THEY WON!!!!

The CoCo trio who entered into the RetroChallenge Winter Warmup 2010 won!!! Boisy, Aaron and Jim brought the internet to the CoCo via Drivewire4, entered the Challenge and won. There's something very cool about the CoCo being in the spotlight again.


You can check out all of the info here:


RetroChallenge 


Aaron's CoCo served homepage 


Jim's Project page 

My congratulations to the three gentlemen. This was a very cool project with spectacular results. If nothing else, it certainly raised interest in the CoCo again for lots of people. And hey, it finally gave me the kick in the ass I needed to clean a spot on my desk to set up one of my CoCo systems again.


Way to go guys!!! You deserved it!!!




MCCM.

Quick eVil Bay update

A quick scan of eVil Bay netted a couple CoCo3 auctions:

Tandy Computer 3 TRS 80 System & Joysticks Plus Games appears to be a run of the mill auction; CoCo3, switchbox, video cable, couple games and joysticks.

The next one is billed as This is the BIGGEST CoCo package to ever hit eBay. While it is a fairly complete system, it's hardly the BIGGEST CoCo package ever to hit eVil Bay.It DOES have a very noteworthy piece of hardware - an Amdek dual mini-disk drive system. I've never seen one of these in person, but, remember drooling over them in ads in the Rainbow... While it doesn't live up to it's billing as the BIGGEST, it may well be in the top ten in the last few years.


Later,

MCCM

Still pretty quiet

Man, it's still pretty quiet on eBay. And equally quiet it seems this week on the mailing list. There are a few tidbits worth looking at, so, here we go:

If you're in the need for a Hi-Res joystick interface, here's one that looks decent and at a fair price.

Here's a nice looking grey CoCo1, with not a whole lot of info included...

If you're in the market for a decent looking CoCo2, the this one may be for you. the seller has it listed as a Tandy Computer 2 Model 26-31278, but, I'm sure he means a 26-3127B which if my memory serves is the Korean version capable of true lowercase text instead of just the inverse text we've all grown to love/hate...

The same seller with the Hi-Res adapter also has a single button CoCo mouse up for sale as well...

There's another nice looking grey CoCo1 up for auction, seems to be complete with most original documentation that came with it, but, does not say if it's in an original box. Also includes some bonus material from a ZX Spectrum if you need that as well. From the pics it looks like it's been opened up, maybe a memory upgrade??? (just a guess...)

Our next victim, err, auction is for a CoCo2 with original box, or, what's left of the box... Seller claims the original docs, and antenna box are with it, but, as is the case with so many of these auctions, he has no idea of the functional status (I will use a rare case of better judgement and not say any more about this...). 

There seem to be plenty of CoCo2's up for sale, including this one: Radio Shack Tandy TRS80 Color Computer MIB W/access (is this the ever elusive Men In Black edition?) I have no idea what the computer actually looks like; the seller has pics of everything BUT the computer...

Here's the ONLY CoCo3 auction I've seen this week. And it's a pretty complete system, with RGB monitor and R/S printer to boot. If I wasn't already committed to but another system from someone else, I'd seriously consider this myself. Hopefully it'll fine a nice caring home soon...

That's about all that really caught my eyes, auction wise this week. There are a couple of game up for sale that are price rather high, IMHO ($60 for Thexder). Whatever.

I did get a little quality CoCo time in this week, with my newly repaired and upgraded CoCo3. You can read about it on my repack blog if you like. 

Till next time,

MCCM

Shhhhh... can you hear that...?

Well, that's the sound of nothing. And quite literally nothing has been going on this last week. No auctions really grabbed my attention, no major revelations in CoCoWorld this week - pretty much nothing. There was an update on the RetroChallenge website. Looks like our three intrepid entrants into the game are making good headway with internet enabling the CoCo via Java DriveWire. You can go to Aaron's home page for the complete play-by-play, and the page is being served from a COCo3 no less.

My only CoCoing has been with snipping out a CPU and throwing a socketed 63C09EP in it's place on one of my CoCo3's. I'll be posting more on that on my repack blog later...

I still haven't heard from Cris - the CoCoHut website is still very much MIA, so I hope he can get things straightened out.

Last about it for this entry.

Later...

eVil Bay Auction results, and....

We'll do the and first. Briza has been in contact with Cris, aka CaptCPU (not as fun as Capt. Morgan, but, what can ya do...?). Cris has no idea why his website is down and is going to look into it. When I looked into everything, his domain name was registered until 2011, so, hopefully he'll show back up in these parts...

_________________________________________________________________

Below are some of the result from auctions I've noted earlier:

Reasonable looking CoCo1 with games went for a reasonable price...

This CoCo1 FDC 26-3022 went for a surprisingly low price. I figured it's at least go for $20.

This REALLY nice grey CoCo1 went for an insanely low price of $9.99...


That's it for now. I'm looking to post on some current auctions later today - I hope...


MCCM.

Quick update...

If you've been following my CoCo3 repair escapades on the mailing list, it's over for now. You can go to my repack page and see the gory details...

I lampooned this auction from KPSURPLUS earlier. I couldn't let well enough alone. Last time he put up a CoCo auction this ridiculous, I offered $5. I just did the same thing here. Why? I dunno, we'll see if I get the same result (was banned from making offers on any of his auctions for a while).

This Orchestra-90 went very reasonable.

The low serial is the only reason I can think of why this CoCo2 went for $51.00. Then again, CoCo2's seem to have a history for going at prices higher than I'd guess. Some much higher than CoCo3 prices.

Yet, here's an example of a CoCo2 that didn't sell...

Either someone was desperate for a 3029 controller, floppy and rusty case or, well... damn... I can't think of a reason.

Remember that CoCo2 & CoCo3 auction? Wow... I know they both needed a bath, but, I didn't expect this low of a price for a boxed CoCo3.

That's about it for now....


Later,

MCCM

CoCo Developments and eVil Bay updates

Good morning all,

Well, at least where I'm at it's still morning. I'm sure all of the readers of this blog (all four so far) are members of the CoCo mailing list, and are probably already aware of the recent developments on the CoCo scene. If not, crawl out from under that rock!!! You can look at the at mailing  listarchive to get caught up. I'd suggest looking at around Christmas time to see that Aaron Wolfe, Boisy and Jim Hathaway have made the CoCo internet capable with a Java version of DriveWire 3. And to top it off, Aaron now has a CoCo3 serving up a web page!!! 

The gang of three have entered the project in RetroChallenge Winter Warm-up 2010 and by looking at the current entrants, I'd say they have a great chance!!! They have implemented a telnet client, an IRC client, and have successfully connect CoCo to CoCo over the internet. That's cool by ANY standards.

Now, over on CoCo3.com, there's been activity as well. A gang of four, consisting of Jason, Briza, Robert Gault and Potatohead, have discovered and provided test dsk images of a 256 color mode (composite only so no RGB love here) that uses i byte per pixel. Meaning NO special software or page flipping techniques will be required to design some great 8-bit games with cool graphics and enough CPU cycles left over for killer sound effects and music. 

As someone pointed out regarding both of these projects, these have been done with hardware and equipment that was available in the 1980's so there is no special hardware being utilized with any of this. The 256 color composite mode DOES require a 512k CoCo3; that's my understanding anyway. The DriveWire3/internet capabilities should be available to any member of the CoCo line.

___________________________________________

Okay, time for some eVil Bay updates:

First on the hit list is a semi-nice looking CoCo1 with a few carts. It has a little wear about where you'd expect, but, it also has a COOL keyboard overlay that I have no Earthly idea where it came from...

Here we have a first generation CoCo floppy controller - Model 26-3022. This is the ONLY Radio Shack made controller that can be modified for hi-density floppy use. It's also the least reliable in OS-9/NitrOS-9.

If you are in the market for a NICE CoCo1, this auction may be your ticket. It comes in it's original box, has the manuals, cassette recorder, and couple carts and the CoCo Learning Lab on cassette. So far the price is reasonable and shipping is tolerable. Should make a nice score for some CoCoNut.

Shadow-Nightwarrior is back with another interesting auction.A set of 5 1/4" quad-density OS-9 floppies containing a C compiler. Good luck on figuring it out. Even more good luck on getting a drive that'll read those disks...

Well, I guess that's it for this episode. If anyone has any suggestions of what they want to see, let me know and I'll try. If anyone would like to post articles here, contact me and we'll get it arranged...

Later,

MCCM

More eVil Bay

Been trying out the 'email a post' feature offered by Blogger. It works. That's about all I can say right now...

I'm going to guess that Cris has lost interest in this blog and his website. His website (coco.clubltdstudios.com) is no longer functional either. I hope he decidec to let the CoCoHut blog continue. I'll do the best I can to post CoCo related stuff in a semi-frequent nature...

Okay, on to eVil Bay....

The first victim, uh, auction is for a Non-Working CoCo3 that, from the description sounds like it could simply need the GIME removed, cleaned and reseated....

'Prepare for LUDICROUS SPEED!!!' to steal a phrase from Spaceballs... What the hell???? Now I know the O-90 is cool and all, but, for $150 a whole lot more coolness could be gotten; IDE interface, TC^3, MicroSD DrivePak, set up DW3 and host a CoCo website from your CoCo...

'They've gone to plaid...' And here's another CoCo2 auction from KPSURPLUS that's only slightly less stupid than yesterday's entry. At least this CoCo2 looks like it was dried off before being put away...

The following eVil Bayer has got several auctions up for grads for floppy ROM's. shadow-nightwarrior has had some interesting stuff up in the past, but, I have no clue who he his. His website is www.gimechip,com but, that's still no help to me any way, here are his floppy ROM auctions: FDOS 2.2, JDOS , ADOS3. Evidently he's not a big fan of his ADOS3 configuration because he's offering to give it away...

Here's an auction for 2 COCos, a CoCo2 and a CoCo3,  which even the seller admits need a good cleaning. I'm not thrilled in the least with the $40 shipping price to Florida, tho...

That's about it for today. Like I said, I'm going to try and start posting semi-regularly again. I've also started some work on my repack, and am still posting on the blogsite for it. If you're interested, hop on over an take a gander - just don;t laugh loud enough for me to hear...

Later,

MCCM

Update and eVil Bay update

Okay, a few folks said they were interested in seeing some posting going on here again, so let's see if the works. I'll start with an explanation of my absence; in short other hobbies, life, recovery.

Other hobbies: Each year I put up Christmas lights. Everybody does right? Well, no. And certainly not everyone goes as far as I do, though some make my display look like a Light-Bright on steroids. No, I usually put up 15-20,000 lights each year and sync them to music. This starts sometime in August and runs thru December. Which is why my last post was in August 2008. Usually, I pick back up in January. Last year I didn't....

Life: Spending time with my wife and kids during and after the holidays. Nuff said...

Recovery: On February 2nd, 2009, I was stopped at a traffic light when some asshat who was not paying attention rear ended me. I was in a 1995 Ford Thunderbird. He was in a GMC 2500 series pickup. I was standing still. He was going about 50mph. I remember the initial impact, and my car hitting the van in front of me. I don't remember anything else until I was out of my car walking around. Physically, I hurt like hell, but, with no apparent major injuries, I turned down the ride in the meat-wagon and waited until the FHP trooper was done and my wife took me to the hospital. Talk about a bunch more ass hats. If your guts aren't dragging and your brains aren't oozing out of your head, there's nothing wrong with you. 

In the weeks after I had numerous problems, both physicality and mentally - I hurt like hell everywhere and my memory was non-existent, I had trouble finding words to complete sentences, my eyes were VERY sensitive to light (still are), I had mood swings worse that Carrie and Sybil combined, and was not getting more than 2 hours sleep per night. When I say my memory was bad, I mean I forgot complete conversations, forgot entire nights, forgot how to do parts of my job. We began to look my symptoms and look over pictures of my car. We discovered three distinct impact marks from the truck's tire on my rear bumper and trunk - I had been bounced around like a pinball between him and the minivan in front of me. 

After numerous MRI's and other tests, I was finally diagnosed wither herniated discs in my back and neck, torn rotator cuff in my left and right shoulders, and 'post concussion syndrome', or in other words, Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. While I'm not back to 100%, at this stage I;m probably as far back physically as I'll come. We have seen improvements in the head symptoms and hopefully those will continue. However, many people whom I have talked to who are familiar with this type of injury tell me I'll be battling it on and off for the rest of my life...

Anyway, on to the eVil Bay stuff...

KPSURPLUS is back with a CoCo2 that looks like it's been rode hard and put away wet... and the price is ridiculous at $69.00 for being sold 'as parts.'

If you have a Model III in need of a picture tube this may work for you. Tho the seller says he is trying to 'build his rating back up' and that usually scares me...

Here's a CoCo Orechestra 90 for a very reasonable price at $7.95 right now. I'd be interested if I didn't already have one...

And we have a much better example of a CoCo2 with Manuals here than the KPRIPOFF above. Shipping cost is fair, the price is a little high at $49.00.

Not in as good shape as the one right above, but, far better than KP's, this CoCo2 with Bustout is priced fair and shipping is also where one would expect.

Don't know who this guy is, but, um no.... CoCO disk drive and controller...

There are some others that are still more than 4 days out right now. I'll try to catch up on them tomorrow.

Later,

MCCM

Just out of curiosity....

Is anyone still reading this blog? I think Cris gave up on it. I haven't heard from him in... forever, don;t even know if he's alive, okay, or otherwise.

I haven't had time what with work, my ongoing recovery, trying to maintain my own blogs, CoCoing, Christmas, learning web design, etc... to do much here.

Has anyone missed the eVil Bay updates or has the lack of activity gone un-noticed? If this blog is even read any more, let me know and I'll try to get back to doing some semi-regular posting...


MCCM.