Wintermute tips the Hut

Blog Tipping.  Love it.  Haven't heard that one before, but then again I don't read a lot of blogs that aren't about CoCos. :)  Wintermute was kind enough to give The CoCo Hut, Brian's CoCo/Model III Repak blog, and David and Briza's CoCo Downunder a mention on his April 2, 2007 entry.  You can read it here:



Blogtipping for April 2007 - Wintermute's Blog



Many thanks, amigo, and glad you like it. 



As for the posting frequency he tips, well... I'll work on it.  See, if I picked a regular posting frequency I'd never hit it.  And then I'd be all in fits trying to get caught up.  And then it wouldn't get done because I'd lock up.  And then...   Okay, I'll try. :)



I think one way to do a regular entry would be having a regular column of sorts.  The Comments just kind of pop up when they stick and my head WHILE I happen to be sitting at the computer (see previous post on ATTR command).  Clearly, those aren't planned.  News when it occurs, of course.  Can't help that.  Pimp My CoCo is contingent on me actually getting out in the Evil Lab and actually working on it.  (Sans little girls running around while I'm using power tools and electricity.  Bad combination.)  So...



Two off the top my head thoughts.  First, I could go back to doing a regular CoCo history post.  I use to this in the old CoCo Collector and it always went over big.  This would be me picking something pretty much at random (whatever strikes my fancy at the moment... yes, I have a fancy... shuddap) and posting everything I come up with. Another similar concept would be posting about a particular aspect of the CoCo, like BASIC command of the month, or hack of the month, or something like that.  Couldn't promise that more than once a month, but I could pick a due date and mostly stick with it.



The second would be a weekly CoCo Roundup.  I did this a bit early on, but it never got a lot of responses.  And when I quite, no one noticed.  Course I'm pretty sure there were only two readers at the time, and one of them was my wife (who has since lost complete interest).  I'm pretty sure there's at least four readers now.  Well, apparently five.  :)  Anyhow, that could be done, say, late Sunday nights for posting every Monday.  It involves me hitting certain sites, message boards, mailing lists and google searches and just yammering about what comes up.



Regardless, drop a note this way and let me know if something more regular like the above, or anything else for that matter, would be of interest.  Just hit the comment link below, or email this way.



And thanks again to Wintermute for the mention!  While you're over there, be sure to read through the rest of his posts.  Great stuff on technology, implications and how to use it (and not).  I can sympathize. heh...



Angel's Luck,

Capt.



discuss this post (and other CoCo Goodness) in the CoCo Hut Message board!

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Color Computer Games page does RSS

L. Curtis Boyle has been busily adding tons of new game listings to:



Tandy (TRS-80) Color Computer Games



He also has The Last Ninja screen shots and movies shot by Allen Huffman at CoCoFest.  Great stuff!  Keep your fingers crossed that we'll see this game sometime soon.



More important, though, Curtis has added an RSS feed to the page.  Now you can get the updates as they occur via your RSS reader (I recommend Firefox, of course. heh!)  Great stuff and two enthusiastic thumbs up.



Another interesting bit is the edition of an Author Index and a Timeline index.  While these aren't entirely complete yet, they make fantastic additions to the site and aid in historical research as well.



Just this month, Curtis has added tons of downloads and author collections.  If  you need games to play on your CoCo, there's more here than you could get to in a lifetime.  Kudos and thanks to Curtis!



Angel's Luck,

Capt.



Stop in the CoCo Hut Message Board to discuss this site and others!

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The ATTR command, Or a pretty good Microware joke

I've been resolved for some time to post more entries about actually, you know, using the CoCo. Then I get distracted with things like building 'em and collecting 'em and writing about 'em and making web sites about 'em. That's great, of course. Sharing is part of the experience. But I still need to make more of an effort to post stuff about using our beloved machine.

So the other night I'm floundering about on the keyboard, as I am wont to do as I am having no particular programming skill to speak of, and I decide I need a snazzy title screen for the game I'm failing to get put together. When you hit a brick wall in the programming department, it's always a good idea to have a backup plan. Like, say, making it purdier. I'm pretty sure all opening/title screens for programs come about this way.

Game Developer: So, um, how do we do that?
Game Programmer: I dunno.
Game Developer: Well, we're getting paid for making games, you know, so we should, um, do something.
Game Programmer: We could make a really pretty title screen and opening graphics?
Game Artist: You should make a spinning 3D logo with lightning bolts shooting out of it.
Game Programmer: Um, yeah, well, that would really be....
Game Developer: There, see, that's perfect! Let's do that!
Game Programmer: But I'm pretty sure it would take longer than....
Game Developer: Great! Now do we start with the logo or the lightning bolts?
Game Artist: [grinning evilly] I'm going to get a soda.
Game Programmer: Bast...

This is also why most games are delayed several months, or even years. The opening title sequences are actually more difficult to do than the game. David Letterman once said, "Sometimes something worth doing is worth overdoing." That's my motto.

All I really wanted to do was have some colored text display the game title, credits, and notices on a black background. To snazz it up a bit, I though the text should be different colors for each line. The game is only in SG6 mode, so we don't want to go overboard.

Okay, yeah we do.

So there's the standard reversed video method, but you don't get different text colors that way. On the other hand, the 40/80 column modes can have different background/foreground colors. That would work. Though I should also look at printing it on the HSCREEN and that way I could add graphics later, if so inclined.

So HSCREEN sucks. The enhanced video modes of the CoCo 3 are great, but accessing them in BASIC is not really practical. I'm sure there's something one could do with it, but mostly it's so slow it blows. Yes, it blows and it sucks. So there.

That left the 40/80 column "hi-res text screen" mode. They have their own suckiness, but they're good enough. (As far as Color BASIC goes, those enhanced modes and screens have a serious "tacked on" feel to them.) Except that now I have to mess about with the ATTR command.

To be fair, using ATTR isn't that tough. The command uses PALETTE slots 8-15 for the foreground and 0-7 for the background. (Why are they backwards? Why not 0-7 for the foreground, which is specified first in the command? I'm sure there's a technical explaination revolving around how the CoCo is setting the bits, but still... sheesh!) Easy enough, but some doofus stuck the weirdest ass default colors in the default foreground selection. They go: black, green, black, buff, black, green, black, orange. Huh? It's like whoever did that part of the code said, "Ha! This'll be funny! Who needs text other than black, green, buff and orange anyhow! Bwahahahaha!" Or maybe it was, "Hurry, dude! The suits from Tandy are here!"

The background colors, by the way, follow the normal generic 8 color scheme. Go figure. To fix it, you have to reload the ATTR foreground pallette slots, 8 through 15, with the correct colors. Thus, one must dig out the old color chart, or make one, and look up each generic code and then load the PALETTE with the correct value. Can you say, Pain In The Ass? I thought you could.

So you do one of these:

100 FOR X=8 TO 15
110 READ C
120 PALETTE X,C
130 NEXT X
140 DATA 0,18,54,9,36,63,31,38

The DATA statements are the colors I selected. Notice that I substituted orange (38 in slot 15) for magenta. Green would normally start at slot 8 (yellow in 9, etc.) and orange would be in slot 15. I wanted black in slot 8 so that black-on-something-text would work as well. Also ATTR 0,0 to get black on black. I have my reasons. :P

While I'm bitching, why blink and underline? The ATTR command has two switches, B and U, that allow these two attributes to be applied to your text. e.g. ATTR 2,2,B would blink. Why? Because other 8-bits at the time could do that? Because no one ever used those features on other 8-bits? Meaning CoCo users would? Italic and bold would have been more handy.

Now, granted, most people are going to change the colors anyway. There are plenty of colors in the CoCo's palette that look great for title screens. Some are very high contrast (which is why you see them in games so often) and look very nice. But there should be a base set, and it seems to me the base set should be the standard colors (green, yellow, blue, red... etc.) I know, I know. Nag, nag, nag.

Anyhoo, now I've got my fancy title and instruction screens, which are probably longer than the actual game program. heh. The title flashes colors by rotating the PALETTE. There's sound, there's dancing girls, there's 3D spinning dervishes, it's a true multimedia experience, let me tell ya. (Editor's Note: Not really.) Still, it took a lot longer and a lot more effort than it should have. Once you get the hang of it, you can make some pretty cool text effects, and some nice looking screens, with ATTR. But it's kind of a pain, anyhow.

At least the title screen is done. Drat, now I actually have to go back to programing the game.

Maybe it needs a save score to disk feature. Hmmm... yeah, that would kill some time and a ton of unnecessary bytes. :)

Angel's Luck,
Capt.

Look Ma, A Site Update

I have, of course, been a bit lax in updating the website proper. As I've said before, blogging is just so damn easy, it's more efficient to post here than make up a new web page. But... there is something more permanent and more thorough about a web site. A blog entry and a proper web page both have their place and purposes. Anyhoo...

I did a bit of updating to the web page. The front page is something I've been messing about with for awhile. I've also been playing with a whole other system of doing web sites, called php-nuke, which is pretty cool as well, but would require quite a few people to maintain. If I push that project any further, I'll letch'all know. In the meantime, most of the formating is done for the CoCo Hut, and I just need to methodically go through and update the pages and add the new content.

And boy is there content. I've got tons of pictures and half assed articles done. I'm hoping to get to spend I little time each week, over the next few months, updating everything and adding stuff in. Drop in occasionally, take a look around, and let me know what ya think. You can post a comment here, pop into the CoCo Hut Message Board, or drop me email at captcpu@clubltdstudios.com.

And if there's something specific you'd like to see, drop a note and I'll see what I can do!

Angel's Luck,
Capt.

DK A Hit!

The consensus is in! 100% of little girls under the age of seven in my house say Sock Master's Donkey Kong conversion is a hit. (Hey, if Al Gore can claim a consensus on "global warming" I can claim a consensus with a test set of two little girls. heh!)

DK is a huge hit here!


In other CoCo goings on at the Evil Lab, I'm gathering materials to do the electronics work on the GloCo but have questions. I've also embarked on another game project. I wouldn't keep my fingers crossed, but if it works it'll be absolutely... er... odd.

Angel's Luck,
Capt.

Allen Huffman blog, last ninja, and CoCoFest

Not only does Allen Huffman (of Sub-Etha Software) have a blog up now (woo hoo), but he's also posted tons of pics and a movie of The Last Ninja, the long lost game Steve Bjork showed at CoCoFest 07. Also posted are some pictures of this year's CoCoFest! Hope over and have a look:


Blog


Update: YouTubed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Je9UsL1Ai54

Very cool. Really want to play that game! :)

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Armchair CoCoFesters

Okay, maybe "fester" isn't the best word. Still, those that couldn't attend the CoCoFest in Chicago managed to congregate in the coco3.com chat room and were treated to some great times. Rumor at this early date is that a lot of folks took video and pictures at the Fest. Hopefully we'll be seeing those soon, and I've course I'll link them here as I come across them.

The big announcement, of course, was SockMaster's "translation" of the original Donkey Kong to the 6809 CoCo. The Donkey Kong arcade machine was originally run on a Z80 processor. SockMaster has all the technical bits on his website. What was great about it was the anticipation and build up to the release. Lots of CoCoists, lots of excited CoCoists. The CoCo community really needs to do this sort of thing more often!

http://www.axess.com/twilight/sock/dk/index.html

On Sunday, we got word that Steve Bjork was there (yes, THE Steve Bjork) and had all sorts of goodies. The main one that made everyone's eyes pop was an unfinished version of The Last Ninja. This game was done for other systems, but never finished for the CoCo 3. Alas, Tandy had too tight a deadline and by the time Steve got to it, it was too close to the deadline to finish. Is it possible it could get finished now? Stay tuned. And check out Steve Bjork's CoCo site at:

http://coco.etechwds.com/

Apparently there was a forum about creating the CoCo 4 and a project was started along those lines. This would be a "VR CoCo 4" with super enhanced graphics capabilities and other goodies. Stay tuned for more on this project as it develops.

Briza and I logged some of the chats. While unedited, they are currently living at:

http://clubltdstudios.com/files/coco/cocofest07/

Some great reading in there if you can wade through. If not, wait for the edited versions. ;)

There's been a bit of controversy of the last year regarding attendance at the Fest, versus folks that just want to (or have to) armchair it. I won't get into that here. :) But I will say that this "Fest" brought more CoCoists online and in contact with each other than anything else over the last couple of years. As I write this, there's still a large crowd in the coco3.com chatroom discussing lost games, the coco 4, and other CoCo items. There's even people just bantering. It's a Good Thing. We need more of this... if we can have a VR CoCo, then we can certainly do more things together for VR CoCo gatherings!

Give the chat a try. Give a message board a shot. Post something. Just sit and chit chat. But get out there and show your CoCo Love!

Angel's Luck,
Capt

The GloCo :)

Brian dubbed this the "GloCo" which I thought was pretty cool. Here's the lit pictures with the black paint. Decals are vexing me at the moment, but it's mostly getting them to print right, which is easy enough to work out. Just gotta have time to do it. In the meantime, a few new pics of the GloCo.

Long Lost CoCo Game: The Last Ninja

Another CoCoFest hot release! :) These are pics of a long lost OS-9 game called The Last Ninja, brought to the Fest by Steve Bjork... more later on this one later. :)

Bjork at CoCoFest

Armchair CoCofesting here, live from the coco3.com chat room. Sigh. So far details have been scant, which means everyone is probably having a great time. :)

Earlier, SockMaster spent a lot of time in the chat talking up details of his amazing Donk Kong emulator for the CoCo 3. Fabulous. That's the big news this weekend, so far. And of course, a lot of the folks there have been pretty much playing it all day. I seriously couldn't belive the CoCo was doing that. heh!

There was a lot of chatter about doing more CoCo ports of old arcades. Hopefully, Sock's effort with inspire plenty more!

Roy stopped in this evening to share a few details. Alas, the webcam didn't go up... yet. Still a possibility of it going live at some point. maybe. Regardless, some of things he mentioned:

* A lot of video and pictures being taken, so hopefully we'll see some of those after the Fest.
* Steve Bjork is there. Yeah, that Steve Bjork. He brought a lot of stuff from the early and even pre-CoCo days including the Electric Crayon for the Model 1 and some of the original development disks for some of this games (including Zaxxon). Very good stuff.
* Mary video interview Steve. Can't wait to see that!!!
* Roy got a real life hug from Mary. :)
* He reports about 100 people (roughly) there, which would make it one of the bigger CoCofests recently.

Plenty of interesting chat going on and can't wait to hear more about the Real Fest activities! Unedited logs (what Briza and I could snag) of the chats will be up later.

That's it for now, but tune in and stay tuned.


Angel's Luck,
Capt