[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 389, November 23, 2024

Sun Nov 24 09:24:39 EST 2024

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 389, November 23, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
The World of Commodore 2024 is November 30-Dec 1 at the Admiral Inn in
Mississauga, Ontario. Why am I mentioning this? Well, it's sponsored by TPUG,
and they created the SuperPET (a special PET with a 6809 CPU added...) and
they helped port OS-9 Level 1 to it. So it's a sister computer to the Coco
after those improvements.
  https://www.tpug.ca/world-of-commodore/world-of-commodore-2024/

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 has had a date change for next years show due to a scheduling
conflict. It is now 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) Thanks to Luciano Scharf has posted some pictures from RetroSC in
Brazil last weekend, since they didn't have the bandwidth at the show to
live broadcast:

https://www.facebook.com/lscharf/posts/pfbid036vhz8FFxPYexCntuVarDRdpWPJQbj9jB322SK4uurMiZ2B1KfDgFTQJLcQcsgG2vl

2) Glen Hewlett has updated his BASIC TO 6809 compiler:
"Version 3.00 is now out:
There's now a Sample_Programs folder with some example BASIC programs
ready to be compiled:
 HELLO.BAS
 RayTracer_to_BMP_on_SDC.BAS
 Interface_BASIC_and_Assembly.BAS
 Get_Filesize_of_a_File_on_the_SDC.BAS
 SDC_Directory.BAS
This is what's new - Manual has been updated to explain how to use the
new commands
Added SDC file support, you can now read and write files on the SDC
filesystem directly
If a 6309 is present it puts it in native mode (should speed up code
about 15%)
Added compiler option -a which makes your program autostart
Fixed a bug where if a variable name had AND,OR,MOD,XOR,NOT or DIVR in
the name it would create variable names and operators out of it
Fixed a bug with IF command with multiple numeric commands that weren't
evaluating properly"
Github link:
  https://github.com/nowhereman999/BASIC-To-6809

3) Coco Town's latest video is titled "8 surprising 6809 assembly
optimizations (and 3 unsurprising ones)", which is pretty self-explanatory:
  https://youtu.be/Pwd5YxQ-hv8?si=mvsXKQoZQ7L5Gv3A

4) The TRS-80GP emulator received an update to version 2.5.4. Besides adding
brand new emulation of the very rare Tandy 10 from 1978 and numerous other
bug fixes and additions for the black and white TRS-80's, it also includes
updates for the MC-10 (PEEK(2) quick keyboard checking fixed) and the Coco
(Becker port support added):
  http://48k.ca/trs80gp-release-notes.html

5) Paul Fiscarelli has released an update to his Windows based Coco 3
Sprite Compiler program, meant for the 16 color graphics modes of the
Coco 3. Not only does it handle compiled sprites (for speed), but it also
supports DZIP compress background graphics, including entire screens.
  https://github.com/pfiscarelli/CoCo_Sprite_Compiler

6) D. Bruce Moore has done a blog update on his coco.gracenote.ca site,
showing his electronic book (available from several places) System Hacked. I
think this book has actually been out for awhile (the YouTube promo video
is 5 years old), but the blog post is from this past week:

http://coco.gracenote.ca/system-hacked-teenaged-pirates-at-the-dawn-of-the-internet/
D. Bruce Moore and David Kroeker also have an update on the CocoMP3 card
that they have been working that Bruce will be using in his Forest of Doom
sequel... and it may involve a major change to the hardware:
Bruce's blog post:
  http://coco.gracenote.ca/major-design-change-for-cocomp3/
Direct video link:
  https://youtu.be/WbQqJNmOEK4?si=EOVdCn2xROhGkwx6

7) Bob Emery (La Coco Strangiato on YouTube) posted a video of his
rebuilding his Coco 3 Plus. Bonus : His first ever blooper reel is at the
end of the video:
  https://youtu.be/2VsMj72Owe0?si=oHCxZSzdVsWSZ7_E

8) Eddie Malphrus posted a scan of a memo from Radio Shack that was written
by Jerry Heep, about using the Coco as a host to feed diagnostics to a
Videotex terminal:
  (Show local file coco-videotex.jpg)

9) There are some new animation related commands coming in ugBASIC,
and it's author posted some videos showing both Coco 1/2 and Coco 3 demo
programs showing the effects. These will just be entering the Beta branch:
  (See #ugbasic channel on Discord (in Programming And Development group)

10) Ciaran Anscomb (sixxie in the chat) has released XRoar 1.7.1. Most
of the changes came out in 1.7 earlier this past week, with 1.7.1 merely
reducing memory use when reading gamepad mappings files, and including
some files that were missing from the source code tarball. 1.7 added:
 - New -joy-db-file option specifies SDL-compatible gamepad DB file
 - New Linux evdev joystick module
 - "Large changes" to underlying UI mechanisms
 - New features backported to GTK+2 UI.
 - Fixed one cause of crashes running Xroar under Windows 11
It should also be mentioned that XRoar online (including it's implementation
on the Color Computer Archive has been updated to the latest versions
as well.
  http://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/

11) For those who missed last week's Trash Talk Live #41 show, it's available
on YouTube. The Coco was discussed by multiple people, including Jim Brain,
Henry Gernhardt and myself:
  https://www.youtube.com/live/fzr5FV3hRTk?si=DpKSBJ0IYfNQTwMH

12) Pere Serrat put up a file in the Coco Facebook group for getting the
MAME emulator running with a SuperSprite FM+ board, for those without the
physical hardware:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161854350592641/

13) For those who want to try out Steve Bjork's assembly language tutorial
series (on YouTube), Steve Strowbridge has also uploaded the original
slides and files to the Coco Facebook group:
Original YouTube series:
  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDfh7JjQaSYAs92js43dJ05ytKqswUV4r
ZIP of slides and files:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161834702762641/

14) Sheldon MacDonald is working on a Coco 1/2 raycaster in SG4, written
in assembly language:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161830964107641/
He also released version 0.65 of his Dual IDE (Coco and Sega Genesis)
which includes his current source for the raycaster:
  https://www.smdreloaded.com/index.php?topic=9.0

15) Steve Norton has updated documentation for TextMaster, a Coco 1/2/3
program for using the PMODE 4 screen with high res fonts in machine
language. It has 32,36,42,51,64 and 85 columns (24 lines), and features
different sized fonts for the same "text" resolutions, proportional spacing
support, super/subscripts, underline, inverse, upside down, key click,
CTRL-G bell and more. It also links itself into BASIC, allowing PRINT @
to work, key repeat, screen scroll protection, full length error messages,
and more. Control and Escape codes allow one to use all of these features
in their own programs:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10161828648322641/

MC-10
-----
1)

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Dublevay on the World of Dragon forums mentioned a slight correction
is needed to the Dragon Beta motherboards' parts list in order for the
mouse add-on to work (scroll down to message dated November 19):
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=11044&start=30

2) Polish YouTube channel "Retro Borsuk i Montek!" - a Polish gaming show,
as part of the episode "Komputeriada #4", showed some new computers that
they acquired - which includes a Dragon 32 (which or some reason came with
Coco joysticks rather than Dragon ones), but it isn't working properly
(note: for some reason, YouTube's auto translate quit working before this
part of the video). Also of note: Their show is even longer than ours -
this one ran for almost 9.5 hours!):
  https://www.youtube.com/live/3l3wVHEt4DM?si=tnR6b433W_9OxE3M&t=25184

3) Piotr Bugaj (from Poland) let the Dragon Facebook group know that he will
have another small batch of his Dragon disk drive controllers available
soon. These support up to 4 OS ROM's (like the Super Controller by Disto
for the Coco):
Facebook post:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3874372282822412/
Order page:
  https://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/61190

4) Julian Brown has another batch of his Issue 2 Dragon 32 motherboard
replacment. This features extra enhancements as well - support for 64K,
ability to switch between Dragon and Coco keyboard layouts, the parallel
port can be configured as a serial port to use with DriveWire, 2 button
joystick support, and it can be made to handle PAL or NTSC video:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3875117782747862/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) The Wargaming Scribe reviewed another Coco war game this past week,
for Battle of the Bulge from Ark Royal Games in 1984:
  https://zeitgame.net/archives/15978

2) XperTek played Speed Racer this past week on his real Coco 2 with
amber monitor:
  https://youtu.be/dLMivP1Vvk4?si=U8vs9brw999ueKe4

3) Jim Gerrie posted his MC-19 port of "Hopscotch" originally for the Matra
Alice in France (originally title "La Jeu de Marelle". This is a one player
game (against the computer) where the player tried to build "hopscotches",
which is an alignment of 3 pieces of the same color (further rules are in
the video description):
  https://youtu.be/gkAxErxw-S0?si=Be2dujCh3c4mjiRH
(I should also mention that Jim's ZIP of all of his Coco games/programs,
and another ZIP of all of his MC-10 games/programs, are now uploaded to
the Color Computer Archive)

4) Pere Serrat has released two new AGD game packs this week for the
Supersprite FM+ board (For both Dragons and Coco's), with palettes fixed
to more closely match the Spectrum originals. Pack #4 contains 6 games:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11207
Pack #5 contains 6 games as well:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11210

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

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