News stories for Episode 279, September 17, 2022

News stories for Episode 279, September 17, 2022

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(September 10-September 16)

Frank Linhares interview: Pick one of his videos (see conversation on Discord) to play as a cold open

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)

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1) Continuing his barrage of SepTandy videos, Allen Huffman added these this week: "Color BASIC and string concatenation" - This includes how concatenating strings together works differently between C and BASIC (in BASIC, A$="01":A$=A$+A$+A$ would result with A$ now being 3 of the A$'s, or "010101", as it isolates A$, doing the concatenates in a temp buffer, and *then* assigns it to the final A$. C will do compound concatenates, so it will end up with "01010101"). (You can get the same in BASIC if you do each add separately (ie A$=A$+A$:A$=A$+A$ etc.). And Allen being Allen - he had to benchmark both methods for producing the same result.

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/09/10/color-basic-and-string-concatenation/

Color BASIC info memory locations - Allen goes through some of variables in the first 1K of RAM on a Coco that BASIC uses - and you can read and even modify. Includes a lot on variables and their RAM allocation:

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/09/11/color-basic-info-memory-locations/

Going further down the BASIC memory rabbit hole, Allen's next article goes into MEMSIZ - and why Coco 3 BASIC is slightly different than the Coco 1/2 (plus he thanks Art Flexser (author of ADOS) and William Astle (author of LWASM) for helping him figure out the mystery):

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/09/12/the-mystery-of-memsiz-and-why-coco-3-basic-has-one-more-byte-of-it/

His next article is called "Color BASIC string abuse part 1" - that's pretty self explanatory, isn't it? It's an article on string garbage collection, and includes a sample program to show what it does and when it is triggered (which can cause unexpected pauses in programs you are running when it happens):

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/09/13/color-basic-string-abuse-part-1/

In part 2, he goes into the explanation of what is going on behind the scenes, with temporary internal strings for BASIC (for things like MID$, LEFT$, STRING$, etc.), allocating/deallocating strings, etc.

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/09/14/color-basic-string-abuse-part-2/

He also did part 1 of an article on Coco ROM to RAM (64k test). This 1st part goes through the history of RAM upgrades (and how the Dragon 64 did better than the Coco, for BASIC):

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/09/15/coco-rom-to-ram-64k-test-part-1/

Part 2 actually shows how to switch the Coco to 64K RAM mode and copy the BASIC ROM's over to the upper 32K of RAM - so you can now modify them.

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/09/16/coco-rom-to-ram-64k-test-part-2/

2) AnotherMaker on YouTube contribute a SepTandy video showing a teardown and repair of a Tandy Deluxe joystick, using 3D printed parts he found the files for on Thingiverse:

 https://youtu.be/u9hLaXS479M

3) Alan at AC's 8-Bit Zone put up a video showing him trying to fix a blemish in a Coco 1 silver case... using heat. It helps a little bit:

 https://youtu.be/VlCY3TL_gf4

4) Henry Reitveld posted a video showing his TANO Dragon hooked up to a multipack, including a dual floppy drive system, speech/sound pak and CocoSDC all running at the same time:

 https://youtu.be/mmGb3DEGFzs

5) Vintage Geek on YouTube released "Exploring the Color Computer 3" on his YouTube channel as part of SepTandy:

 https://youtu.be/tcGowuMOpVo

6) Albert Marsh for SepTandy did a video on Coco 3 Extended Color BASIC - showing a game he wrote called Shoot'n Range that we wrote when he was 15 (and was published in the August 1987 Rainbow) - I even remember playing it):

 https://youtu.be/XYgIA10pDhI

7) Color Computer Programing has put up a new video showing a preview of the Virtual Piano program that he is working on:

 https://youtu.be/dvtWjhWYePQ

8) Michael Furman add $04 of his VBlog on YouTube - Making a new newsletter using the software he recovered in his previous blogs that he originally wrote when he was 13. He also added links to the disk images in the YouTube video description, if you want to try them out yourself:

 https://youtu.be/OdDlBONk8ng

9) Ken of Canadian Retro Things put up a video about the Coco 3 he picked up at CocoFest this year that wasn't working properly - but did afterwards on it's own. He goes through the circuit board, cleans up some things that may have caused the problems (and resolders a few points that looked iffy), and it still works fine - but hopefully won't have any further intermittent problems:

 https://youtu.be/JTHY7CJscz4

10) Z80Dad on YouTube, for SepTandy, shows a homebrew 6809 based board he made - and uses it to speed test the 6809 vs. some other CPU's of the same time period (Z80, 8080). The results are interesting, especially when considering that the 6809 is running at slightly less than half the clock speed as the others:

 https://youtu.be/lImFmy-sJVo

11) Pedro Pena (Rocky Hill on YouTube) posted a long video (almost 1 hour 20 minutes!) for SepTandy... and it's only part 1! In this video, he shows how to take his surface mount 64K SRAM board he did previously for the later model (that accept 4464's) Coco 2 and convert to a through hole version. He will publicly release the files for it like he did the earlier version:

 https://youtu.be/qkUWCKWGy-E

The files:

 https://github.com/qbancoffee/coco2_64k_sram

12) ShanemanTV on YouTube (who I gather does junk removal for a living), finds an early TRS-80 Color Computer 1 in a basement (and first gen disk drive & controller):

 https://youtu.be/HnIjiZm8Lhk?t=543

And stuff they sold rather than scrapping (including Coco stuff) later in the video:

 https://youtu.be/HnIjiZm8Lhk?t=1019

13) Todd Wallace (Lord Dragon on the Coco Discord) put up a video on Facebook showing his machine language windowing system (Mac like) that he is working on:

 https://youtu.be/HnIjiZm8Lhk?t=1019

14) Paulo Garcia also contributed to SepTandy with an article on Vintage is the New Old, where he duplicated (as close he could remember) a high res text generating BASIC program that he originally did on his Brazilian Coco clone, the CP-400:

 https://www.vintageisthenewold.com/bringing-back-my-childhood-programs-for-the-trs-80-color-computer-from-memory

15) Ron Delvaux posted a link to a KOB4 news (Albuquerque, New Mexico) story on a retro computer meetup (by ABQ Retro Computers) - which included a Coco 3 that they took apart (at 1:43)

 https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/retro-computer-meetup-draws-enthusiasts-in-albuquerque/

16) Todd Horch posted the tale of him getting back into his Coco 3 after catching some retro computer videos on YouTube - and the trials he had to get it working with some upgrades - on the Coco Facebook Coco group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160105105507641/

17) Joel Ewy posted the story of his getting his MM/1 in the MM/1 Facebook group (and we got it instead of a TC-70, even though he already had a TC-9). He includes some original emails from 1997 with Ray Petterson (who was fixing up MM/1's at the time) when they worked together to fix the I/O board for Joel:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/3970992246459376/

18) And speaking of the MM/1 - I missed last week that Keith March was posting pictures of the boards he still his, including the MM/1a, which featured a faster 68340 CPU (rather than the original Signetics 68070):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/3962385843986683/

(he posted other board pics in the MM/1 group as well)

MC-10

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1) Jim Gerrie pointed out a Hackaday project to add composite video to an NTSC MC-10 that I missed last week:

 https://hackaday.io/project/182433-mc-10-av-mod-board

Dragon 32/64

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1) Cathe Cita (I think that is Torsten) posed a link to a video for a classic computing show in Germany - which includes a Dragon 32 and Dragon 64: Intro to show he facility:

 https://youtu.be/biPoxiFeGZk

Dragon appearance specifically:

 https://youtu.be/biPoxiFeGZk?t=564

2) John Whitworth of Dragonplus Electronics is wondering how much interest there would be for a new run of kits for the Oojamaflip 2021 (this is an internal expansion to have two cartridges in the case at once):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3265410910385222/

3) Darren Branagh put up a humourous movie poster spoof of "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo" to become "The Girl with the Dragon 32" in the Dragon Facebook group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3263968737196106/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) Alan from AC's 8 bit zone release a video and patch for two small bugs that has always been in the Coco version of Canyon Climber (affecting the 3rd level), AND also what a new version he has patched looks showing it running with new palette settings using the 16 colors available on his CocoDV. He also has way to get around FPGA shortages that are affecting everyone these days, by switching to a new manufacturer. All part of SepTandy:

 https://youtu.be/FvjGdDn-RFU

2) Jim Gerrie was busy this past week: He posted a port of the Dick Smith VZ200's text adventure game Secret of Volcano Island, originally written by Owen Ross for the Jan-Mar 1993 issue of VeeZed Down Under newsletter:

 https://youtu.be/FvaXxuI3YnA

He also posted "Adventure" ported from the VZ200, originally by Scott Le Brun in OOP magazine is 1986:

 https://youtu.be/Z8bcV2RMGuk

And "Treasure Hunt", originally a type in game from a BASIC book for the Vic-20, originally by Hal Renko and Sam Edwards:

 https://youtu.be/KJBDPdvYwDI

A port of the original Oregon Trail game, as was written for an Hewlett Packard time-shared system by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann and Paul Dillenberger:

 https://youtu.be/uIPlZrxsSd8

And finally, he ported another Star Trek game that is not well known, but quite old, that was rediscovered by Bob Alexander and the source code reconstructed:

 https://youtu.be/sPlu9JchiYc

3) Nick Marentes posted his first public commercial for his upcoming Jumping Joey game (loosely based on Frogger, but with an extra screen), although some of the graphics he teased will be getting a change before the final release:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160103362767641/

4) Sheldon MacDonald posted an update and explanation why he has not been active in the Coco community the past while (both a new job and a death in the family), but he is now getting back into it, and lists 4 projects that he will be getting back into over the next while:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160102562492641/