Saturday, June 24, 2006

Comment: Random CoCo Bits

Since I last posted to the blog there's been a heap of... well... nothing happening. heh! Not entirely true, so here's a few news bits:

http://www.chipple.net/coco/file2dsk/

Our man in Japan, Chipple, has updated File2DSK yet again for you Linux folks out there. Working with Mannequin, he hasnow posted a source version of the utility that can be compiled to run on Linux. Two thumbs way up! :) And if you haven't tried this utility yet, and its companion DSK extract utility, then get thee to the link above. You'll never be the same.

Briza8 (Brian) has, alas, gone offline for a bit after a horrible PC crash. Best wishes, amigo and return soon. See his post in CoCo Talk here: http://www.coco3.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=329

RetroRick has posted some more screen shots of Ladder Man 2 in CoCo Games at coco3.com. This is looking so cool, and all in ECB. (I know I'm not suppose to cheer for ECB, since it is, after all, "killing the CoCo," but I'm gonna do it anyway! ha!).... http://www.coco3.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=219

Speaking of ECB... Would anyone be interested in an ECB forum? What about a collector's forum, all about chatting about CoCo collecting, recent auctions and finds, braggin about recent aquisitions, etc? I'm somewhat loath to start another CoCo message board, since the ones running barely get enough traffic as it is, but if there's enough interest, I'll fire one up (or inquire if there's someone willing to add to an existing board). I got some nifty message board software, but no where to use it at. heh!

Some more stuff I want for my CoCo:

1. A 3 1/2" drive cable. There's probably a bunch of stuff like this that idiots like me can't build, but that would be easy enough for some, that would be a huge boon to the community.

2. A quick and easy printer solution that doesn't require ancient dot matrix ribbons. No idea how this would work, but I'd buy it.

3. Someone to patiently explain, step by step, how to add a switching PC power supply to my CoCo 1 and CoCo 3. heh! I just can't seem to get the hang of it. (See afore mentioned comment, re: I'm an idiot.)

Angel's Luck,
Cris

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, making a 3.5" floppy cable is quite easy. Simply buy a 34 pin connector (comes in two pieces), line up the teeth to the cable (an existing drive cable is fine), and simply hammer the 2nd piece (tapping lightly with a hammer on a solid surface... like a cement floor) until it clicks together. The only other thing to worry about is pin 1, which is usually the colored wire on the ribbon cable, and usually has a little arrow pointing to it on the connector. I usually put my 3.5" connector on the furthest away from the controller end of the cable, so if I screw up by not lining up the wires to the connector, I can just cut the 1/4" or so of screwed up cable off and try again.
I have zilch electronics experience, and I have made lots of cables this way.
-L. Curtis Boyle-

Anonymous said...

Actually, making a 3.5" floppy cable is quite easy. Simply buy a 34 pin connector (comes in two pieces), line up the teeth to the cable (an existing drive cable is fine), and simply hammer the 2nd piece (tapping lightly with a hammer on a solid surface... like a cement floor) until it clicks together. The only other thing to worry about is pin 1, which is usually the colored wire on the ribbon cable, and usually has a little arrow pointing to it on the connector. I usually put my 3.5" connector on the furthest away from the controller end of the cable, so if I screw up by not lining up the wires to the connector, I can just cut the 1/4" or so of screwed up cable off and try again.
I have zilch electronics experience, and I have made lots of cables this way.
-L. Curtis Boyle-

Anonymous said...

Hi Captcpu and Curtis,

True Curtis making a cable is simple, I'm no good at electronics, but making a 3 1/2 cable is the only hardware hack I was good at.
So Captcpu, find some connectors, and rig it upm to your existing cable(I have my connector on the end, Like Curtis said, If I stuff up, I can just trim the cable, and start again).
BTW, Thanks for the good wishes, Hopefully I'll be back on sooner than later, I'm hoping in a weeks time(Fingers crossed).
Hopefully when I log in here again Capt, you have some good news about your cable issue.

laters

Briza

Captain Computer said...

Excellent! Thanks for the tip. I found a source for the connectors. Probably won't get to try it for a month or so, but will report results as soon as possible.

Anonymous said...

Hi Captcpu,

I'm Back on-line Mate, just got my Pc 2working gain tonight, except my keyboard is stuffed some keys either keep printing out characters, or they print out another character.
So have you had a chance to make a connection for your 3 1/2 drive to work on your coco 3 setup

laters

briza

Captain Computer said...

Welcome back, Briza! Good to hear. Hope the keyboard gets unfried, though. I know how annoying that can be. Blah!

Unfortunately, I haven't had time to put together the 3 1/2". Soon, I hope. Too much work and the wife just started a new job that has a wacky schedule. So the drive is sitting there next to the CoCo with the P/S I have no idea what to do with (I ordered up a spare for a PC I'm building, then decided it'd be better for the CoCo 3 and then realized I still have no clue how to hook up. I'm studying on it.) heh! I'll probably just try to hook the drive up to the FD-500 I've got laying about and see if that works.

Angel's Luck,
Capt

Anonymous said...

Hi Captcpu,

Don't forget the new demo game Glove By JMK posted in the forum, been playing it, and finding the bugs in it.
As for Ladderman 2, I think it is a really good detailed game.
But any new game done for the coco, is worthy of having I reckon, Diego's Mine Sweeper game is another 1, the graphics used in that was really good, even tho it was a text based game.

laters

Briza

Captain Computer said...

Hey Briza!

Diego's minesweeper is a ton of fun. Just as addictive as the Win version. I still fire it frequently. :)

I haven't seen anything from the forums at all in almost two weeks. Sigh. I plan to spend most of Sunday CoCoing, online and off, and hopefully they will be enough going on out there to put up a news update. Looking forward to trying Glove as well. Heck, might even post one of the mini-games I've been messing about with. heh!

Angel's Luck,
Capt

Anonymous said...

Hi Captcpu,

I forgot to mention, The Sierra Games ported over to run in our beloved Coco 3's, They are excellent,
I especially like Space Quest 2, and Police quest(except it still needs a cleanup in some departments), But overall, it is Fantastic to see the old Sierra classics running in OS-9 Level 2.
Why these games were never ported over in the first place, Has me beat, Guess Having these as well, would really showup the Pc's back then, Can't have a 8Bit computer, Doing 16Bit games.

laters

Briza