July 3, 2019:
January 31, 2011:
Update - Scored a nice group of hardware from a guy looking to unload his old CoCo Stuff. The CoCo 1, 3, MPI and all the floppy holders between my repack and the new ones. Got some disk cataloguing to do - appears to be around 60 5.25" floppies...
Hardware wise, it looks like the following (just from a quick glance at things):
- 26-3001 CoCo 1 with an aftermarket keyboard - haven't cracked it open yet, but, my money is on a Mark Data.
- CoCo3 with an aftermarket memory upgrade. I haven't cracked it open either, so I do not know whose
memory upgrade it is, or how much. - 3026 MPI - the guy said the front switch was missing. It was, it was inside the MPI case rattling around.
- Speech & Sound cart. Already had one, but, spares are nice.
- FD-500 FDC, has a custom version of ADOS in it.
I'm real busy right now with research and testing on several front, so, I'll likely not have time in the near future to dig into this stuff. When I do, I'll post it and if any of the software is not already available, I'll make images and post them in the file area.
November 30, 2010:
Update - Got burned on an eVilBay Auction
I 'won' an auction for a CoCo1 with a CoCo3 keyboard. When it arrived, well, the picture says it all... Notice the aftermarket addition to the case, starting in the middle-bacl going toward the keyboard? The seller says it wasn't there, and the he thinks the packing was more than adequate... Everything in the picture was in the box - and the packing material shown is all there was.
July 4, 2010:
Update - posted a review of Roger Taylor's MicroSD DrivePak and CoCoNet on the reviews page...
July 1, 2010:
Update - posted a review of GIMEchip.com's GAL based MPI PAL upgrade on the reviews page...
June 30, 2010:
Update - posted a review of Cloud9's HDB-DOS/DriveWire Pak on the reviews page...
Edit 7/1/2010 - Oops... gave the Cloud9 Pak the wrong name...
MAY 24, 2010:
WELL, I FINALLY STARTED WRITING CODE FOR THE COCO AGAIN LAST NIGHT. IT'S BEEN ALMOST 30 YEARS SINCE I'VE WRITTEN ANYTHING IN BASIC - AND IT SHOWS. WHAT ID DID WAS START SMALL - MY MOM ASKED ME WHEN I WAS A KID TO CREATE A LOTTERY NUMBER GENERATING PROGRAM SO IT WOULD BE EASIER FOR HER TO PICK HER NUMBERS. I DID, BUT, IT WAS NEVER TRULY A GOOD PROG - SINCE I WAS JUST STARTING I WASN'T ABLE TO GENERATE 6 RANDOM NUMBERS BETWEEN 1 AND 40.
I JUST FINISHED THE TEXT VERSION OF THE PROGRAM TONIGHT. IT GENERATE 5 RANDOM NUMBERS FROM 1 TO 59. AND SINCE IT WAS WRITTEN FOR POWER-BALL, IT ALSO PICKS A RANDOM NUMBER FROM 1 TO 39 FOR THE POWER-BALL. THIS VERSION USES THE 40 COLUMN HI-RES TEXT SCREEN. THERE ARE ACTUALLY TWO VERSIONS OF THE PROGRAM 0N THE DISK IMAGE.
LOTTO.BAS - FIRST RUN OF THE PROGRAM; GENERATES THE NUMBERS AND POWER-BALL PICK. THIS ONE DISPLAYS THE NUMBERS IN THE ORDER WHICH THEY ARE RANDOMLY CHOSEN BY THE COCO3
LOTTO2.BAS - NEW AND IMPROVED VERSION; GENERATES THE NUMBERS, AND POWER-BALL PICK. THE IMPROVEMENT IS THE PROGRAM TESTS EACH NUMBER SELECTED, AND DISPLAYS THEM ON SCREEN IN NUMERICAL ORDER. THIS TOOK ME A BIT TO FIGUREOUT, BUT, IT WORKS. :-)
COMING IMPROVEMENTS TO INCLUDE GRAPHICAL ANIMATION OF THE LOTTERY 'BALL MACHINE', THE BALLS SPINNING AROUND INSIDE THE MACHINE AND THE SIX BALLS 'FLOWING' UP THE TUBE. STAY TUNED, THE HARD PART (FOR ME) IS JUST BEGINNING...
POWER-BALL NUMBER GENERATER DSK FILE (right-click and save...)
MAY 18, 2010:
JDIFFEND PUT THIS UP FOR DOWNLOAD TO 10 PEOPLE OVER AT COCO3.COM AND ASKED THAT IT FIND A PERMANENT HOME SOMWHERE.
OKAY, IT DID....
BEST OF COLOR COMPUTER NEWS 1981 (right-click and save...)
MAY 12, 2010:
BEEN KINDA SLOW LATELY. I DID GET A FEW COCO GOODIES: WICO JOYSTICK ADAPTER, 2 MPI'S, 2 FLOPPY DISK CONTROLLERS. I'M STILL WAITING ON MY DRIVEPAK FROM ROGER TAYLOR - HOPEFULLY NEXT WEEK.
I'VE OPENED THE ADS SITE UP TO ALL TANDY/TRS-80 COMPUTER PRODUCTS. HOPEFULLY SOME FOLKS WILL GET USE OUT OF IT.
APRIL 17, 2010:
I'VE BEEN PLAYING ROGER'S JEWELED GAME. IT REQUIRES A 512K COCO3. MAN, IS IT COOL. I ALSO ORDERED ONE OF THE DRIVE-PACKS FROM HIM. I CAN'T WAIT TO GET MY HANDS ON THAT. A FEW WEEKS AGO AARON AND I TRIED TO GET MY COCO3 ONLINE USING DW4 - IT WASN'T TOO SUCCESSFUL. WE'RE NOT SURE WHY, OTHER THAN THE FACT I DIDN'T HAVE A ROM PACK TO USE - WE WERE ATTEMPTING TO MAKE IT WORK VIA FLOPPY DRIVE.
MUCH OF THE FTP CONTENT IS NOW DIRECTLY LINKED THE PAGES HERE ON THE COCO DEN. MY ISP DIDN'T LIKE THE FTP DATA NOT HAVING A LINK SO I HAD TO TAKE THEM DOWN FOR A FEW DAYS. I'LL WORK ON GETTING THE RAINBOW MAGAZINES BACK UP EVENTUALLY.
IN BRIZA'S GAME COLLECTION, THERE IS A GAME CALLED WARGAME. IT'S THE (THANKFULLY) ALREADY TYPED, SAVED, AND TESTED VERSION OF A SIMULATION THAT APPEARED IN THE RAINBOW IN NOVEMBER, 1983. IT WAS LOOSELY BASED ON THE 1983 JOHN BADHAM FILM, 'WARGAMES' STARRING MATTHEW BRODERICK AND ALLY SHEEDY. AT ANY RATE, AS I SAID, THE GAME IS IN BRIZA'S COLLECTION AND IS DOWNLOADABLE FROM THE 'WARGAMES' FOLDER. THE REASON I BRING THIS UP IS BECAUSE I HAVE EXTRACTED THE PAGES FROM THE ISSUE OF THE RAINBOW YOU WILL NEED TO PLAY THE GAME...
WARGAME ARTICLE
APRIL 4, 2010:
SEAN FROM THE COCO MAILING LIST WENT TO THE MIDWEST GAMING CLASSIC AND SENT THE FOLLOWING REPORT INTO THE MAILING LIST:
"My CoCo display ended up being the first thing seen when anyone walked
into the '8-bit museum' room at the event.
I must say, the response was amazing, thanks to the Drive-Pak, the
HawkSoft RGB to S-Video adapter, and Sock Master's Donkey Kong.
It was on for 10 hours straight the first day, and 7 hours the 2nd
day, and there were absolutely no technical or display problems at
all.
Anytime there was traffic in the room, there was ALWAYS someone
playing Donkey Kong. Kudos to Sock Master for designing it to start
with the button press, even little kids were excited to play it.
The best part, (Does Sock Master even read this list?), there were
several times both days where we would hear something like "He's got
something else under the table running Donkey Kong, no way this is on
this computer!"
Even the guy running the TI setup, would answer the question "So, what
is the best home version of Donkey Kong on these old computers?" with
"As of today, that would be this one on the Tandy"
It later became a joke to those of us running the old systems in the
museum "Ok, next year we're just going to put Donkey Kong on every
system in here, and call it the Donkey Kong room".
Late on Saturday night, when some Amiga/Commodore guys were in the
room, I booted to the Drive-Pak, changed to the disk I had the other
Sock Master demos on, ran his bouncing ball demo, and watched several
Commodore users jaws drop. It was great! (Sadly, they could have
seen that demo back in 1993 or so!)
Haven't uploaded any pictures yet, but I will post an update when I do.
Overall a great weekend of classic computing!
Sean"
- AND HERE'S A PIC OF SEAN'S COCO3 PLAYING DONKEY KONG.
APRIL 4, 2010:
UPDATED A FEW AREAS WHERE NEEDED. I ADDED DOWNLOAD SECTIONS FOR DSK IMAGES, AND BRIZA'S FILES. ALSO ADDED WERE FTP LINKS FOR PDF FILES UNDER VARIOUS CATEGORIES. HOPEFULLY THE ISP WILL NOT HAVE ANY ISSUES WITH THIS CONFIGURATION SINCE THE FILES ARE LINKED TO ON THE WEBSITE.
MARCH 24, 2010:
CODE CHANGES; HOPEFULLY IMPROVEMENTS. PLEASE BEAR WITH ME.
MARCH 20, 2010:
TESTED THE MPI TODAY - IT'S PERFORMANCE WAS IFFY AT BEST. AS IT WARMED UP, I NOTICED A LOT OF NOISE COMING FROM THE TRANSFORMER. SO I REMOVED THE TRANSFORMER AND SWAPPED IN THE SPARE ONE I HAD LEFT OVER FROM THE GUTTING OF THE MPI I'M USING FOR THE REPACK PROJECT. NOISE WENT AWAY, BUT, IT'S PERFORMANCE WAS STILL IFFY. SO, I TOOK ONE OF MY SPARE COCO 3'S OUT AND HOOKED IT UP. DAMNED THING WORKED AS EXPECTED.
GUESS THAT MEANS I'VE GOT A COCO 3 THAT REALLY DOESN'T LIKE MPI'S MUCH, SINCE MY OTHER MPI WORKS WITH THIS OTHER COCO 3 AFTER I SWAPPED OUT ALL OF THE CHIPS IN IT A FEW WEEKS BACK (NEVER TESTED IT WITH A DIFFERENT COCO AFTER THE REPAIR WORK). NOW I GET TO FIGURE THIS NEW ISSUE OUT...
NEVER A DULL MOMENT. HOWEVER, EVEN THOUGH THE OLDER MPI WORKS WITH THIS OTHER COCO 3, IT STILL DOES NOT LIKE MY O-90 CART AT ALL. WITH THE FD-501 OR FD-502 AND THE SPEECH/SOUND CART, IT WORKS FINE. ADD IN THE O-90 (WITH OR WITHOUT THE S/S CART) AND THE COCO 3 DISPLAYS A NICE CHECKERBOARD PATTERN ON SCREEN AT BOOT TIME. NOT REALLY WHAT ONE WANTS TO SEE...
MARCH 19, 2010:
RECEIVED SOME NEW ADDITIONS TO THE COCO FAMILY TODAY.
THE PIC ABOVE SHOWS THE NEW FAMILY MEMBERS WHICH INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING:
- 512K COCO3
- FD501 CONTROLLER
- THE LARGEST FLOPPY HOUSING I'VE SEEN THIS SIDE OF A MODEL II, CONTAINING 2 40T DRIVES
- MULTIPACK INTERFACE
- TWO DELUXE JOYSTICKS
- RS ONE BUTTON MOUSE AND RS HI-RES INTERFACE
- AN RS-232 PACK
- A PLASTIC FLOPPY BOX WITH ABOUT 5 FLOPPYS
THIS PIC SHOWS THE RS-232 CARTRIDGE, AND IT'S BEEN MODDED. I'M TRYING TO FIND OUT WHAT THE IDEA BEHIND THE SWITCH IS. I SUSPECT IT MAY HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THE HIGH SPEED POKE, BUT, IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME SINCE I READ THAT ARTICLE ON COCO3.COM AND I DON'T REALLY REMEMBER MUCH ABOUT IT. EITHER WAY, THE SWITCH ON THIS PARTICULAR UNIT IS BROKE, SO I'M GOING TO HAVE TO GET A NEW ONE.
MARCH 13:
EARLIER IN THE WEEK, I TALKED WITH BRIZA FOR A LITTLE WHILE. AT SOME POINT, HE WILL BE CONTRIBUTING TO THE 'COCO DEN' WITH HIS OWN SET OF PAGES ON THIS DOMAIN. ON HIS PAGES HE WILL BE POSTING ABOUT GAMES AND REVIWING THEM ALSO. HIS SUB-DOMAIN IS ALREADY SET UP AND READY (HENCE THE LINKS IN THE NAV BAR), NOW HE JUST HAS TO FIND THE TIME TO WORK ON THE GAMES AND REVIEWS!!!
MARCH 6:
THIS PAGE IS DEDICATED TO MY FAVORITE 8-BIT COMPUTER, THE TANDY COLOR COMPUTER.
THIS WAS MY FIRST COMPUTER. MY PARENTS BOUGHT THIS FOR MY 13TH BIRTHDAY IN 1981. CAME WITH AN OKIDATA 82A PRINTER, A FLOPPY DRIVE AND A FEW OTHER ODDS & ENDS. AND IT ACTUALLY CAUSED A LOT OF FIGHTS IN THE HOUSE. YOU SEE, I WANTED AN ATARI 800, LIKE MY FRIENDS HAD. THANKFULLY, I (AT THE RIPE OLD AGE OF 12) LOST THAT ARGUMENT. WHILE THE ATARI 800 IS A CAPABLE COMPUTER, IT'S NOT A COCO.
HOWEVER, IT WASN'T UNTIL I FOUND 'THE RAINBOW MAGAZINE', AT WILKIE'S NEWS BY THE DAYTON MALL, THAT I BEGAN TO REALIZE THE POWERFUL MACHINE THE COCO FAMILY WAS CAPABLE OF BECOMING.
EVEN IN THIS AGE OF HI-TECH, MULTI CORE COMPUTERS, THIS LITTLE SINGLE BOARD, 8-BIT WONDER STILL HOLDS A SPOT IN MY HEART.
OK
