[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 421, July 12, 2025 (July 5-July 11)
R. Allen Murphey
exile at weylan-yutani.com
Sun Jul 13 09:41:40 EDT 2025
The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 421, July 12,2025 (July 5-July 11)
===============================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle
Special NOTES:
--------------
For those who want to try an online BBS running on a real 512K Coco 3,
you can reach Terry Trapp’s RiBBS system here (please note that this an
active development machine so the BBS occasionally goes down when Terry
is working on hardware, etc).:
telnet ribbs.griswoldfx.com 6809
Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
International Retro Computer Expo (formerly BoatFest) is this weekend,
July 11-13 in Hurricane, WV. There is now a promo video for it:
https://www.ticketsource.us/ircexpo2025/t-eanjyje
VCF West at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California is
August 1-2, from 10 am-6 pm Friday and 9 am-5 pm Saturday. There are
usually some Coco people at the show (both attendees and exhibitors),
and we have had walkthroughs before that show it to be a fun show with a
lot of history since it is in Silicon Valley:
https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/
VCF-Midwest (the largest retro show in North America, I believe) is September
13-14 at the Schaumburg Convention Center in Schaumburg, Illinois. This year
is the 20th anniversary of this show, and there is a lot of collaboration
between CocoFest and VCF-MW, so expect a large number of Coco and Glenside
people at the show! Still free admission, and hotel booking is open already.
https://www.vcfmw.org/
That same weekend, Retro World Expo will be held September 12-14 at the
Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Connecticut. Tickets and vendor
applications aren't quite ready yet but will be soon. This is a gaming
oriented retro show (including tournaments) but also includes things
like wrestling:
https://retroworldexpo.com/
Also that same weekend, for Canadians and anyone wanting to travel up to
Canada, the WoRC (World of Retro Computing) show is September 13-14 at the
old Goudies Department Store location at 8 Queen Street North, Kitchener,ON,
Canada (West of Toronto, and right beside The Museum). This is a general
retro show with a bunch of gaming and home computer platforms, vendors,
seminars, LAN parties, workshops, door prizes & raffles and is sponsored
by Retro Rewind. Admission is free, and it runs noon to 5 pm Eastern on
both Saturday and Sunday:
https://worldofretrocomputing.com/
Tandy Assembly for 2025 is Sept 26 to Sep 28 at the Courtyard by Marriott
Springfield Downtown in Springfield, Ohio. NOTE 1: If you attended CocoFest
this year, bring your badge to Tandy Assembly, and you will get in for
FREE! NOTE 2: Peter Cetinski issued an update on May 13 - all tables are
officially sold out:
https://www.tandyassembly.com/
And they have some exhibitors already (click Exhibitors link)
This year's Portland Retro Gaming Expo runs from October 17-19 in 2025 (they
just had this years Sept 27-29). Oregon Convention Center, Portland, Oregon.
https://www.retrogamingexpo.com/
Canada is getting it's own official VCF - Montreal, January 25-26 of
2026. It will be held at the Royal Military College outside of Montreal,
but I don't have any more details (the venue, for example) yet:
https://vcfed.org/vcf-montreal/
Tentative date for CocoFest 2026 - April 24-25, as mentioned in the Glenside
meeting this past week. Not 100% confirmed, but sounded pretty solid.
**** NEW NEWS ORDER TO HELP OUR LIVE EUROPEAN VIEWERS ****
NOTE: We are planning to do a special “Coco 4” episode in the future,
which will included all the computers that were announced in the 1991-1994
time frame that were supposed to be successors to the Coco 3. We have Joel
Ewy who has volunteered to show off their MM/1, I am going to try and get
my TC-9 up and running at least enough to show it working, but we still
need volunteers with TC-70’s, Kix-20 or Kix-30, Delmar System IV or System
V’s, AT-306, MM/1 B’s. Anybody still have these machines that they would
like to show off in an upcoming show? Email me at curtisboyle at sasktel.net
if you are.
Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Tom Erik Gundersen posted a photo in the Dragon Facebook group
showing every Dragon joystick made (by Dragon Data, Eurohard, Voltmace,
Microdeal. Some additional ones are mentioned in the comments:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4086125674980404/
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) Thanks to Brian Wieseler for pointing out that Roger Taylor put up a blog
post about the Foenix F256 that Boisy and others have been working on. It
uses a 6809 hardware emulated core at 6-12 MHz, but also has enhancements
like hardware sprites, multi-layer graphics/text, and a variety of sound
options including playing MP3 and MIDI, amongst many others:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/next-level-os-9-133913145/instant-access?token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJyZWRpc19rZXkiOiJpYTI6NjU3ZmFhZmYtZjY0Mi00ZGYzLTljNGMtMjdhOWRlOTc3ODhjIiwicG9zdF9pZCI6MTMzOTEzMTQ1LCJwYXRyb25faWQiOjIxNDY5OTI2fQ.2nN2BU1xYdlKcgw9Wic8-x22wX6YTpidrop1Fptyimc&utm_source=post_link&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=patron_engagement&utm_id=0fcdbbf2-73c8-41b7-b2b7-4b583f253a17
2) David C. Wiens has posted part of the source code for his OS-9 utility
OF-Link (which allows running FLEX under OS9 Level 2). This upload includes
the OS-9 components only; he is planning on releasing source for the FLEX
portion later:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/posts/3994979917431589/
Actual link on his site:
https://www.sardis-technologies.com/coco/other/oflink.htm
Note that this emulator is pre-installed in NitrOS9/EOU
3) My Snyder posted a photo of her mug from the 1987 Princeton, NJ
RainbowFest. While I have had bags and T-shirts from RainbowFests, I never
had a coffee cup!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162911621697641/
4) Antonio Caballero posted photos of some new versions of the Tower of
Power cartridge holders that he is working on: The Tower of Power Deluxe
(which changes the top part to double as SD card holders for the CocoSDC,
etc., and the Micro Tower of Power which is exclusively for SD Cards:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162907810067641/
5) It was pointed out that there isa “Retro Electro Jumble” happening
next weekend (July 19) which is basically a flea market of retro electronics
for sale, being held at The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley
Park in the UK, from 10 am to 4 pm. This is a ticket only event, and it
specifically mentions that some brands that will have stuff available for
sale: Amstrad, Commodore and Dragon:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/retro-electro-jumble-tickets-1084147687919
6) TRS-80 Retro Programing posted a video showing his development update
to Tales of Suburbia, which adds cloud animations, .BIN pre-saved graphics,
and a complete game breakdown:
https://youtu.be/-8MAkvGlc3E?si=ElnqYlxP4PxCnC4M
7) TRS-80 Trash Talk had their live show last Saturday night, and there
were some mentions about the Coco during show. It also covers the upcoming
Tandy Assembly, and goes through an old TRS-80/Tandy computer magazine:
https://www.youtube.com/live/trUsi0r0tqg?si=FbihxcQGudS9NVgR
8) Definitely Casual Pc’s on YouTbue did an almost 25 minute video on
unboxing nd restoring a Coco 2:
https://youtu.be/uTBMDEK5TiM?si=d-GE2FSjh1ryYFus
9) YouTube channel CityXen posted an almost hour long video covering VCF
Southeast in Atlanta (which actually was combined with the Southern Fried
Gaming Expo). There is a Coco section 4:52 into the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KixUchIvOrg&t=292s
MC-10
-----
1) Thomas OderausVkommt posted photos of his Metra Alice (the original,
MC-10 clone version) system. It’s in pristine condition:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10162923290447641/
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) We mentioned last week that there is now a Coco/Dragon emulator for
the Nintendo DS, and we were asking if anyone in the audience could make
a video showing it in action. 8Bitsinthebasement did exactly that, showing
how the menu system works, and actual emulation of multiple Coco ½ games::
https://youtu.be/_B4my3YRauE?si=-WJdYcceK7FnXweR
2) Marlin Lee, one of the first YouTubers to review Coco games, has returned
after a long break, covering several early Coco PacMan clones/derivatives:
PacketMan by Greg Zumwalt with American Small Business Computers,
September 1981:
https://youtu.be/cm-BfxPriWU?si=WxcyD_27QrZaECf0
Sooper Pac by Michael Freeman from Bare Bones Software – a highly
configurable PacMan style game:
https://youtu.be/Zlbrs-ms1qg?si=HF3_2Hu9-DMM9xwv
and finally a two-fer with two Skiing games: EZ Ski bye Paul Griffiths
from Chromasette, and the 3D Skiing by Robert Kilgus for Tandy:
https://youtu.be/nAtFv40-dlE?si=MmOz006MyCGfWCKX
3) XperTek on YouTube released several new gameplay videos this week as well:
Disk #7, Black-Jack (part of Tandy’s Card Games cassette game package):
https://youtu.be/tDW-Cv-maVQ?si=ldg02Vd62ZW_iNo7
Disk #7, Cosmic Superbowl (from Spectral Associates):
https://youtu.be/MB_ZE9Fry3w?si=uFcP96mOHZ7g75AM
4) Jim Gerrie got busy on his MC-10 conversions this week:
“Santa Paravia and Fiumaccio” – an updated version with a cleaned
up interface, added color and mp improvements, compared to his original
MC-10 conversion. This is a full game play through that lasts more than
20 minutes. (This is similar to Coco games like Viking, Erland, etc.):
https://youtu.be/UKfC0r5dqQI?si=EZdwrpFP5laZL5cT
Jim also updated “Blue Meanies” from the original 1981 release on the
Vic-20 to the MC-10 he did a few years back. The updates include smooth
keyboard input for moving repair robots, and code optimization. Still
works in 4K RAM, too!
https://youtu.be/UMsi0kQMg2o?si=G2unV1aLzyItVRNo
5) Scott Adams (of Adventure International fame) put up a post of making
a new 8 bit adventuge game:
https://www.facebook.com/MScottAdams/posts/pfbid025usJdj2zeWK2EvmsoPKYp2z6mJiD32pAPMapgqgLFgYVrrWeudGekw8opcgtD2DZl
==============================================================================
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--
R. Allen Murphey <exile at weylan-yutani.com>
Weylan-Yutani Corporation
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