The CoCo Nation Show

Episode 118 - Fond Memories

Today's show main topic will be "Fond Memories of our early CoCo Days" Or "Fond Memories" for short. Think about what it was like when you got your CoCo, what you did with it and how it effected your life going forward.

CoCoTALK!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqj3IMT0-A8

https://www.facebook.com/cocotalklive

https://www.periscope.tv/CoCoTALKlive/

https://twitter.com/CoCoTALKlive

Live interactive audio stream:
https://www.spreaker.com/show/cocotalklive

Email any suggestions you have for the show to cocotalk@cocotalk.live

Visit us on the web at http://cocotalk.live

Join us for daily conversations on Discord: https://discord.gg/4J5nHXm

To find out more about the Color Computer visit http://imacoconut.com

 

Episode 117 - Very Special Guest!

This week on CoCoTALK! we'll have a very special guest on the live panel that you wont want to miss! Along with that, we'll hear from a cross-section of the CoCo community, cover some news of what happened the past week in the MC-10, Dragon and CoCo communities, and possibly get into some hardware, and/or software discussions. Now that the show is over, we can reveal that our special guest was none other than David Murray, The 8-bit guy, and we had a great conversation with Dave, so check it out.

Live interactive video streams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqj3IMT0-A8

https://www.facebook.com/cocotalklive

https://www.periscope.tv/CoCoTALKlive/

https://twitter.com/CoCoTALKlive

Live interactive audio stream:
https://www.spreaker.com/show/cocotalklive

Email any suggestions you have for the show to cocotalk@cocotalk.live

Visit us on the web at http://cocotalk.live

Join us for daily conversations on Discord: https://discord.gg/4J5nHXm

To find out more about the Color Computer visit http://imacoconut.com

 

Episode 116 - CoCoForever Winners!

We're back with another great live episode of CoCoTALK! the world's leading live talk show featuring the Tandy Color Comptuer. This week we'll reveal the winners of the private CoCo Forever screening party. cover CoCo news and so much more!

CoCoTALK!
Join the live panel on ZOOM: https://zoom.us/j/109422739

Live interactive video streams:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqj3IMT0-A8

https://www.facebook.com/cocotalklive

https://www.periscope.tv/CoCoTALKlive/

https://twitter.com/CoCoTALKlive

Live interactive audio stream:
https://www.spreaker.com/show/cocotalklive

Email any suggestions you have for the show to cocotalk@cocotalk.live

Visit us on the web at http://cocotalk.live

Join us for daily conversations on Discord: https://discord.gg/4J5nHXm

News links:
1) Nick Marentes has his latest GunStar blog up:
http://www.nickmarentes.com/Gunstar/18.html

2) Blair Leduc has another update to his Assembly extension for Visual Code Studio (now up to version 0.3.0):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157315033642641/

3) Speaking of Visual Code Studio extensions, Jason Pittman has uploaded a video of his Coco C/ASM extension, that also includes converting graphics down to the 16 color mode on the Coco 3: He also demo's the source highlighting using Ken Reichart
https://youtu.be/IqvOJ6hL6Nc

4) Brian Weiseler has come across a book for the Coco, called "Making the Most of Your TRS-80 Color Computer" by Peter Vernon. This is one that I have never seen before, and was published in Australia.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157314793107641/

5) Sheldon MacDonald is making a cartridge (based on the Game Master Cartridge) that also attaches to the cassette port, so that you can shut the music playing on/off simply with AUDIO ON and AUDIO OFF commands in BASIC. He 3D printed his own case for the project, and is tweaking the software side still.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157146611412641/

6) Pere Serrat & Kees van Oss have released AGD game packs #33 & 34, which are special ones. The games were created by 10-11 year old children at the Bearsden Primary School in Scotland, in a class on programming taught by Dougie Mcg. The children designed their own sprites, levels, etc. and programmed/debugged them themselves. All the games were written this year (2019) in the class.
http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6112

http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6115

7) Bart van den Akker has an IndieGogo campaign going to raise money for the Home Computer Museum in the Netherlands (which is interactive and lets visitors try over 200 older home computers). If you are interested in information, or contributing to the museum, see there Indiegogo page:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/homecomputermuseum-streaming-tour

8) Todd Wallace has a demo video showing his 80 column Coco 3 text editing tool. This has sparked some conversation on doing a game using 80x24/25/28 hardware text mode, but using color attributes, blinking and underline, to do "graphics", similar to the Semigraphics stuff being done on the Coco 1/2 side.
https://youtu.be/5JsJGPI4e4k

9) The Floppy Days podcast (With Randy Kindig) episode 92 features and inteview with Dave Lagerquist, who worked for CLOAD (for the Model I/III) and then started Chromasette, the first tape based magazine for the Coco back in the early 1980's. Some great stories from when the company was started.
http://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-92-dave-lagerquist-interview-editor-cload-and-chromasette

10) Tony Jewell posted some photos from the Dragon Meetup 2019 that took place during CocoTalk last week (July 7), at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge, England.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2352252818367707/

(There are other videos and photos from this event in the Dragon 32/64 Facebook group).

11) Jason Pittman has an updated video showing his Picture converter/editor - which now has the beginnings of converting to Coco 1/2 modes as well as Coco 3.
https://youtu.be/3F03WK6NNZo

You can also download the program he has written:
http://jasonpittman.com/dist/CoCoPic.zip

CoCoPi3 project page: http://www.cocopi3.com/

Dragon Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/

MC-10 Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/

 

Episode 115 - CoCo Forever screening party contest

Today we'll announce a very special opportunity to join a private screening of the entire series of CoCoForever, created by D. Bruce Moore, and we'll hear from the cast, crew, and consumes of the series. A few special guests will also be invited, send an email to CoCoTALK@CoCoTALK.live with your entry, telling us _WHY_ you should attend the private screening.

News stories for July 6 show:
1) Jeff Teunissen (Deek on Discord) has started a public github for ALL C source code for OS9/NitrOS-9 (past and present), and includes parts of the C compiler itself. This is very much an ongoing work in progress, so if this is of interest to you, keep checking in on it periodically. He is also wanting anyone with C source code for OS-9/NitrOS-9 projects that he has not been able to find, to sent them to him and he will include them on his Github. As of July 3, in addition to the C compiler itself, he also has other language whose compilers were written in C (like Forth09 and XLisp), as well as enhanced utilities (like Help & CUTS).
https://github.com/Deek/CoCoC

2) Ron Klein has an experimental (translation: expect bugs!) CocoPI3 git repo, so that the CocoPI3 can get automatic updates. Details & instructions here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tTtsB-_iR7ECtPwY11cxcHeB9GSF8oaZszDFWWV3uNg/edit

3) Tony Cappellini shared some photos he had taken at one of the Color America Fests, held in the southern California around the mid-1980's. Steve Bjork makes a guest appearance, and has a photo shoot with a Quadrunner (I think some of these photos ended up in his interview with Color Computer Magazine). They also hooked the quad up so that it could literally control Steve's game Desert Rider (released by Tandy/Radio Shack). One of the Wayne Technologies CP/M cards makes an appearance, as well as other hardware and software. There is also a Q&A session with some local Coco luminaries of the time, that Tony would like help identifying.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157299413497641/

4) Allen Huffman gets a shoutout for his version of the Zimodem firmware (originally by Bo Zimmerman for the Commodores) for Simulant's Retro Wifi SI (Wifi RS-232 serial modem). (See notes at end)
https://www.simulant.uk/shop/retro-vintage-computer-wifi-modem-rs232-serial-hayes-compatible

5) Erico Monteiro has been working on sample semi-graphics animated artwork (all fully compatible with real hardware), including a mock-up of a Street Fighter II type game.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157292683362641/

6) Mat Chy is making a utility to help mix text scanlines for the Semigraphics-24 mode (like Protectors II did for the people you are rescuing), and has a video showing it:
https://youtu.be/XhhAgFfe7bY

And he has an animated GIF demo of it doing a kung-fu type game, as well as additional screenshots of experiments:
https://www.facebook.com/mat.chy.5099/videos/142356680199801/

And he also released a video showing an SG12 demo with a character running between rooms, with some automapping as well:
https://www.facebook.com/mat.chy.5099/videos/142687670166702/

7) CocoMech keyboard installation video by Ed Snider - shows how to install it.
https://youtu.be/PSR8-zqRSTY

8) Evan Wright has found software author Robert G. Kilgus, who has a book out called "An Inside Look at Microfiles", which goes into the thinking (and includes source) for his TRS-80 Model I/III program "Microfiles". Robert also did some of the earliest Coco programming as well, and seemed to favour 3-dimensional games (Quasar Commander, Dino Wars, Skiing, Color Cubes), and he also did the Disk Edtasm+ package.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157301702177641/

9) Glenside has published their latest newsletter, which includes a lot of pictures and info from the CocoFest in May:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157302097527641/

10) Blair Leduc has released an updated Visual Studio code for 6x09 assembly language (0.2.0).
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157292683362641/

11) And speaking of SG modes, Mat Chy shared a video of an SG Tile editor he has been working on. Erico has been active in the comments of that thread as well.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157289429657641/

12) Ken Reighard has released a new game "Nightmare Highway", with a great little commercial.
https://www.cankenmakeit.com/2019/07/new-game-for-coco-1-2-and-3-nightmare.html

13) James Diffendaffer has a video demonstrating the speedup he has done to MC-10 BASIC in the SIN/COS functions, and how BASIC keeps track of it's current line. He says that most programs get an 8% speed increase, but math intensive get up to 44% faster (as this video shows).
https://youtu.be/BCeR-tOz5QY