The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 474, July 18, 2026 (July 10-17)

ExileInParadise — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:35:19 GMT

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The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 474, July 18, 2026 (July 10-17)
=================================================================================
Collected and Presented by L. Curtis Boyle, Mark Overholser, and Rick Ulland

Interview schedule:
-------------------
Not scheduled yet, but Logan Ward and Britt Monk have agreed to come on
the show.

Upcoming conventions/trade shows of interest to Coco people:
------------------------------------------------------------
VCF West is August 1-2, 2026 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain
View California, and there are a few local Coco people that may attend:
https://vcfed.org/events/vintage-computer-festival-west/

VCF-SE (combined with the Southern Fried Gaming Expo) is July 31-August
2 at The Marriott Renaissance Waverly in Atlanta, Georgia:
https://vcfed.org/events/otherevents/vintage-computer-festival-southeast/

VCF-MW (Midwest) is September 12-13 at the Schaumburg Convention Center
in Schaumburg, Illinois (west of Chicago proper):
https://vcfmw.org/

Tandy Assembly dates and new venue have been announced on Facebook. Oct
2-Oct 4 at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel at the Cincinnati Airport:
https://www.facebook.com/events/896272716427805/?acontext=%7B%22event_action_history%22%3A[%7B%22mechanism%22%3A%22attachment%22%2C%22surface%22%3A%22newsfeed%22%7D]%2C%22ref_notif_type%22%3Anull%7D

The 2nd VCF Montreal dates have been announced, and they have moved a few
months ahead to avoid the dead of winter (it was in January earlier this
year; the next one is November 7-8 this year as well):
https://cvcfed.org/vcf-montreal-2-0/

That same weekend, and newly added to the list, is the next RetroSC retro
computer/gaming show in Brazil that usually features a large contingent
of Coco clones (CP-400, Codimex, etc.), which is happening November 7,
2026 in Florianoplois, Brazil:
Portuguese site (try Google Translate, etc. to translate):
https://retrosc.org/

NEWS:
=====

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Tom Erik Gundersen (a regular in our live chat) posted a photo of the
manual and hardware for the DriveWire Microserver, a self-contained (no
separate computer required) micro SD card DriveWire server for the Dragon,
which also included a custom ROM (see photo in comments):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4469497403309894/

2) I don’t know if this was covered on last weeks show (it was posted a
few hours before show start), but Julian Brown posted his 4th VLOG about
his VDG/SAM replacement upgrade board:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4468617740064527/

3) Roy Berridge has a bit of a video problem on his Dragon 32. Dragon
tamers needed!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/4469067310019570/

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube uploaded an update/progress video
on his port of the Atari 2600 Haunted House game to the Coco:
https://youtu.be/SDuI7Azc-QQ?si=bzJ6JPVZIZRBfrCX

2) Brian Palmer typed in and uploaded a DSK image and a screenshot of the
Sydney Opera, originally done by Bill Baldacchino in Austrailia. I think
this is a Coco 3 640x192x4 screen?:
Screenshot:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164543537102641/
DSK image on the Coco Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164543540617641/

3) Rich Stephens posted a photo showing his Coco 3 running the Fujinet
cartridge bus prototype (and linked to the XRoar emulator and Fujinet Go
Android with XRoar as well):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164514197557641/

4) Erico Patricio Monteiro posted an animated GIF showing his Coco 1&2
rendition of RoboCop walking, which looks better than the Coco 3 official
port:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164522761537641/

5) Bradley Goldsmith teased out a picture of a Coco hardware cartridge
that he is working on in the Coco Facebook group:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164535086752641/

6) Cedric Beaudoin announced last week that the second batch of the ESP32-Coco
have all been produced and shipped. He also notes in the comments that he
is not planning on doing a 3rd run until maybe this fall:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4262638377332924/posts/4388957741367653/

7) Tristan Robichaud has released the first draft of EPS32-Coco base
documentation. He would like some feedback, as well as checking for
factual errors:
Announcement:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/4262638377332924/posts/4393207320942695/
Download:
https://github.com/mast4rbug/ESP32-CoCo

8) Edgar Pinheiro posted on the Clube Color Brasil Facebook page that he
is selling his multi-pack boards, along with a photo:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/397401583720895/?multi_permalinks=26989110334123325&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen
Video of it in action:
https://www.facebook.com/edgar.pinheiro.14/videos/2494957724359933/

9) Michael Pittsley started an interesting discussion in the Coco Facebook
group, asking that since many people have now gotten hardware and software
for the Coco that they couldn’t afford when young but now have; do people
use the Coco in modern times for more than just games, and if so, for what?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164536348097641/

10) Allen Huffman did a post about the 1995 Coco 3 dual direction hardware
scrolling 16 color graphic screen demo that Sock Master (John Kowalski) did,
as he did not recall seeing it at the time of release (it originally came
it on Frank Swygert’s World of 68 Micros magazine). This is pure BASIC;
no assembly language routines at all:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/07/14/sockmasters-2-way-scrolling-in-basic/

11) Coco Town returns with a deep dive on how BASIC handles the keyboard,
and even how the Dragon ROM’s improved on the Coco version:
https://youtu.be/tzZRDFCFvxA?si=rzkYfPgWd_HOG4ff

12) Lee Perkins has released several videos showing different aspects of
his port of Montezuma’s Revenge to the Coco 3. I don’t believe that
this game has been released yet:
Partial play:
https://youtu.be/aNmtxytdnCg?si=XRXHS6a-AvLCnY7s
Ways to die (including different animation sequences depending on which way):
https://youtu.be/vMKxcKBMYuE?si=lkx_nd_K6is545CC
High score board:
https://youtu.be/7NQetaGIBNo?si=UM3LZa9btxXCx6Af

13) Pierre Sarrazin has released version 1.99 of CMOC, which has the
following updates:
- fixes buggy optimization
- inline assembly now support referring to offses of struct members
- Added several non-void-function
- minor optimizations
http://gvlsywt.cluster051.hosting.ovh.net/dev/cmoc.html
I also didn’t realize that Pierre had also released his own PMODE
4 artifacting game (written in CMOC, naturally) of Astrosmash, called
CocoSmash, which needs a 64K Coco or higher Coco 1,2,3 to run:
http://gvlsywt.cluster051.hosting.ovh.net/dev/cocosmash.html

14) Some sad news passed on by Tim Lindner – Art Flexser (author of ADOS
& ADOS-3 amongst many other things) has passed away. He was active on the
Cocolist for decades:
https://goldsteinfuneralchapel.com/tribute/details/772

15) Dennis Page wants to know what roms work on a CoCo1 with 64K?
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10164535715032641/

MC-10
-----
1) Scott Gilson is looking into starting manufacturing of the MCX32-SD again,
since they very rarely come out anymore from zippsterzone.com. If you are
interested in one (or more), let him know on his Facebook MC-10 group post:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/27336350052731791/

2) Allen Huffman did his first MC-10 blog post on his Sub-Etha Software
site. In this entry he covers Jim Gerrie’s reverse (invert) print routine
in detail including the assembly source that makes it happen:
https://subethasoftware.com/2026/07/07/jim-gerries-reverse-print-routine/

3) YouTube channel Freerolls Club has released several gameplay videos of
older games that Jim Gerrie had ported to the MC-10 (from 1971-1974). The
poster mention that “This is a gmae with an AI component modified to work
on the TRS-80 Micro Color Computer (“MC-10”) using Micro Color BASIC
from the author’s published source code”. I am not sure what this means?
Games include: Gomoku, “The other Star Trek game”, Oregon Trail,
Hangman, Composer, Hamurabi, Caves1, Lemonade Stand, Hunt the Wumpus
https://www.youtube.com/@freerollsclub/videos

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Retrobat on YouTube did a video showing video previews of a variety of
Coco games for the Retrobat front end, with 316 Coco games total so far:
https://youtu.be/5ThWa6EgKPo?si=PZ3RHblO_QSTB3SU

2) Ken Reighard has now released a commercial for Meteor Mess, his SG-12
conversion of the Intellivision classic, Astro Smash:
https://youtu.be/jAWZXJbUJQU?si=-lyzm6ljTBjN9i70
His itch.io page (including Meteor Mess):
https://kenscococorner.itch.io/

3) Lance Schafhausen made another Coco group Facebook post about his game
Gruntely’s Dungeon, including some cover art:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164516436242641/

4) Alex Gayer posted a DSK image of a Battlship clone for 32K Extended
BASIC Coco’s to the Coco Facebook group; a work in progress but playable:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164516614222641/
He earlier posted a screenshot of it running in emulation along with a
quick IDE preprocessor he “whipped up”:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164516415007641/

5) Dr. Boisy Pitre posted a link to Rich Lucente’s first public release of
his native Z-Machine interpreter for NitrOS9 (and compatible with Version 3
story files). This is the Infocom engine written in OS9 Assembly language,
which will allow all of the classic Infocom text adventures to run under
OS-9/NitrOS9:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164528820297641/

6) Richard Kelly has released version 1.00 of “The Ugly Transforming
Maze”, which is a port he has been working on for a few weeks. You can
download it from the Coco Facebook group here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10164479534162641/
Video of gameplay:
https://youtu.be/R5R7iaLe1jc?si=Kb6FqpblrNssGjzA

7) Jim Gerrie returned to the Coco (rather than the MC-10) for the first
time in awhile, typing in Martian Lander Simulator, originally by fellow
Canuck Geoff Stark in 1984 in the Rainbow books of Simulations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1iIjKfWIpSw

8) theLogBook on YouTube did a video about the Rick Adams classic Temple
of ROM:
https://youtu.be/5XI5d2a9IfY?si=oKWVVevyC2H1H2gP

9) The Classic And Retro Gamer released a video showing his top 5 Dragon
32 games:
https://youtu.be/bpRZAqSyBr0?si=j1tMweq8Aa1cSaaa

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

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CoCo Nation News Archive

ExileInParadise — Sun, 19 Jul 2026 11:34:25 GMT

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 474, July 18, 2026 (July 10-17)

← Older revision		Revision as of 07:34, 19 July 2026
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	* [[The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 472, July 4, 2026 (June 27-July 3)]]		* [[The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 472, July 4, 2026 (June 27-July 3)]]
	* [[The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 473, July 11, 2026 (July 5 - July 10)]]		* [[The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 473, July 11, 2026 (July 5 - July 10)]]
			* [[The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 474, July 18, 2026 (July 10-17)]]

MMU RAMROM Mode

Tlindner — Sat, 18 Jul 2026 23:55:34 GMT

Re oranges for clarity.

← Older revision		Revision as of 19:55, 18 July 2026
Line 2:		Line 2:
	Color Computer 3 Memory Management Unit in ROM/RAM		Color Computer 3 Memory Management Unit in ROM/RAM

	The ~~MMU in the CoCo 3 has access~~ to ~~64 blocks~~ of ~~RAM each 8 kilobytes in size~~. ~~In ROM/~~RAM ~~mode~~ the ~~last four blocks don't access RAM~~. ~~They access either internal or external ROM~~. ~~The RAM/~~ROM ~~mode is entered by writing any value~~ to ~~address~~ $~~FFDE~~. ~~RAM mode is selected by writing any value to address~~ $~~FFDF~~.		The ROM pages ($3C-$3F) may be written to any of the eight MMU slots. However, unlike RAM pages, the MMU ignores the lower two bits of the value written when the page refers to ROM. Instead, it replaces those bits with the lower two bits of the slot number.

			For example, writing $3D to slot 2 of the MMU does not map the second 8k page of ROM to addresses $4000-$5FFF. It maps page $3E (the third ROM page), because:

			[[image:ROMRAM.png\|center]]

	In ROM/RAM mode there are three different ROM configurations available. They are selected by setting bits 1 and 0 of address $FF90 to:		In ROM/RAM mode there are three different ROM configurations available. They are selected by setting bits 1 and 0 of address $FF90 to:
Line 57:		Line 61:
	\|-		\|-
	\| $E000 - $FFFF		\| $E000 - $FFFF
	\| Slot 7: $~~FFA6~~, $FFAF		\| Slot 7: $FFA7, $FFAF
	\|}		\|}


	The ROM pages ($3C-$3F) can be written to any of the eight available MMU slots. In all cases the last two bits of the page are ignored by the MMU and substituted by the last two bits of the slot number.		The ROM pages ($3C-$3F) can be written to any of the eight available MMU slots. In all cases the last two bits of the page are ignored by the MMU and substituted by the last two bits of the slot number.

	~~For example, writing $3D to slot 2 of the MMU does not map the second 8k page of ROM to addresses $4000-$5FFF. It maps page $3E (the third ROM page), because:~~


	~~[[image:ROMRAM.png\|center]]~~

	This essentially means that page $3C will only appear in slots 0 and 4; $3D in 1 and 5; $3E in 2 and 6; $3F in 3 and 7.		This essentially means that page $3C will only appear in slots 0 and 4; $3D in 1 and 5; $3E in 2 and 6; $3F in 3 and 7.

CoCopedia - The Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer Wiki - Recent changes [en]

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 474, July 18, 2026 (July 10-17)

CoCo Nation News Archive

MMU RAMROM Mode