[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 397, January 25, 2025

Sun Jan 26 08:43:58 EST 2025

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 397, January 25, 2025
==============================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
VCF-SoCal - Feb 15-16 (Hotel Fera in Orange, California).
  https://www.vcfsocal.com/

VCF East is April 4-6, 2025 - same facility as this year. Info Age Science
Museum, Wall, NJ.
  https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-east/

The next Manitoba Retro Computer & Gaming club meetup is at the Fort Rouge
Leisure Center in Winnipeg, Manitoba on April 12. This is the same one I
attended last weekend, along with D. Bruce Moore and David Kroeker. This
next one is more themed around the Commodore 128, but I expect a wide
variety of machines like they had this past one, which was TRS-80 themed
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/mbretro/posts/1830196931063991/

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/

BoatFest will be July 11-13 in Hurricane, WV.

Tandy Assembly for 2025 dates have been announced - it will be Sept 26 to Sep
28 at the Courtyard by Marriott Springfield Downtown in Springfield, Ohio:
  https://www.tandyassembly.com/
There were some issues with people getting the room discount for Tandy
Assembly, so a direct link to the Tandy Assembly discount page is available:

https://www.marriott.com/event-reservations/reservation-link.mi?guestreslink2=true&id=1736272541233&key=GRP&fbclid=IwY2xjawHuW9JleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHRD9cHXLrz9m2RLsPGX_Xm-h-vUdAv8vvjVcv-4h8YBQOtvU5qwd2eqQ2g_aem_FQ2XTnEEbx8JK0elPC48xg

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) Frank of RetroRewind.ca wants to announce that their first new batch of
CocoSDC's are now available as of last night as they continue catching up
after production of everything they manufacture was on hold due to flood
damage. Of note: this is a modernized version that now uses some surface
mounted components, so they should be able to produce them faster from
now on as well.
  https://retrorewind.ca/tandy-coco

2) Grayson Walker posted a short BASIC program to draw circles on the
low res screen (SET/RESET, 64x32). In the comments, John Selbie posted an
algorithm to draw circles that does not require SIN or COS at all:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162238819027641/

3) Jim Jewett uploaded a quick video showing an animated scout walker
walking on a PMODE 4 screen. He mentions it running in "fast mode" -
not sure yet if he means speedup POKE enabled or overclocking an emulator:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162238637082641/

4) Brenda Make posted some photos of her taking apart her Coco 3, in order
to measure things to work on a 3D printable replacement Coco 3 case:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/posts/3837928859803363/

5) TRS-80 Retro Programing posted an hour video with him (live) working
on a mapping system using PMODE 4 graphics on a Coco 1/2:
  https://youtu.be/HNhoUicj0I4?si=XhECtznqx31sNzrg
And he did a part 2:
  https://youtu.be/6DNSrqqEFy8?si=BijhPMOs8npEH7NR

6) Terry Trap on Facebook showed some photos of an XNOR circuit to "create
composite sync out" on the Coco 3. This is composite sync+RGB, which allows
the GBS8200 chip that it uses to output Coco 3 RGB output (see screenshots
in the comments), so it seems to work similar to CocoBiz's SCART adapter,
but I think he is planning on VGA output or something else (not sure):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162245418702641/

7) Mauricio Matte posted a photo of a complete R-G-B set of modern CP-400
joysticks:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162243448722641/

8) Carlitto Camacho posted some screen shots of a simple Javascript program
he made using LLM's (Large Language Models, used in AI) to convert PNG to
PMODE 3 style graphics for sprites:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162240465897641/

9) Marc Maltais posted a DSK image to the Coco Facebook group that contains
a variety of BASIC programs that draw graphics based on trigonometry. NOTE:
Some of the programs require a Coco 3:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162240304712641/

10) For those who want a deep dive into the network drive functionality
in Fujinet, Thomas Cherryhomes put out an over hour long video discussing
and showing it in action on the Atari 8 bit platform (including HTTP, FTP,
SMB, etc.):
  https://youtu.be/Vqz_AZgxaVY?si=TYQWiETz6HX5EP-s

MC-10
-----
1) Jim Gerrie posted an updated version if his Nova Scotia MC-10 demo,
adding the Cape Breton Flag to the others he did previously:
  https://youtu.be/Sq0BS04Chyo?si=OZqk7Fa1b6aEpNRC

2) Robert Sieg posted a sample of his 128x96 24 bit color converter that
he adapted for the VMC-10 emulator, but running with the MCX-128 (128K
upgrade). As a sample he shows a scaled down image of a blackhole:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/8911512418975501/

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Julian Brown had a couple of updates to his modernized Dragon
motherboards, including finding a new cheaper FPGA solution, and some
discussion on ideas for it:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3923031397956500/
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3922960951296878/

2) Zephyr on the World of Dragon forums uploaded the cartridge version of
Simon Jonassen's Tandy Assembly demo for the Dragon. It can run on a 64K
Dragon after running a ROM to RAM copy utility:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6032&start=30
And he uploaded said ROM to RAM copy utility. This does a little more
than just the standard copy; it also patches it to protect this mode when
hitting the RESET button (leaving it 64K RAM with the patched BASIC). I
should mention that it also includes the same utility for Coco 1/2's
(Extended BASIC required):
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11230

3) Arctic Retro did a 45 minute video showing SDC based ROM/Disk emulators
for both the Dragon and the MSX. These are the kernelcrash created versions
(from their github). It seems to work pretty good, although they really
need the equivalent of SDC Explorer (the first half of the video covers
the Dragon):
Video:
  https://youtu.be/8bWGjtoMgl8?si=h0WifrsYvDW4h3hC
The github readme page for the Dragon part of his project (it works on a
Coco as well, by the way):

https://github.com/kernelcrash/dragon-rom-and-floppy-emulator/blob/master/README.md

4) The Retro Chart Show did a Dragon 32 special - based on July 1984 Dragon
User magazine of the top 10 games for the Dragon 32 that month (They used
copyrighted music in the background from the time period, so mute it):
  https://youtu.be/mCLXqn4Bl_c?si=7RI4ubzWzoqvkw27
Having not found the channel before, they have some other top 10's for
the Dragon. Mach 1984 features both the Dragon 32 and BBC side by side:
  https://youtu.be/Qj6wvgn_hsQ?si=-SBlS_81DUq6yDKu

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) gamehuggers (Joshua Jaeger) on YouTube announced that he has a Downland
gameplay video that will debut on his channel on January 31st at 10 am
CST that was recorded live before (maybe on Twitch)?
  https://youtu.be/cYnuoukx_FA?si=Z48c2xguWIzcfoNO

2) Jim Jewett posted another game DSK image that he wrote to the Coco
Facebook group, called Slopes. It is a a downhill slalom course. O and P
keys move left and right. It is small Color BASIC game that I think will
run in 4K RAM:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162243785142641/
He also uploaded his SpaceWar space/stategy game (not the arcade game of
the same name) to the Coco group on Facebook (we showed his gameplay video
last week, but the game itself wasn't uploaded yet):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162248638392641/

3) Grayson Walker posted a BASIC listing on the Coco Facebook group that
is similar to Jim's a few days earlier, but with a canyon theme. It does
require Extended BASIC for one line (40):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162239903132641/

4) Pere Serrat has converted the 5 remaining Inufuto games to the Dragon
(the others had been converted already). This is mainly to make the key
mappings work properly (the Dragon and Coco have different keyboard matrix
rows going to the PIA, so they don't read keys the same). He has a ZIP
available with all 5 on the World of Dragon forum. Games included are:
AntiAir, Hopman, the brand new Meiyen, Osotos, and Yewdow:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11232

5) Markyd68 posted both the source and a .CAS file for the game NiteMove
that originally appeared in Dragon User magazine's May 1986 issue. This
is a machine language game in semigraphics; however it crashed soon after
starting the game when I tried it in XRoar with D64 emulation. It may be D32
only, or perhaps (like some older Coco cassette games) will not run properly
with a disk drive attached (my XRoar defaults to DragonDOS being installed):
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11229
(Show screenshots I took - the intro and the initial game screen with
built in instructions - which is where it crashes. Use local files
NiteMove_intro.png & NiteMove.png)

6) Chronologically Gaming has finished the games that have specific release
dates in November 1982... and is now going through the remainder of the games
released sometime during November 1982, in alphabetical order. Illustrated
Memory Banks Advanced Star Trench Warfare is the first Coco one on this
list. He mentions that the instructions said it has a 3D look if you use
blue/red 3D glasses; I have tried this in the past and it doesn't really
have much of an effect (nothing like Warp Fighter 3D 6 years later):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8IyR7IFKXk&t=193s
On Friday he also tried to cover The Alchemist's Laboratory, but it crashed
partway into the game with an out of string space error. I faintly remember
me hitting that problem as well, but a high value CLEAR command fixed it:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1AOktIHEDk&t=36s

7) Jim Gerrie ported Dominoes, originally by D.N. Smith for the Commodore
PET, which appeared in the February 1982 issue of Your Computer magazine:
  https://youtu.be/FjAbqr6AwnE?si=3iVBhAJN0qnjlnpc

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

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Weylan-Yutani Corporation
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