[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 379, September 14, 2024

[R. Allen Murphey]

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 379, September 14, 2024
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Special Guests today:
---------------------

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


Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
Tandy Assembly for 2024 has been announced for Sep 27-29, 2024. An update
from Pete on August 9 - they have now sold out of tables for the show! And
another announcement - Steve Leininger, the designer of the TRS-80, is
the keynote speaker!
  http://www.tandyassembly.com/speakers.html
Courtyard by Marriott Springfield
Springfield, Ohio
  http://www.tandyassembly.com/

Also that weekend is the Amigos next live ICC (International Computer
Club), which will be at 4 PM EST on September 28. This is for all retro
computers & gaming consoles. It streams live on their Twitch channel and
YouTube channels).
Previous club videos can be found here:
  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaD3XRYu1lQTWrMYYPmaOa4AIj4xArroD

The Dragon Meetup is 100% official now: October 12-13, 2024 at the Museum
of Technology in Cambridge, England:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3776261519300156/

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. Tickets can be ordered online for individual
days or both days.
All of their events (including separate entries for both days) at the
bottom of this page:
  https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/pages/30677/What-s-On/
The Saturday event specifically:
 
https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/72253/Retro-Computer-Festival-2024-Saturday-9th-November/

Retro SC, the retro show in Brazil, is having their 2024 event on November
16. This always has a strong Coco/CP-400/etc. contingent, including multiple
people who have been guests on our show.It is happening at 1670 Haroldo
Soares Glavan road, Cacupé, Florianópolis, Santa Catarina.
  https://retrosc.org/

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.


Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) lowlevel on the Coco Discord made his SepTandy project a DIY RF modulator
replacement style composite board for the Coco 2 (Coco 2's with flay laying
RF modulators), and shared it on pcbway:
  https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/CompyCoco2_d1da9863.html

2) The GrumpyOZRetro podcast (an Australian vintage computing/retro gaming
podcoast) published the 2nd part (of 2) of their interview with Ian Mavric
(maker of many Coco and TRS-80 hardware in Australia, as well as one of
the main drivers behind Tandy Assembly). LANGUAGE WARNING:
Part 1 from June 27 (main topic is the 2024 Canberra Vintage Computer Expo):
  https://open.spotify.com/episode/5TEQErQlcyjxdA015rgdi7
Part 2 from September 1 (main topic is the remainder of the interview
with Ian):
  https://open.spotify.com/episode/3e3j5TXxSYmmIQjlUuXpSk

3) CocoTown does his second SepTandy video - going further into using the
language LUA along with MAME it's debugging facilities. This round he goes
through building a performance meter for MAME:
  https://youtu.be/xBgKwqdwxDo?si=SAnGbssuX46D5Lxn

4) Bob Emery (La Coco Strangiato on Youtube) released a half hour video
presentation of his Color FOG GUI for Coco 3 BASIC that he originally wrote
20 years ago (for HDB-DOS and RGB-DOS compatible hard drive systems) but
recently updated to handle the CocoSDC (including with real floppy drives):
  https://youtu.be/fBr0dKrB7cU?si=aVi1hatZL93XKYMB

5) Ken of Canadian Retro Things let me know about a brand new YouTuber
called "Basement Bodge" who just released his first video... and it's about
hooking up a Coco 1 to a TV that doesn't have the old RF plug. I would
tell you more, but I was traumatized watching the show open title sequence:
  https://youtu.be/2RUOBW45m1k?si=JIz1p1agp2jYfSC3

6) And Ken himself released his summary of VCF-MW 2024:
  https://youtu.be/TAD6KAFF6Xs?si=UAuhJxjIV15gE3pg

7) Retro-Spective on YouTube did a YouTube short of his cleaning up (and
fixing the spacebar) on a Tandy Coco 2 he aquired. He says in the video
that he could not find much on the web for working on a Coco 2 (not sure
why, there are lots). He cleaned it up quite nicely, but thinks it isn't
working. I am not sure if he knows about RF vs. composite.
  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/paAJQ-Nl5jQ

8) 73 outdoors w/Bob KK4DIV on YouTube posted a #SepTandy video to YouTube
about a Coco 2 that he found at his local ham radio clubhouse. The machine
looks like it started having some upgrades done to it, but were never
finished:
  https://youtu.be/9e9npYgNKSk?si=4Kd-bsFecONbHFhs

9) Retro Gaming Nook also released a #SepTandy video - this one showing
both a Triad+ 512k Memory upgrade from Cloud9 and the KeyFix3 upgrade from
Rick of Computer Conect being installed in his Coco 3:
  https://youtu.be/LkZ25P1k-nE?si=YOn7j6QKecfUp0qM

10) The Vintage Geek channel on YouTube put up a quick video to celebrate
SepTandy, including some of their Coco classroom set up that Ken and I
got to try out when we were there last year:
  https://youtu.be/7hKlN0Ig7tY?si=-Pvg7lraB0a3oZgw

11) 8-Bit Retro Journal put up a video previewing what he will be covering
during SepTandy this - including a Coco 2 video he mentions at about 3:40:
  https://youtu.be/fqJV8hTYa0E?si=Am66ZHmIG8IpXJC5


MC-10
-----
1) Spriteworx (who is the man behind the T.H.E.M. that was unboxed last
week and also built the MC-10 joystick interface that comes with it - a
left/right only stick with a fire button) to discuss making the joystick
interface based on a magazine article originally by Greg Taylor. I believe
this is the same one as used by Jim Gerrie on his joystick style games on
the MC-10. It runs out of the Serial bit-banger port, and he adds a switch
to the adaptor to switch which axis is active (he also has a sneak preview
of the game T.H.E.M. at the end:
  https://youtu.be/QuTTqs77y5E?si=22pWMU76Qj9Zhyq7
He then followed up this morning with an almost hour long video with PiKey-10
(USB keyboard) from Brendan Donahe, composite video mod and MCX-32SD (from
Ed Snider/Zippsterzone) upgrades and installation. And an official sneak
peak of T.H.E.M.
  https://youtu.be/GOFHna8vDXw?si=ioM8kemFabkBLaa5


Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Julian Brown posted a photo in the Dragon group on Facebook... as he
stated, he is almost ready to test; he just needs a second power supply. As
shown in the photo, this is his main Rev 3 board (which adds 256K RAM
support and makes the video out circuit swappable between PAL and NTSC in
a Dragon 32 replacement motherboard; and his 4 slot MPI:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3805039889755652/
Update this morning: After a scare that he had a dead part (turns out he
misread the data sheet), he now has power:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3805946996331608/

2) David Mitchell posted on his blog some video of a graphics demo typed in
from Dragon User magazine, January 1985, and shows both PMODE 3 (4 color)
and PMODE 4 (2 color) versions:
 
https://davysretrocorner.blogspot.com/2024/09/stitchet-type-in-from-dragon-user.html

3) Retro For All (a Spanish Youtube channel) put up a video showing some
of their Dragon 32 themes for Hypermax and Retro Para Todos (emulator
front ends, I think). They mention in the description a link to get the
themes, although it mentions that a password is shown in the video to
enable the download:
  https://youtu.be/UfrWTo3MVkA?si=I-5i6nYWuc-xTihd


Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Chronologically Gaming covered more Coco and Dragon games this past
week, including:
Poseidon Adventure (it is good that the Dragon version of this still exists;
the original Coco version by JARB Software is one that we don't have in
the Color Computer Archive):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUXEjutH-F4&t=50s
Rail Runner (this one ran with really poor keyboard controls for Jeff; I
don't remember it being that bad. I *think* that the game uses the BASIC
ROM POLCAT routine, and I know if Color BASIC 1.2 it was changed and was
less responsive, so I am thinking that is what happened to his gameplay?
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUXEjutH-F4&t=619s
The Dragon game Space Monopoly (which was Color Space Trader a year and
a half before on the Coco):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAIUTsY2sE0&t=303s

2) Lee Perkins posted a new update to his Cloud Kingdoms game port from
the PC - it now supports item pick ups, bumper collisions, and being
pushed. Not all collisions with objects are working, and some aren't
reacting quite at the proper time, but good progress:
  https://youtu.be/Uiq_V9E1z1M?si=V60M2qb-Qxb5CTHF

3) For our Spanish speaking/reading people in the audience, the spanish
versions of 2 games (School Maze and The Final Countdown) are now available
for the Dragon in the World of Dragon forums:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11193

4) A new cross platform game written with the ugBASIC compiler is out,
called Hangword. It has Coco 1/2, Coco 3 and Dragon versions available
(amongst many others). You can download it for free (or pick your own
price) from spotlessmind1975's itch.io page (he is the author of ugBASIC)
(I have the Coco 1/2 version on my desktop):
  https://spotlessmind1975.itch.io/hangword

5) Simon Plumbe posted on the Dragon Facebook group that Mastertronic
has their first Dragon game review for a game made by Mastertronic -
Vegas Jackpot from August 14, 1984:
  https://mastertronic.co.uk/game-review-vegas-jackpot-mastertronic-dragon-32/

6) Darren Ottery is looking for some lost games for the MC-10 that were
advertised in Australian Mico magazine (similar to what I have been doing
on the Coco). He posted a photo of an ad for multiple game from Martin
Wells Software - 6 that run in 4K, and 3 that required 20K - in the MC-10
group on Facebook. Has anybody seen this games, or better yet still has
copies of them?
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/8053683488091736/

7) And along the same line - Jim Gerrie is looking for another missing
MC-19 game: Adventure in Bipland, a graphical adventure game, originally
sold by The Dataman in Hamilton, Ontario, and he quotes the ad in the
MC-10 group on Facebook:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/8052251591568259/

8) Attempts: A Gaming channel (by LRU), where he goes for "official" high
scores, added a variety of games on a variety of platforms as he usually
does. One was Dragon Data's Breakout. This is your standard paddle/ball
breakout game, but with a twist - the bricks are slowly scrolling down
the screen towards the player. And hitting a red brick doubles the speed
of the ball, I believe:
  https://youtu.be/e6PQX9nEpCI?si=OD33r6SEYYl_YBwt

9) And Tim and AJ have released the 3rd ~2 hour episode of AJ playing
Dungeons of Daggorath, the worlds most disguised speed typing tutor. Will
she get past level 3 on this episode?
  https://youtu.be/u8chz3hT1OI?si=xhK_JuhByDFbOwLm

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

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