[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 370, July 13, 2024

Sun Jul 14 09:41:46 EDT 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 370, July 13, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:
---------------------
 None

Interview schedule:
--------------------
 None

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
CocoTech episode #006 - Nick Marentes and I will be presenting a
talk on fooling Extended BASIC into doing some graphics commands using
Semigraphics-12 or Semigraphics-24. This will happening July 22 at 7 pm EST,
and will include accompanying PDF version of the slideshow and a DSK image.

VCF-West looks to be happening August 2-3 (Fri-Sat) at the Computer History
Museum in Mountain View, California. This year they are a full partner with
the museum, so that admission for both the museum and VCF can be done with
one purchase, and the are taking people booking to be speakers/presenters
now as well.
CHM (Computer History Museum)
1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
Mountain View, CA
  https://vcfed.org/2024/03/14/vcf-west/

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 announced their new, larger venue for this year (#19)
- the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, IL. Sept
7-8, 2024 (Sept 6 evening (Friday) is reserved for vendors, etc to set
up). Unfortunately, their original block of rooms already sold out in 3
hours after they announced yesterday. VCF is working with the hotel to
get more, but that won't happen until Monday)
  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. UPDATE:
THEY HAVE STARTED POSTING EXHIBITORS ON THEIR WEBSITE
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
  http://www.tandyassembly.com/

The Dragon Meetup will be October 12-13, 2024 at Cambridge in England. Not
sure which venue, though (Centre for Computing History or Museum of
Technology):

https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11179&p=25389#p25389

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. NOTE: thanks to Randy Kindig, it is confirmed
that it is a 2 day show.

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

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) CocoTown explores how to do keyboard and joystick button access in
assembly language:
  https://youtu.be/qA14gcAJajg?si=LfyUK8VfVW9Hug_i

2) Boisy Pitre has posted a longer, part 1 video of how the boot environment
on the Foenix F256 with the 6809 CPU added works:
  https://youtu.be/yABeHb7dXPc?si=qvokWuSCw7nTXxqb
He also released part 2, which covers OS-9 fundamentals for those not
familiar:
  https://youtu.be/YpoqTyrty8k?si=kizzdcal2aJNYRTE

3) Gary Becker has uploaded a firmware update for the GIME-X, which fixes a
bug for the cartridge ROM addressing. These can be found (both for regular
RAM and faster static RAM upgrades) in the GIME-X-Y-Z-infinity channel.

4) TRS-80 Retro Programing did a video on GET/PUT and DIMing for the
arrays. Unfortunately he uses the Tandy manuals for calculating the DIM
size needed... and that is multiple TIMES too much RAM being allocated:
  https://youtu.be/9G2n1ljdWwM?si=Nc_TEcwQfR1RQQO5
BUT... since both Tim Lindner and I commented on that, he did an updated
video taking that into consideration:
  https://youtu.be/yFm7QR7FUWw?si=4_IHmFmZhCpRV1SU
  (5:50 showing original DIM based on BASIC manual)
  (8:07 to show newly calculated DIM)

5) George Philips (of TRS80GP emulator fame - which now does the Coco 1/2,
by the way) let me know that the trs8bit 2024 competition is on. The object
this year is to write an AI that plays Defense Command (famous Model 1/3
game). He has arranged things so that the AI can be written in BASIC - not
only for the Model 1/3/4's that can actually play the game, but also in Coco
BASIC. He also has an "open" side for writing the AI in any platform at all.
The competition page is here:
  http://48k.ca/comp2024.html
He also talks about the competition in the 39th TRS-80 Trash Talk Live
episode from May 4 (During CocoFest which is why we all likely missed it)
(34:13 shows the Coco interfacing with it):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuxD8z4bTSg&t=1726s

6) Pierre Sarrazin has released CMOC 0.1.87. This update adds:
- experimental GCC6809 calling convention (where B&X pass paramaters to
a function)
- OS9 interrupt function now allowed to receive a parameter (so the signal
handler can receive the signal # in B)
- several new command line options (specify that char is unsigned by default,
set the stack ptr address directly, pass pragma's to LWASM
- several bug fixes, improvements & optimizations
You can get the latest version from Pierre's website:
  http://perso.b2b2c.ca/~sarrazip/dev/cmoc.html

7) Jeffrey Alderson has posted a link to his repository of VCC that has
been redone in Visual Studio 2022 to run on ARM64 versions of Windows,
not just Intel CPU's:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161426121947641/

9) Glen Hewlett announced that he has a cross-system BASIC compiler for
the Coco 1. It's not done yet, but has a fairly extensive command set
(including support for joysticks and some PMODE 4 graphics, extras like
WHILE loops, etc. The compiler itself is written in QB64, and does the
finally assembly for the Coco using LWASM, from what I understand. He is
looking for some volunteers to test it before he makes it available to
the public. Contact him in the "basiccompilers" Discord group, under the
"Programming and Development" section for details.

9) The author of ugBASIC (spotlessmind1975 in the Coco Discord), fresh
off of releasing his multi-platform Sokoban using BASIC compiler, has
released an update to the compiler itself. version 1.16.2 fixes a bugs with
FOR/NEXT loops that work backwards, STEP not working properly for FOR/NEXT
on Dragons & Coco's, and fixed PROCEDURE / ON PROC if the procedure name
is a reserved word. This is a cross compiler that you write and compile
code on a modern platform (Windows 32/64 bit, Linux 32/64 bit) and targets
many 8 bit computers:
  https://ugbasic.iwashere.eu/

10) Tech Guy Life on YouTube put a video up about retrobrighting a Coco
1 with a twist - he is working on the keys in the chiclet keyboard:
  https://youtu.be/j28VpFsinoU?si=nxUJGKBa1FGbsVmB

MC-10
-----
1)

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Julian Brown is putting out a call for assistance working on his latest
Dragon boards. To quote:
"Basically I need volunteers for checking the design, build and
operation. Not looking to raise an army but I really need another pair of
eyes to prevent avoidable errors and just make the board designs better
and easier to build.
At this stage everything is in KiCad and stored on Github so there is
no costs other than time but once the boards are fabricated there is the
cost of parts and fabrication. I can pay for boards and shipping but not
parts so serious interest only. Testing of the boards naturally follows
assembly but hopefully the assembled boards can be shared out (shipping
costs allowing). I need to thrash out the practicalities of this with
anyone that expresses interest"
You can reach him both in the Dragon group on Facebook, and through the
Coco Discord (his handle there is "jimbro100")
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3749344098658565/

2) YouTube Channel MIGs Yesterchips released a video about the Dragon 32
done in German (turn on autotranslate to English & CC):
  https://youtu.be/4YuFJwi9dys?si=7pMMQQNYH9e3LZ7b

3) Retro Krazy released a video on YouTube that combines both a Dragon
32 joystick adaptor and 8 Bits in a Basement's game, Bob and the Alien
Fireflies:
  https://youtu.be/lVsrZi9jts0?si=XivmBcPpsKdhajan

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Jim Gerrie ported "Solitaire for Two" from the TAB book "Computer
Graphics with 29 Ready to Run Programs, original written for the TRS-80
Model 1/3/4 with Level II BASIC:
  https://youtu.be/JzLm4hVlYKw?si=vVRh5_NLL6yckTxj
(Will mention again that Jim has moved all of his software downloads to
the Internet Archive)

2) XperTek does a playthrough of the original Space Invaders by Spectral
Associates on his real Coco 2 with amber monitor (this is one of the
earliest Space Invaders clones - and even adds a small shield that you
can move with a second joystick):
  https://youtu.be/Z9TMaTM0FAU?si=OMVlVipdaf9nmkHN

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

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