The Coco Nation News stories for Episo de 440, November 22, 2025 (Nov 16-22)

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 440, November 22, 2025 (Nov 16-22)
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Collected by L. Curtis Boyle and Presented by Mark Overholser and Rick Ulland

Special NOTES:
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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, and Rick Ulland will
show off a Delmar System V… but we still need volunteers with TC-70’s,
Kix-20 or Kix-30, Delmar System IV, AT-306 and MM/1 B’s. Anybody still have
these machines that they would like to show off in an upcoming show? Email
me at [email protected] if you are.

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:
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World of Commodore is December 6-7 in Mississauga, Ontario at the Admiral
Inn. The show “warmly embrace(s) enthusiasts of all retro computer gear,
not just the Commodore computers (although the SuperPET does have a 6809
in it and runs a version of OS-9 Level 1… making it a cousin to the Coco
in a way).
  https://woc.tpug.ca/

As Mark Overholser mentioned on our show, the next Tandy Retro Show will
be happening January 24 and 25th, which will be a series of live YouTube
streaming presentations. He is currently taking bookings of people &
topics. Send an email to: [email protected]
  https://tandyretroshow.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/

Date for CocoFest 2026 - April 24-25, as mentioned in the Glenside meeting
this past week. And hotel rates are locked in now (see post on Glenside
website)
  https://www.glensideccc.com/

That same weekend is the first official Latin American VCF, which takes
place April 24-26 in Bahia Blanca, Argentina:
 
https://vcf-espaciotec-com-ar.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp

VCF-PNW (Pacific North West) is returning after multiple years in hiatus,
and is happening May 2-3 2026 in the Tukwila Community Center in Tukwila,
Washington:
  https://www.vcfpnw.net/

NEWS:
=====

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Ciaran Anscomb announced that the next release of XRoar, version
1.10. This is mostly bug fixes (some indexing modes on 6(8,3)09, NMI arming,
6809 undocumented behaviour). The main thing is his changing to disable vsync
by default in an effort to fix some of the choppy sound it has on platforms
other than Linux, especially if the XRoar application lost focus. He is
asking for people to test it under Windows and OSX and report how it works:
Announcement:
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11317
XRoar download page:
  https://www.6809.org.uk/xroar/

2) Tony Jewell posted about the game playing competition on the Dragon
and MC-10 that was done at the Retro Computer Festival in Cambridge last
weekend. They had Paku-Paku on the MC-10, Lava Jump, Ghost Rush and Flagon
Bird. He also had a question for Steve Bamford (author of Flagon Bird):
is it possible to score more than 64 points (see comment):
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=26049#p26049

3) Richard Harding posted 300 dpi high res scan of the graphic used on
a T-shirt for the Cuthbert club’s “We’ve got it Taped” t-shirt
(see comments for a low res version of the graphic):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4222844751308495/

4) Julian Brown posted an update to several of his projects for the Dragon,
while mentioning that he only has limited time to work on them these days:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4222836397975997/
He also posted about LM1889 and VDG replacements that he is
looking into, and he is now working on replacing the MC14529 (analog
switch/multiplexer). Unfortunately the cost of a small production run is
going to be quite expensive:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4225756321017338/

5) John Whitworth posted in the Dragon Facebook group that he is nearly
ready to make new PCB’s for his new lowercase board, which will replace
the “fiddly half-pitch DIP switch” with a hex encoder). These boards
will fit any Coco 1 or 2, or Dragon 32/64 that uses the original 6847 VDG
(not the T1 model), and is designed to co-exist with the SuperRGB as well
(some Coco models may need a ribbon cable extender):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163473573492641/

6) Ricky ElQasem posted about the new version of the Dragon Maxduino
device which comes with a 2x larger screen (photo of it in the comments)
and it’s immediate availability:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/4225733487686288/
Order page with multiple photos:
  https://www.youmakerobots.com/dragon-3264/56-1156-dragonuitape.html


Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) John Guin posted on the Coco List that Microsoft is releasing the source
code for Zork 1-3, originally by Infocom and acquired by Microsoft through
a set of buyouts over the years and making it open source, as posted by
Scott Hanselman, Vice President, Developer Community and Stacey Haffner,
Director or Microsoft OSPO:
Blog post:
 
https://opensource.microsoft.com/blog/2025/11/20/preserving-code-that-shaped-generations-zork-i-ii-and-iii-go-open-source#section-2
Source (in Zork Interpreter Language) – I don’t think this is the same
as the one about to be released by Microsoft:
  https://github.com/historicalsource/zork1

2) Rich Stephens announced an update to the Fujinet News application for
the Coco 3 – it now supports 32/40/80 columns and the mode can be chosen
live in the program while it’s running:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/colorcomputer/posts/1360748882207507/

3) David Graham posted in the Facebook MM/1 group that he is working
on writing improved documentation on the XT keyboqrd circuit that the
MM/1 uses – which while working with XT keyboards, does not do it in a
“normal” way:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/5064532783771978/
He also posted that he would like to find someone who still has a working
floptical drive (I think those are the old 20 MB 3.5” drives that could
also read/write 1.44 MB high density?), as he *may* have sourcecode to
the MM/1 K-Windows system, an enhanced version of MultiVue Kevin Darling
wrote for the MM/1:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/posts/4126733880922858/

4) Speaking of the MM/1, James Jones posted in the same group that he is
looking for replacements for the real time clock chips that the MM/1 used
(DS1287) since they are not made anymore. He is wondering if anyone knows
of a way to get the chips to use external, replaceable batteries for them:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/5061866254038631/

5) And Allen Huffman also posted an MM/1 related article to the same group,
mentioning that some of the source code his company Sub-Etha Software did
for the MM/1, including Towel, Mega and Mini Banners, and more:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/3194643584094250/posts/5051984555026801/
Github link (including Coco source and other OS9 sources as well):
  https://github.com/allenhuffman/SubEthaSoftware

6) The Color Brazil Club on Facebook posted photos and some video showing
the new GOTEKoso 450 which is a replica of the original CP-400 (Coco
clone)’s dual disk drive unit:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/ClubeColor/posts/24707125988988449/

7) Erico Monteiro posted an updated animated GIF of his SG4 game progress:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163485814272641/

8) Allen Huffman posted on his Sub-Etha Software Facebook page some
digitized photos taken with the Coco and the Microworks Digisector DS-69
digitizer. This was used in 1993 Mid-America CocoFest to allow people to
become the “3rd” person in a remake of the infamous 3 musketeers photo
in the Coco 3 ROM showing some of the Microware programmers who worked on
the Coco 3 ROM’s and OS9 Level II. One posed beside Mark Hawkins and
Todd Earles, and there are some recognizable (to old timers, anyways)
people in the photos:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163492266032641/

9) Marco Spedaletti, author of ugBASIC multi-platform cross compiler,
has released the Coco 3 version of the PUSHORI64 game, previously out on
the C64, for free download (note, from the comments, there may be a few
glitches when running on a 6309 based Coco 3, which is newly added support
for the platform):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10163487758772641/
itch.io download page:
  https://spotlessmind1975.itch.io/pushori64plus

10) 8bitsinthebasement on YouTube released VLOG 6 for Super Shooty Aliens
ML game that he is working on:
  https://youtu.be/WYLP9ITDzHc?si=KTM24WciHvMEukAj


MC-10
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1) Jim Gerrie, as reported last week, is porting “Dual Alien” from the
Japanese PC-6001 to the MC-10, using Greg Dionne’s MCBASIC compile. The
original game had some embedded ML routines for speed, hence the need of
the compiler. Jim pointed to a YouTube video showing the original PC-6001
game in action:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/24871587382541416/
YouTube video directly:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MArHX6eA5W4&t=237s
He also posted another “silly type in” of a Canadian flag that originally
appeared in a 1979 book called “The Book of Interact Programs”
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/24914600904906730/
Video:
  https://youtu.be/iZcg7dgGea8?si=yTVJYAXnCqmctkzl

2) Jay Mundy, the man behind Sprite Worx and it’s new MC-10 game U.S.,
posted on the MC-10 Facebook group that he is looking for feedback on his
two MC-10 games, including how he teased the public with background videos,
the professional packaging and the game itself, to help encourage him to
write more MC-10 games:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/24907201102313377/



Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Pere Serrat announced the 73rd game pack of AGD converted games (the
game design engine ported from the ZX Spectrum), which adds 4 more games:
Pacman
Roust (Joust clone by the author of AsteroidsRX)
SQIJ and the Tree of Ener
Terrapins
  https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11316#

2) Jim Gerrie posted a link to a YouTube video showing off brief clips of
some of the more advanced MC-10 games:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G8KBXDeySc

3) gregok1973 on YouTube has released a couple more Coco game play videos,
including:
The Adventures of Johnny Zero (a graphical adventure game – maybe from
a magazine or tape magazine?):
  https://youtu.be/0eZWE2x0u8E?si=ix8Igy2FXIb71Bis
Addiction Solitaire (originally by Ben Elizer & Kevin Mykytyn from
Compute! January 1986, and converted to the MC-10 by Jim Gerrie):
  https://youtu.be/jyIqWxmsuSs?si=HvQE8a7rYcHFfyrJ

4) RetroTrailer-2 on YouTube did two Coco gameplay videos this week:
Fury (without artifact colors):
  https://youtu.be/OR7hFxhNJso?si=5G6FseQvcD_JHvPm
Gantelet II (Coco 3). Unfortunately his screen capture is missing the left
side of the screen:
  https://youtu.be/eKiI9aVvom4?si=aQH6VaWaiqIjfs65

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Get connected with more of the CoCo, Dragon and MC-10 community here:
    https://thecoconation.com/community/

-- 
R. Allen Murphey <[email protected]>
Weylan-Yutani Corporation

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