylan-Yutani Corporation