[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 348, January 27, 2024

Sun Jan 28 08:49:58 EST 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 348, January 27, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:
---------------------
NONE

Interviews schedule:
--------------------
- February 3 (NOTE DATE CHANGE) Glen Dahlgren comes back - he has the final
book in his Chaos series coming out, and possibly some further Coco stuff
as well.
  https://mysteriumstoryworks.substack.com/p/ready-to-enter-the-realm-of-gods

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.

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 (3 left in the main hall):
  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 released a video showing how access the full 64K of RAM in a Coco
1/2/3 - and how to be able to access it for extra screen images from BASIC:
  https://youtu.be/PQSmJVuza4U?si=bGRx8aZuxnBSaqgG
He also released a video about MAME and screen aspect ratios, particularly
with his patch to MAME, and compares them with real hardware:
  https://youtu.be/gSKKVe1lnPI?si=LwAm3PzN1uKFV8Ue

2) George Janssen posted lesson 7 of his assembly language tutorial for the
6809 and the Coco 3, following up on last weeks graphics starfield demo with
the full version doing up to 128 stars, with speed and direction controls
(my mistake last week - I thought he had put the code up for the 128 star
version in the lesson, but it was just the single star routine). As usual,
you can download the source from his channel on the Coco Discord, but
if you did type in last weeks lesson, this one uses that code as a base,
so you don't have to type in the whole thing from scratch:
  https://youtu.be/VqKkHi2Cbxc?si=3NWUHz58sBPPBNCf

3) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube did another update about Coco Ultimate
- "updates and nuances":
  https://youtu.be/hHf-EKIDqFI?si=FivQBOl2i7dcIWDf
And a quick no commentary video showing the fighter and wizard walking in
a train:
  https://youtu.be/CuGwCmFu5d4?si=R-owK23YYFV86T4-

4) Keith March let me know that he has a github set up with hardware files
for the IMS MM/1 computer, as well as links to hardware that will work
with it (including the Blue SCSI from Joe's Computer Museum, originally
designed for the older Mac's):
  https://github.com/HomerKH19/MM1-Updates

5) Allen Huffman did multiple posts this week on his subethasoftware website:
Tank 8x8 graphics demo - using Get/Put buffers with "erase the back end
of a move" built into the buffer to make it both slightly faster overall
and to remove flicker. He also added tire tracks and some sound. These
were all based on viewer suggestions:

https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/20/tank-8x8-with-no-flicker-tracks-and-sound/
  https://youtu.be/pV6_faXChGo?si=x6RANP540POCbzO_
Carlos Comacho posted a cool little program for the BBC Micro that builds a
graphic screen of galaxies, and put out a challenge to Coco people to make
a Coco version of it. Allen did a blog post of his attempt (including some
things that are different between BBC BASIC and Microsoft Extended BASIC),
but it didn't quite work, so he asked for help. He had 44 comments as of
this morning.

https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/19/porting-a-bbc-micro-galaxy-program-to-the-coco/
Original Facebook post - note that a conversion that works (but the result
is different due to the different ways RND works) by Paul Shoemaker does
appear in the comments - both a picture & the sourcecode.
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10161121702617641/
As kind of a follow up to the Galaxy porting, he showed how to duplicate
the function of the BBC BASIC's LN using LOG (the BBC & BASIC09 support
both commands):

https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/22/getting-ln-in-basic-on-a-machine-that-only-has-log/
Allen also found the source for his Dr. Who Demo program who wrote back
in 1986 - which includes multi-voice music he made in Musica himself
by ear. He used aliases in the credits, being worried about copyright
infringement for either/both the logo and the music:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/23/1986-doctor-who-demo-source-found/
He also did a followup on an older article on using Hex values instead of
decimal within Extended BASIC. Hex values are quicker to convert to the
internal floating point format than decimal, so he wrote a test program
to quantify the speed difference. Quite noticeable is the jump in speed
once decimal numbers hit 2 digits (and that just a "." for zero is still
faster than hex):

https://subethasoftware.com/2024/01/25/how-much-faster-is-hex-versus-decimal-on-the-coco/
Allen also did some posts to Facebook only - one was to compare the
composite and RGB colors for the basic 8 colors in XRoar (Coco 3) and
XRoar's composite Coco 1/2:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161130966272641/
Another was going through the way BASIC handles colors in the various
PMODE resolutions and SCREEN color sets - and how they were made to match
low res color #'s so it would be easier to remember which color was what:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161126803027641/

6) Carlos Camacho came across an interesting French article about using
the GCC C (version 2.95.3) compiler on the Thomson MO7/MO8 computers
(which also used 6809's) from France. He includes the original French
article and an english translation in a ZIP file that he uploaded to the
Coco Facebook group:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161130841737641/

7) Erico Monteiro did a blog post (including animated GIF's) showing his
scene generator for Allen Huffman's 8x8 tank program we mentioned earlier
(he even did a live stream on Discord this past week showing him developing
some alias color 8x8 sprites):
  https://fuedhq.blogspot.com/2024/01/pmode-4-artifact-colored-8x8-tileset.html

8) Thomas Cherryhomes (who is porting Fujinet to the Coco) wants to get
some people trying the Fujinet hardware for early testing, and published
a link to a github showing how to make one:
  https://github.com/djtersteegc/Coco-FujiNet

9) Eddie Malphrus found an old Coco cassette from PDPWARE in 1983 called
"58 COCO PROGRAMS". It seems to be some PD, some magazine type-ins from the
few he has tested. Does anyone here know anything about this compilation,
or the company? (some more details and/or screenshots from programs on
the tape in the comments):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/colorcomputer/posts/902782594670807/

10) David Collins posted some updates about his homebrew 6309 based computer
on hackster.io.
  Starting the bus with an Arduino without a latch (covers bus arbitration):

https://hackaday.io/project/193108-hb63c09m-mini-itx-63c09-form-factor-computer/log/227038-sharing-the-bus-with-an-arduino-without-a-latch
Starting to work on the firmware (on his github):
  https://github.com/lindoran/HB63C09

11) Ciaran Anscomb has announced the release of XRoar 1.5, and posted
about it in the World of Dragon forums:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11152
Download at:
  https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/

12) 8bitsinthebasement on YouTube released a new video (for the first time
in awhile), where he goes over using the CocoSDC without SDC Explorer:
  https://youtu.be/6WWOEo3nMn0?si=98unMSs17c9JWHKi

MC-10
-----
1)

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) John Whitworth (user "dublevay" on the World of Dragon forums) posted
that he has started a github repository for the Dragon Beta:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11044
github itself:
  https://github.com/dragonplus-electronics/Dragon-Beta

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) James Gerrie did multiple game conversions for the MC-10 this week:
Jumbled Letters, originally by Vivian & Claude Barber for the Alice in 1984
(translate from French to English):
  https://youtu.be/r2K0DlmgKi4?si=ibJTt6uGtmSS4OEp
Slither, a snake game originally for the Coco from Color Computer News
November 1982 (and allows diagonal movement):
  https://youtu.be/ji_Nb-WGdWQ?si=cUSqttzhu6Mvkw3G
Killerbot, a real time version of Chase! originally by David Ahl (of
Creative Computing fame) with 2 skill levels, ported from the early
Aardvark-80 Coco 4K commercial game written by Rodger Olsen in 1981:
  https://youtu.be/p5Wa2XNXFJk?si=KTt9IArOd98yROWi

2) Howard Billson posted a video to the Coco Facebook group showing a
real time experience of loading the official Frogger on a real Coco,
as we would have done back in the day:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161130654487641/

3) While not "news" per se, Carlos Camcho found a copy of an interesting
article/interview from ANTIC magazine's November 1985 issue, talking with
Robert Lech and Troy Dahlman on both their C.O.L.R graphics editor and
their official Joust port for the Atari ST. But it also goes through their
earlier history with their company, The Rugby Circle, and some of their
Coco development from that time - including Buzzard Bait (sold through
Tom Mix Software):
  https://www.atarimagazines.com/v4n7/colrobjecteditor.html

4) Chronologically Gaming covered some more Coco and Dragon software this
week, dating from September of 1982:
Circus Adventure (Dragon 32)
  https://www.youtube.com/live/V7vHV7-rsO0?si=7M8aROqurvmUIdAh&t=1356
Clowns & Balloons (Coco)
  https://www.youtube.com/live/V7vHV7-rsO0?si=FK7BfedvwNv5MtC9&t=1541
Color Golf (Tom Mix) (Coco) - this shows a revised version with PMODE 4
lowercase instructions, but is essentially the same as the 1982 original
for gameplay
  https://www.youtube.com/live/V7vHV7-rsO0?si=iowQtlQ6JH5eJEvs&t=2045
Danger Island (Dragon 32)
  https://www.youtube.com/live/V7vHV7-rsO0?si=Rzbn7ybM4sgpBioO&t=2677

5) YouTube spanish channel "El Blog de The Punisher" (The Punisher Live Blod)
episode 78 features the Dragon 32/64 for a 3 hour stream, playing a variety
of games (I did notice that his emulator does artifact colors - but only the
TANO Dragon's in North America did that. It also seems to be running slow):
  https://youtu.be/a0M_6hd57zc?si=_vb9ejJq8IWHEFGy

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

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