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Table of contents: |
| COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE Issue #1 | Home | Index | Magazine | ||||||
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| Articles in section: ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE |
| "ABOUT
CFDM" ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE CONTENTS (PART 1) CONTENTS (PART 2) KUDOS THE FORMAT OF CFDM |
| Back to top |
"ABOUT CFDM" COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE is dedicated to those who still enjoy running under RS DOS. It will deal with that format exclusively. A primary goal is to keep the COCO community strong. By providing a unique means of communication, maybe old fires will be rekindled as you and I share our knowledge and experiences! The success of this effort depends on each one who becomes a subscriber. Everyone must contribute his/ her two cents in the form of articles, programs, opinions, experiences, etc. If this happens we will all look forward to the next issue. (Check out the manual with your starter kit for details on how to submit material.) Now let's have some fun!!! =* |
ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE is the creation and property of Rick Cooper. It is distributed solely by RICK'S COMPUTER ENTERPRISE. The material which makes up each issue remains the property of the author(s) or contributor(s) unless an agreement has been made otherwise. COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE is dedicated exclusively to those who enjoy the COCO3 operating under RS DOS. It is hoped that this publication will encourage the continued usage of our favorite computer. Neither CFDM nor RICK'S COMPUTER ENTERPRISE will be responsible for the submission or publication of any material that does not belong to the submitter. WE DO NOT ADVOCATE OR SUPPORT PIRACY! =* |
ABOUT CFDM....
"ABOUT CFDM"
ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE
CONTENTS (PART 1)
CONTENTS (PART 2)
KUDOS
THE FORMAT OF CFDM
ABOUT THE COVER....
ABOUT THE COVER
THIS MONTH'S COVER
ADDRESS CORRECTION....
HAS YOUR ADDRESS CHANGED?
=>
____________________________________________________
ADVERTISEMENTS....
UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #1
UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #2
UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #3
WHAT'S AN UNBELIEVABLE OFFER?
ARTICLES OF THE MONTH....
Coco and Amateur Radio
LOVE MY COCO
PRINT #,USING COMMAND
PROGRAMMING..A PROPER EXIT
COCO FRIENDS ART GALLERY....
BROOK
Picture - Winter Serinity
Recycle =>
____________________________________________________
FAMILY TREE....
George Quellhorst
Herb Schuler
J. R. Waggoner
James J. Gibbons
John Tindall
Mike Brown
Norman Barson
Rick Cooper
Robert Griffard
FORUM....
Coco's Future
NEXT MONTH'S TOPIC
TOPIC OF THE MONTH
Topic Comment =*
|
FROM THE EDITOR....
ABOUT SUBMISSIONS
From the Editor
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR....
Future of the CoCo!
HOW ABOUT A HARDCOPY
He Hit the Nail on the Head!
Hooray for CFDM!!!
IS THIS OS9 OR WHAT?
Plug N' Power
SUGGESTION
TO RICK
=>
____________________________________________________
POTPOURRI....
! THE GREAT DEMO CONTEST !
WISHING ON A COCO STAR!
PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH....
BLOCKS..A TRIVIA GAME
BOWLPLOT
CFDM V 1.2 UPGRADE PATCH
CONVERSIONS (CONVERT/BAS)
HARDCOPY...PRINT #-2 CFDM
LLISTing in RAINBOW Format
Prefix
SPLIT/BAS
VCR CARD
=>
____________________________________________________
REVIEWS....
About REVIEWS
C3Packet
DISK EDTASM
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS....
BAD CHIPS???
CFDM AND A RAM DISK
Ham Radio Software
POKE QUESTION
Problem with ULTRA-BASE
Question
=*
|
KUDOS I would like to send a sincere THANKS to all who
have contributed to this first issue. Also thanks
to all who have had the interest (curiosity, courage
, etc.) to support the effort with their $6 or $30.
I hope the results will be pleasing enough that you
will continue your support!
This is a good time for you to check to see if
this is the last issue of your subscription. Look
at the last number beside your name on your mailing
label. If that number is 1, then it's time to renew
your subscription. The cost is $6 for one issue or
$30 for 6 issues if you live in the USA. The rate
for out-of-country friends is $7 for one issue or
$36 for 6 issues.
=*
|
THE FORMAT OF CFDM Each article in CFDM is limited to three screen
pages. A page is 16 lines with 52 characters per
line. Movement from page to page is executed by
pressing the CTRL key and then the page number (1,
2, or 3). When an article page is first displayed
or when moving to a new page, you will notice the
prompt in the upper left corner which says "ONE
MOMENT". This prompt occurs to let you know that
the page is being printed or adjusted. It also
occurs in ENTRY WRITER when you have pressed F1 for
delete or F2 for insert.
All entries in CFDM are text only. Graphics would
certainly be nice but you know how much disk storage
that would require!
=>
____________________________________________________
One feature that you can use for variety is the
text-color option. By pressing the CLEAR key you
can step thru the 64 available colors. The current
color will be saved and used when the article is
redisplayed. SHIFT and CLEAR lets you step thru the
colors in reverse.
You may edit the text of an article. First load the
original document. Next enter ENTRY WRITER and
select EDIT THE BUFFER. Make all the changes you
like in the usual manner. When you're finished
press BREAK. Choose SAVE from the SAVE MENU. Your
edited work will be saved under the same name. Your
old document will still be there too.
=>
____________________________________________________
There are three indicators to help readers travel
thru an entry. In the top lefthand corner you will
find the current page indicated. At the bottom of
each page we will find one of the following symbols.
(The meaning of the symbols are given.)
=> means there's another page.
=* means end of the article.
Adopt these symbols to help each user enjoy CFDM
even more.
I encourage submitters to use ENTRY WRITER in the
appropriate section for ALL submissions. THANKS!
=*
|
| Articles in section: ABOUT THIS ISSUE |
| About
THE COVER THIS MONTH'S COVER |
| Back to top |
About THE COVER Each month we will choose one of the best of the
pictures submitted as that month's cover. So get
out the old graphics editor or use BASIC to draw
something that would look great on our cover!
* PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR ORIGINAL MATERIAL ONLY. *
=*
|
THIS MONTH'S COVER O' happy day, for CFDM and COCO friends, when we
first met James Gibbons! How encouraging to talk
to someone as excited about the COCO as ourselves!
During that first meeting, Jim promised to send some
of his pictures in time for the first issue.
On this month's cover you have seen a sample of his
work. We are looking forward to more of his colorful
graphics in the coming issues! Please let Jim know
you appreciate his contribution by dropping him a
line at the following address:
James J. Gibbons
4 Springlake Crest
Watsontown, PA 17777
=*
|
| Articles in section: ACTIVE COCO |
| HAS
YOUR ADDRESS CHANGED? |
| Back to top |
IF YOUR ADDRESS HAS CHANGED SINCE YOU LAST RECEIVED
CFDM, PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT TO ENTER YOUR CORRECT
ADDRESS IN THIS DIRECTORY. TITLE IT -
*MY ADDRESS HAS CHANGED*
=*
|
| Articles in section: ADVERTISEMENTS |
| UNBELIEVABLE
OFFER #1 UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #2 UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #3 WHAT'S AN UNBELIEVABLE OFFER? |
| Back to top |
UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #1 OVER $100 OF SOFTWARE FOR ONLY $33 + $2 S/H
"ALL RICK'S SOFTWARE"
1 CC3FLAGS..the best RISK playalike for COCO 3
2 VOCAB...a great Scrabble playalike
3 MASTER DIR...a very good disk cataloger (CC 1/2)
4 PROGRAMS FOR FRIENDS..3 educational + 1 game
5 The RAINBOW INDEXES..3 databases of RAINBOW info
6 NIB COMPRESSOR/RICK'S COCO GALLERY..graphics
compressor
7 GALLERY MAKER..make personalized COCO galleries
8 PUZZLES..8 Hi Res, 188 piece jig-saw puzzles
9 TETRA..my TETRIS playalike
10 MASTER DIR 3..fantastic disk cataloger for CC3
11 STEVE'S PICs..24 unbelievable Hscreen4 pictures
from Steve Ricketts =*
|
UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #2 OVER $100 OF SOFTWARE FOR ONLY $33 + $2 S/H
"THE SPORTSware PACKAGE"
1 SUPER DISK..tutorial on program protection,
professional in content.. was $29.00
2 BARBARIAN QUEST..super 512K game, great sound and
graphics.. was $29.00
3 WEEKLY WINNER..lotto aide "enhance your chance
with a meaningful system".. was $15.00
4 WAR GAME DESIGNER II..design your own or play the
four included: ATTACK ON MOSCOW, FORT APACHE
INVASION NORTH, & R.O.T.C... was $24.00
5 WAR GAME DESIGNER ICON DISK..hundreds of icons
for your games.. was $15.00
(=*)
A COMPLETE SET OF BACKUPS FOR ONLY $10 (with order))
|
UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #3 TWENTY PROGRAMS FROM RICK for only $20 + $2 S/H
"RICK'S TREASURE CHEST"
----------------------------------------------------
EDUCATION: CIRMATH, MYMICRO, SPELLING, USDRILL,
TUTOR, LOCATE, PRESIDENTS, TICTACMATH
--------------------------------------------
GAMES: HANGMAN, NUMSLIDE, STONES, WHEELS, CONNECTS,
DISCOVER, PIXSLIDE, TAKESOME
--------------------------------------------
HOME HELP: SHOPPER
--------------------------------------------
UTILITIES: TRANSPIX, COLPRINT, PALSAVER
----------------------------------------------------
THESE PROGRAMS REQUIRE COCO 3, DISK DRIVE, & RGB
=*
|
WHAT'S AN UNBELIEVABLE OFFER? It's a collection of useful, entertaining software
at an affordable, less-than-you'd-expect-to-pay-for
price! It's a collection of software packages that
sold as stand alone products for over $100! It's an
offer that over 42% of my customers now own!
It's software with diversity: Imagine a database
that enables you to find the issue and page number
of all the articles printed in RAINBOW from it's
inception to June 1991! Now consider that you also
get a database which includes all the reviews which
RAINBOW printed in that same 11 year period! And
that's not all. Another database contains the names
of all the programs on RAINBOW ON TAPE/DISK!
=>
____________________________________________________
How about a diskette cataloger that holds thousands
of the file names from hundreds of your diskettes!
Written in 100% machine language, this program is
lightning fast. Ask it to search for a filename and
in less than 3 seconds the entire database is
searched and the locations appear on your screen.
These are only a few of the features of MASTER DIR3.
Now let's add some great games! Imagine some games
that you can play against COCO. VOCAB is a very
competitive SCRABBLE playalike. CC3FLAGS is the
best RISK playalike available. Add to these a most
realistic jigsaw puzzle program, an addictive TETRIS
playalike, and a great RACKO playalike! That's more
fun than you can stand!!
=>
____________________________________________________
How about a few education programs for your children
And some wonderful HSCREEN4 digitized pictures from
Steve Ricketts.
And...my graphics compressor NIB. Along with a
gallery maker program and a sample gallery of my own
pictures!
That's what an UNBELIEVABLE OFFER is!!
And most unbelievable of all is the price..
ONLY $33 + $2 S/H
FROM: RICK'S COMPUTER ENTERPRISE
P.O. Box 276, Liberty, Ky. 42539 =*
|
| Articles in section: ARTICLES OF THE MONTH |
| Coco
and Amateur Radio LOVE MY COCO PRINT #,USING COMMAND PROGRAMMING..A PROPER EXIT |
| Back to top |
Coco and Amateur Radio Amateur Radio, commonly known as Ham radio, and
the Coco go together like icecream and cake. I have
found the Coco to be a versatile tool in the Ham
radio shack! I operate several modes of communica-
tion with my Coco and will attempt to discuss my
favorite mode, Packet radio, in this article.
Packet radio operates much like telephone mo-
deming, in fact, I use the same terminal software on
packet that I use on the telephone. There are many
bbs that offer mail services and file transfers to
the local users as well as a forwarding service to
other states or countries via the Packet radio net-
work. The only requirement for these messages is
that they adhere to the regulations set forth by the
FCC for the Amateur Radio Service.
What is required to operate a Packet radio =>
____________________________________________________
system? First, you must acquire an Amateur Radio
License. Check with some of your local electronic
repair shops for contacts with licensed Hams that
can assist you with this. There is a short exam
required and they can help you find study material.
Next, you must assemble the radio gear for the
system. This will consist of a TNC (terminal node
controller) which is a really super smart modem, a
transceiver that will operate around 145.00 mhz and
an antenna that is designed for that frequency
egment.
You already have the computer and most likely
the terminal software. I have tried several of the
shareware terminal programs and a couple of the com-
mercial ones and they all do a credible job. I de-
cide which one I want to use by the job I want to =>
____________________________________________________
accomplish. I simply keep them all on the same disk
with the communication parameters set the same and
simply switch when I need to.
The serial port works well enough, and if you
are lucky enough to have a multi-pak, that works
great too if you can find the RS-232 cartridge.
The cost? Well, in used prices, a radio, TNC,
antenna, and powersupply will cost you in the ball-
park of $250 dollars. I recently pieced together a
station for about that price that is going to serve
as a node/digipeater (will explain those later).
I will try to give you more information later,
but meanwhile, if perchance you are already licensed
and on packet, my Ham callsign is KM4IY and my bbs
is N4YUU.KY - wud luv 2 hr frm u..73
=*
|
LOVE MY COCO MY COCO'S RS-DOS WILL DO ANYTHING AN MS-DOS UNIT
WILL DO; MAYBE A LITTLE SLOWER & LESS MEMORY, BUT
FOR SO MUCH LESS MONEY. (IT GETS ME THERE AND BACK).
MY OLDER CAR WILL DO ANYTHING A NEW CAR WILL DO;
MAYBE A LITTLE SLOWER & LESS MPG, BUT FOR SO MUCH
LESS MONEY. (IT GETS ME THERE AND BACK).
TODAY, ADULTS SUFFER PEER PRESSURE AS MUCH AS, OR
MORE THAN, OUR CHILDREN AND "PRESTIGE" SEEMS TO
RULE OVER OUR SENSE OF VALUES!
A "HOME" (OR FAMILY) COMPUTER NEED NOT BE A BIG
BUSINESS SYSTEM, UNLESS PARTICULAR JOB REQUIREMENTS
EXIST.
=>
____________________________________________________
MY COCO MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR ME TO BE CREATIVELY
PRODUCTIVE AT AN AFFORDABLE PRICE. IT DOES WORD
PROCESSING, DATA BASES, SPREADSHEETS AND GRAPHICS
BANNERS - POSTERS - GREETING CARDS; ALSO, DESKTOP
PUBLISHING. TO RELAX, I CAN CHOOSE FROM THOUSANDS
OF GAMES, EVEN THOSE WHICH MAKE LEARNING FUN, FROM
MY "COLLECTION" OF RAINBOW MAGAZINES AND THE OTHER
SOFTWARE I HAVE PURCHASED OVER THE YEARS.
I FIRMLY BELIEVE WHAT SOMEONE ONCE WROTE: "THE COCO
IS TANDY'S BEST KEPT SECRET". IF MORE PEOPLE KNEW
THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT IT, TANDY WOULD STILL HAVE TO
MAKE THEM BECAUSE OF "DEMAND". HOWEVER, LACK OF
KNOWLEDGE AND PEER PRESSURES HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO
THE CONTINUING OF "THE RICH GET RICHER & THE POOR
GET POORER". AMEN. =>
____________________________________________________
VIC KELLS
APPLETON, WI =*
|
PRINT #,USING COMMAND The 'PRINT #buffer, USING format; data list' command
is not easily learned from the Tandy manuals. Below
is a short example which may give you a better idea
of how to use it.
10 A$="CFDM COSTS ":B$=" RAINBOW COSTS ":A=6:B=3.9
5
20 PRINT #-2, USING"% %$###.##%
%$###.##";A$,A,B$,B
The following will print out on your printer.
CFDM COSTS $ 6.00 RAINBOW COSTS $ 3.95
In line 20, the first %...% is exactly length 11
including the %'s and the second %...% is exactly =>
____________________________________________________
length 17. Length 11 matches "CFDM COSTS " and
length 17 matches " RAINBOW COSTS ".
The entire format should be within the double
quotes.
I'd like to see other short articles teaching a
BASIC concept. Perhaps my use of 'PRINT #, USING'
can be improved. If so, let's hear from you.
=*
|
PROGRAMMING..A PROPER EXIT Did you ever think that the way you exit a program
could be important? It can be. For instance, if
you are writing a new program using the *high speed
poke, it could be disastrous to press the BREAK key.
How so? Suppose you forget you're in high speed and
decide to save your work for the session. You may
return from your break to find your program is not
what it use to be! It's common knowledge that LOADS
and SAVES are not reliable when executed with the
high speed poke in effect.
Here's what I do to prevent that from happening. The
little used commands ON BRK GOTO and ON ERR GOTO can
prevent catastrophe. Send your program to a proper
shutdown routine by using these commands at the
beginning of your program. Here's an example: =>
____________________________________________________
10 ON ERR GOTO 1000:REM EXIT ON AN ERROR
15 ON BRK GOTO 1010:REM EXIT ON A BREAK
.
1000 REM PRINT THE ERROR CODE & IT'S LOCATION
1005 PRINT "THERE'S AN ERROR CODE";ERNO;"IN LINE "
ERLIN
1010 REM RETURN TO NORMAL SPEED
1015 POKE &HFFD8,0
1020 REM RESET PALETTES SO YOU CAN READ THE DISPLAY
1025 RGB
1030 REM THE END STATEMENTS IS IMPORTANT TO KEEP THE
PROGRAM FROM RUNNING ON INTO THE CODE THAT
FOLLOWS.
( => )
This procedure will turn off the speed whenever you
exit with BREAK or if an error occurs. It there's
____________________________________________________
an error it will tell you in which line it occurred.
(Check the last page of your *QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE
to find what the error number stands for.)
Remember, there should always be an appropriate way
to exit a program. Be sure to include one in your
programs!
*To put your COCO 3 in high speed, POKE &HFFD9,0.
To return to normal speed, POKE &HFFD8,0.
*The QUICK REFERENCE GUIDE came with your COCO 3. It
is a very helpful little booklet!
=*
|
| Articles in section: COCO FRIENDS ART GALLERY |
| BROOK Picture - Winter Serinity Recycle |
| Back to top |
BROOK
I had always planned to try my hand at computer art,
but this was my first attempt. Sure, I had taken
clip art and modified it, colored it, etc., but this
was the first thing I have done from scratch. BROOK
was drawn with CoCoMax 3 using techniques I learned
by watching various painting shows on educational
TV. One would think that a palette of 16 colors
would be adequate, but I found myself wishing I had
more colors and shades. Still, it was a learning
experience, and I plan to pursue it. I urge any
other frustrated artists or painters to give it a
try.
=*
|
Picture - Winter Serinity
This picture is of a cabin in the woods of some of the Pennsylvania mountains. I especially enjoy painting pictures of outdoor winter scenes. I used CoCo Max 3 to paint this picture and took me quite a bit of time to produce. CoCo Max 3, I belive is one of the most user friendly programs I have seen for the Color Computer 3. Having a prior art background comes in handy, but I believe everyone can be an artist when it comes to using COCO Max 3. I used the smallest brush under the brush size icons under the goodies section of the program. I hope you enjoy the picture. =* |
Recycle
I am into helping clean up our environment so I drew
this RECYCLE graphic so it might remind others to
think about it a little. It was done with CocoMax 3.
(See the FAMILY TREE section for more about the
artist, John Tindall.)
(RUN "RECYCLE" on flip side to see John's graphic.)
=*
|
| Articles in section: FAMILY TREE |
| George
Quellhorst Herb Schuler J. R. Waggoner James J. Gibbons John Tindall Mike Brown Norman Barson Rick Cooper Robert Griffard |
| Back to top |
George Quellhorst Hi, my name is George Quellhorst. I was born and raised in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and came to this country in February '57 at the ripe old age of 21. I have the distinction of having been drafted into two different armies. From 1954 to 1956 I served in the Dutch army and drove a five ton ammo truck with a 2 1/2 ton trailer. In February 1961 I got drafted into the American army, took an extra year so I could have my choice of location, and served almost three years in Regensburg, Germany. There I, yes you guessed it, I drove a 5 ton army truck with a.... How I came to love the COCO.... I graduated from high school 3rd in a class of 200. I also was the chess champion of the senior class that year. Well, to make "stong lory short", => ____________________________________________________ in the fall of '81 I walked into our local "Shack", the COCO had just arrived, and the dealer had one on display with a chess cartridge plugged in. Having never even touched a computer before, my first reaction was; "A machine that plays chess, that'll be the day". I sat down "to teach that machine a thing or two". Well "the machine (4K Coco, regular BASIC, and a chicklet keyboard $399.95), had other ideas. It proceeded to beat the pants off me. I promptly put that %*% machine in layaway, so I could teach it a thing or two later. As the years passed, and the computer technology increased, so did "my COCO"...4K Regular to 16K to Extended BASIC to 64K, new keyboard, line printer VII (no descenders) and OH JOY, a disk drive... I still have that old computer, after all, I paid => ____________________________________________________ almost a thousand dollars for it. And though it is worth little in today's market, and not being used, I would not sell it for ten thousand dollars. We are old friends that "COCO I" and I. The ultimate satisfaction came when one of my programs got published in the RAINBOW...and I actually got paid for something I wrote on the computer. To wrap things up, my wife and I have been married for 24 years. Our four kids, George 22, Eric 21, Casey 19, and my "baby girl" Heidi 15, all have a 128K COCO with RGB monitor, FD502 drive and DMP133 printer. They are all "programmers" in their own way. And like Rick mentioned in "his" family tree, I too could have another, perhaps better computer, but I'm kind of married to the COCO..and I don't believe in divorce. =* |
Herb Schuler Hi! My name is Herb. My wife, Claudie, and I live in
Woodbury, NJ. Our town is in South Jersey about ten
miles southeast of Philadelphia, Pa. I have been
retired for ten years (now age 65) having been a
Business Office Manager for the local Telephone
Company. The main hobby that keeps me happy in
retirement is HAM RADIO, followed very closely by
the COCO. I bought my first COCO (a 4k 'D' board) in
June 1982 to interface with the ham radio equipment.
Using 'THE INTERFACE' and software from the
Kantronics Company, I had much success in that
undertaking. In August 1988 I got my present COCO3
and outfitted it with a CM-8 monitor and two drives.
These were my first disk drives as I had used tape
all those years with the first COCO. All of you with
disk drives know the new world of computing that =>
____________________________________________________
was opened to me with the drives. I never was able
to teach myself all the fine details of programming.
Those things I have learned came from studying the
programs of others. My programming activities have
pretty much been limited to modifying others'
programs. Most of my computer activity is 'text'
oriented with Telewriter 128, Dynacalc, databases,
etc. And, most of my attempts at programming are
trying to create RS DOS utilities. Those that I have
been successful with are being used to keep track of
ham radio data. Just in case you who read this may
also be ham radio operators, my call is K2HPV. If
you operate CW you may hear me on most any band.
Please give me a call if you do. You won't have to
listen for me on fone because I don't even have a
microphone connected to my set! I look forward =>
____________________________________________________
to meeting more of you through the FAMILY TREE.
=*
|
J. R. Waggoner My name is J. R. Waggoner. My wife and I live in
Stuttgart, Arkansas.
I have been a security guard at a manufactoring
facility here for the last 11 years. My wife and
I also work part time at the local Radio Shack
store which is next door to were we live.
I own 2 color computers. One is a 10 year old
Color Computer 1. It started out as a 16K machine.
I have upgraded it to 512K with J & R Electronics
BANKER 2. I also have 2 disk drives with RS/DOS.
My second machine is a Color Computer 3 with 512K.
=>
____________________________________________________
My CoCo 3 has one disk drive with RS/DOS also.
Other equipment insludes a DMP-105 printer, CM-8
monitor, RASCAN vidoe digitizer, 2 300 Baud modems,
and a 14 year old Tandy Model 1 Level 2 TRS-80
Microcomputer with 2 disk drives (and it still
works.)
I also have a large collection of magazines, books,
articles, and programs for all three computers.
Other than the obvious, my other hobbies include
reading science fiction, Star Trek, old time radio
programs, 70's music, electronics, scanners, and
short wave listening.
=>
____________________________________________________
J. R. Waggoner
911 North Grand Avenue
Stuttgart, Arkansas 72160-2913
=*
|
James J. Gibbons My name is Jim Gibbons and I am an avid Color
Computer 2 and 3 user. I currently use my
computer for my art work and my work in school.
I currently live at 4 SpringLake Crest, Watsontown,
PA 17777. My phone number is (717)-538-3358.
I am teaching English and Geography and one day of
Art in the Junior High grades 7-9 at Memorial
Baptist Christian School in Williamsport, PA. I am
married and have two children. My wife Linda is also
a user of the Color Computer 2 here at home as well
as at school where she teaches Junior High grades
6-8. My oldest daughter uses the CoCo 2 and my
youngest daughter is an avid user of the Atari Home
Computer. I majored in Art while in college and have
won many awards in my paintings and computer art
work. =>
____________________________________________________
I hope to be submitting many more pictures in
the future and I truly hope to see The CoCo
Friends Disk Magazine (CFDM) be a great
success in the future. I think this magazine
is the "shot in the arm" that the CoCo
community has needed for a long time.
=*
|
John Tindall Hello,
My name is John Tindall. I live in Plainsboro,
New Jersey with my wife Sherry and two children,
Matthew and Meredith. Plainsboro is a small town
about two miles from Princeton where the RAINBOWFEST
used to be held.
I have been employed for the past 15 years as the
assistant greens super. at Springdale Golf Club in
Princeton. As you might guess, I love the outdoors.
My main interests are gardening, landscaping,
watching the kids play sports, Phillies baseball and
of course the COCO.
The COCO 3 is my main computer but I also have a
64k COCO 2 and an IBM XT that was given to me. My
COCO 3 system includes 512k, 2 double sided drives,
an MPI, CM8 monitor, DMP105 printer, and a 2400 =>
____________________________________________________
baud modem. I also subscribe to DELPHI as member
TIND. I do a little programing in BASIC, mostly
changing others programs to fit my needs. My COCO
is just a hobby and is not used for much else.
=*
|
Mike Brown Name :Mike Brown
Address :Rt 6 Box 130
City/State :Liberty, Ky 42539
Phone :606/787-7721
Hobbies :Computer hacking/Ham radio/reading
science fiction-fantasy books.
Occupation :Musician/public school band and music
teacher.
My wife and our 3 dogs and 5 cats live on a
small farm in southern Kentucky. Our nearest neigh-
bor is 1/2 mile away and we can't see the house. I
have been hacking the Coco since about 1984 and have
2 Coco III's, 2 Coco II's, and 1 Coco I. All are
working except one of the II's. I use a 20 meg hard
drive and a CM8 with a 512k Coco III for most of my
hacking. I dabble in Basic and OS9 Basic with =>
____________________________________________________
aspirations toward C and Pascal. I have been
acquainted with Rick Cooper for 13 years as a fellow
Coco-nut and a fellow Educator in our school system.
As a matter of fact, he is the principal at one of
the schools I teach. I used to think that I was
keeping up with him in my hacking, but he has simply
out ran me that last few years. I want to thank him
for his patience with me when I call him for help.
Thank goodness it is not a toll call!
This I think is his best idea for the Coco yet!
I really feel that CFDM is "NEW BLOOD" that we need
in our Coco community. I hope that my contributions
to CFDM are found to be useful and interesting to a
few of our CF's and I look forward to meeting and
making many new friends with CFDM!
=*
|
Norman Barson I was born and raised in Omaha, NE. I served as a
combat infantryman in WW II (the last two months of
it, anyway). I got most of my education at Iowa
State Univ., receiving a Ph.D. in Chem. Engr. My
wife, Celia, and I came to NJ where we have been
ever since. I worked, first, for Exxon Research &
Engineering, then for Celanese Research. When I took
early retirement 10 years ago, I was managing the
Technical Information Center.
I bought my first CoCo, the grey one, in 1982, and
have never lost my interest in it. I am a self-
taught programmer (BASIC only), whenever I can think
of something that hasn't already been done. I am
especially intrigued by graphics, particulary on the
CoCo 3. My other hobbies are duplicate bridge (at=>
____________________________________________________
which I am close to becoming a Life Master) and a
badly-neglected stamp collection.
=*
|
Rick Cooper Hi, my name is Rick. My wife, LaDonna, my three
daughters, Kristin, Kasey, and Kayla, and I live in
the Knobs region of south central Kentucky. The
Knobs is a belt of hills that make a semicircle
around the Bluegrass region. We live in Liberty, a
town of about 3000. My vocation is public education.
Presently I am the principal of an elementary school
with about 200 students.
My interests include chess, singing southern gospel
quartet music, coaching basketball, and my COCO. I
play in a few chess tournaments each year and have a
class A rating. When active in gospel music I sung
in 5 quartets and in 1986 I was president of the Ky
State Singing Convention. I've coached basketball
on the high school, middle school and elementary =>
____________________________________________________
levels.
I am a self-taught programmer and that's my favorite
aspect of computing. I love to write programs and
share them with others. Many of my programs are
educational, recreational or utility in nature. I
began RICK'S COMPUTER ENTERPRISE in September, 1990.
I have met many wonderful people as a result.
The first COCO I bought was the old gray 16K. It
cost over $500 for just the keyboard! Although I
could have other types of computers, programming the
COCO is what I love to do. I hope to continue for
many years to come!
=*
|
Robert Griffard I was very, very young when I was born and named
Robert. Since that time most of my friends call me
either Bob or Griff. I spent over 32 years in the
Air Force and retired in 1975. The last third of my
career in the Air Force was in the computer field.
Although not a programmer I supervised programmers
who were writing War Gaming type simulation models
while at the Pentagon and later was Division deputy
for the Information Systems division at Shape Hq in
Belgium. I acquired a 16K Coco 1 in 1982 and learned
to program in Basic by typing in and changing pro-
grams from the Rainbow. I am not interested in
trying to program in assembly language nor do I have
OS9. I purchased a COCO3 and upgraded it to 512 and
use if for correspondence and to run home management
programs I have either written or modified. My =>
____________________________________________________
equipment consists of the 512 Coco3, dual double
sided drives with ADOS in the controller. Sometimes
I load ADOS 3 from disk. I have a Magnavox color
monitor, Gemini 10x printer plus several other
accessories that I seldom use.
I have been married to my childhood sweetheart for
46 years. We have three children and one grandson
and three grandaughters. I devote a minimum of one
day a week as a volunteer Docent at the Mariners'
Museum giving guided tours. I have a Camcorder and
use the Coco Max 3 to generate titles for my tapes.
=*
|
| Articles in section: FORUM |
| Coco's
Future NEXT MONTH'S TOPIC TOPIC OF THE MONTH Topic Comment |
| Back to top |
Coco's Future Obviously the future of the Coco would have been
much brighter if Tandy had continued to support
it, but I believe that as long as there is a flow
of new ideas and new programs the Coco will thrive.
I originally bought my Coco as an economical alter-
native to the more expensive ms-dos machines. I keep
using it even though the price difference is no
longer so great because having used both systems,
I prefer the Coco. Another strong reason for staying
with Coco is that I am unwilling to lose software
that I have invested time and money in.
There are two programs that I have been trying to
find. A good geneology program and a disk-based
chess program. I have a Coco-3 so I cannot =>
____________________________________________________
use the Cyrus cartridge. If anyone can give me
information about these I would appreciate it.
Jim Grogan
Rt. 1 Box 205
Howard Lake, MN
55349
=*
|
NEXT MONTH'S TOPIC "What are you doing to make the COCO community strong?" This is, I know, a very personal question. For too long our leaders have gone with the flow. Our computer was laid to rest with not a peep from any organized effort that I am aware of. Let's do something...together. That's how we're strongest! Yes, I have some ideas, but...we have to have a lot more people to make ourselves heard. We have to decide 'what we want' and 'how to go about getting it'. I've never heard of a group of buyers not being able to buy the product they wanted. We have to grow in numbers, keep those we have and reclaim some of those we have lost. (We must also keep our machines healthy. Be on the lookout for a backup COCO3, drives, and monitors.) => ____________________________________________________ As for me, I'm writing software and working hard to establish CFDM as an enjoyable, meaningful vehicle to keep us together. I'm purchasing ads, sending flyers, and making long distance calls to recruit more friends. I'm trying to encourage everyone to participate. I NEED YOUR HELP!! What can you do? PARTICIPATE by submitting your work. Art, programs, articles, family trees, views for this column, questions and answers, all will help keep our friends together. As you can see, some sections of CFDM need entries more than others. The REVIEWS section especially needs entries. I'm sure that everyone can find at least three or four sections they could contribute too. => ____________________________________________________ Now is a great time to contribute. It may be very crowded and competitive later! Other ideas on how you can help: Pass the word about CFDM. Tell your local COCO friends, club and BBS members, or adopt a potential new friend. Look thru RAINBOW for an author you particularly liked. Send him a note and explain what we're doing. Some have already recruited new friends. A list sent by Robert Griffard has resulted in at least seven of our current friends. Here's something I hope will help you. I authorize any current friend to duplicate the STARTUP disk and docs to give or send to a potential friend!! =* |
TOPIC OF THE MONTH Many ideas have occured to me about what this first
topic should be. I have settled on "What's the
future going to be for us COCOists?" Before I give
my opinion, let me encourage you to send in yours.
I'll publish as many as I can.
In my humble opinion the future for COCOers really
depends on us. I believe we have lost a lot of
users for various reasons. Some have moved on to
other computers. Some who have taken up with OS9,
are on the road to one of the so-called COCO4s
(what a misnomer that one is). Some have dropped
out only for a little while (they may rejoin us, who
knows?). But I really believe there is quite a
large number who are still enthralled with the COCO.
=>
____________________________________________________
While there is still a significant number of us, we
should try to find ways to sustain. Obviously we
must have the RAINBOW. Without that point of union
we cannot communicate with each other. We cannot
even locate each other. I know that we are not
happy with the cut in size and even more serious is
the lack of material for RS DOS users. But the view
from here is that the RAINBOW is vital to us. To
insure that link we must support it by subscribing
and support it's advertisers by making purchases. To
me every purchase helps keep that advertiser strong
and his programmers anxious to create new programs.
In a more local aspect I believe this new product
(CFDM) can help keep our community strong. It's
=>
____________________________________________________
one more effort to help us enjoy our favorite
computer. I hope great numbers of COCOists will
join us.
Finally, and I almost hesitate to mention this. I
have this faint dream that somehow TANDY will do an
about-face and reenter the scene. Wouldn't you love
to see a truly new COCO4 and a revival of the COCO
community? Maybe that will be our next forum topic.
What would your dream COCO4 be like? Let's save
that one for awhile, okay?
=*
|
Topic Comment The Future of Cocoists who just use RS-DOS or one
of the alternate DOSes such as ADOS but do not use
OS 9 is rather bleak. Even those who use the OS-9
system have a limited future since Tandy has also
deserted them. An activity like CFDM may keep some
people actively using the Coco 3 longer than they
would otherwise but the reduction in the number of
companies supporting the Coco will soon make it
impossible to repair or replace Coco if it fails.
I doubt if Tandy will do an about face and build
a Coco 4 because the margin of profit on it would be
too small. I believe that is the reason that they
discontinued making the Coco 3. For about the same
amount of money it costs for a Coco with disk drives
and 512k you can purchace a MS=DOS IBM clone and a
tremendous amount of software is available in =>
____________________________________________________
the Public Domain and Shareware. Since I would
probably use a larger machine to do the same tasks
which are nicely done on the Coco, I will continue
to use this machine until it gives up the ghost.
=*
|
| Articles in section: FROM THE EDITOR |
| ABOUT
SUBMISSIONS From the Editor |
| Back to top |
ABOUT SUBMISSIONS A few contributors have expressed the desire to
retain their rights to their programs, pictures,etc.
I understand their feelings exactly. I can recall
relinquishing my rights to programs I submitted for
publication. All that was really needed by the
publishers were the rights to publish, copy, and
maybe reprint.
Rest assured! All we want is the right to publish
your work for our COCO FRIENDS and the right to
offer them in the form of back issues to new friends
who might want them later. I hope this will reassure
all contributors. Your work is yours and should
always be yours!!!
=*
|
From the Editor Welcome to COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE. Here's
hoping that the term CFDM will become well-known
in the coming days. I've worked very hard on the
driver for CFDM over the last month. I'm sure we
will be able to find many ways to improve it in the
coming months, but maybe it will serve us well for
now.
A utility that some have already requested is called
HARDCOPY. You will find that program in this issue.
With HARDCOPY you can print any of the articles in
CFDM with your printer. An update of the STARTER KIT
is explained in POTPOURRI. I'm sure further changes
and improvements will be made as we go along. Send
your suggestions via ENTRY WRITER.
=>
____________________________________________________
As you can probably tell, I am very excited about
the possibilities of this project! Two of my main
concerns are; will subscribers really participate
and will I be able to do all the things necessary to
keep this thing rolling. I hope you'll be patient
and help me with what could be a lot of fun for all
of us!
The one thing everyone can do is to submit material.
Whether it's an article, graphic, program, review,
letter, response to the forum, or whatever, I really
want to encourage you to take the time to respond.
COME ON. GET INVOLVED. LET'S PUT SOME FUN IN OUR
COCOs!!!
=*
|
| Articles in section: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Future
Of the CoCo! HOW ABOUT A HARDCOPY He Hit the Nail on the Head! Hooray for CFDM!!! IS THIS OS9 OR WHAT? Plug N' Power SUGGESTION TO RICK |
| Back to top |
Future Of the CoCo! Rick, I think this magazine is a great idea.
I will try to do what I can to make it a great
success in the years to come. I plan to make
many submissions in the Art Gallery section,
and I think I will have something comparable to
"PC-Atlas" or "PC-Globe" for you to publish
near the end of next year. Thanks again for
thinking of me for picture submissions and
for the great idea of publishing this magazine
on disk for the CoCo world.
Jim Gibbons
=*
|
HOW ABOUT A HARDCOPY Vic Kells: Is there a way to make a hardcopy, to a
printer, of our submissions? And, later, of your
CFDM articles?
H Allen Curtis: It would be helpful to have an
option to print the text of an ENTRY WRITER file.
OTHERS: ETC...ETC...
........
Ed..Please check out the program HARDCOPY in the
PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH section. I hope you like it.
=*
|
He Hit the Nail on the Head! Hi Rick..Well, CFDM looks like it could have promise
-judging from the STARTUP KIT. You'll either have
to have a lot of outside input, put in a lot of late
hours yourself or probably even both to make a
success of it.
I'm betting you can do it! Enclosed is my $30 as
initial support. I've submitted two items on the
enclosed disk as a starter.
Good Luck! I'll try my best to help as we go along.
Best Success, Herb Schuler
Rick..The above was not an ENTRY WRITER entry, but a
note Herb stuck in with his submission disk. Please
excuse me Herb for printing it, but it is such =>
____________________________________________________
a great example of the response I've been getting
from our COCO FRIENDS and you correctly described
what I've experienced this past month and a half.
It's a good thing I enjoy this, cause "it sho nough
is a lot of work"!
=*
|
Hooray for CFDM!!! Hooray! I got my starter kit and I am very
impressed! It has reinterested me in my Coco, and
I have even dug out my old Coco Extended Basic book
to begin relearning all I have forgotten about pro-
gramming, and believe me! That is a bunch!
This looks like a lot of fun and a lot of hard
work! Especially for Rick, (the work, I mean). He
deserves it! I have known him for 13 years and in
all of that time, he preaches Cocoism to everyone
that mentions the word computer. I sure hope he has
found his pot of gold with CFDM. The only thing I
can see wrong with it, is that it wasn't my idea!
Contributions, articles, technical info...we
Coconuts have this opportunity to share our know-
ledge. My knowledge and ability is meager compared
to most, but I hope to make some kind of =>
____________________________________________________
contribution to the Coco users! Pass the word around
to your old Coco pals and get them excited again.
Show this to the new users you meet, now that Tandy
has orphaned us, we have to keep our family together
ourselves!
I am surely looking forward with great antici-
pation to meeting you all in CFDM!
=*
|
IS THIS OS9 OR WHAT? Dear Rick: Thank you for inviting me to join your "Disk Magazine". I'm not sure it is for me. I do write a lot of programs but I DO NOT use OS9. I am not going to subscribe to the "RAINBOW" again, because they are basically for OS9 now...If your disks are mainly OS9 then I do not want it. I am sending the $6 for the trial disk. Please advise if you are slanting toward OS9. Dear Virginia: Yes there is a Santa Claus and there is a disk magazine for folks like you and I. No kidding, the term OS9 may crop up from time to time, but only as a reference. No OS9 programs or articles will be found here. No offense meant to OS9 users, but this is not an OS9 publication. Just good old RS DOS for you and me! =* |
Plug N' Power I don't know how many of us COCOists have Plug n'
Power controllers but I'm sure there are quite a
few. My problem is that they can only be used with
the COCO 1 & 2. I'm hoping there is someone out
there who might be able to write some software so
the P n'P could be used with the COCO 3. Also I am
looking for software to convert CocoMax 3 pictures
to GIF format. Any help would be greatly
appreciated.
=*
|
SUGGESTION RICK,
How about a sort of "classified advertisement"
section. Preferably for a lower price ??
I do not think, that as long as the Rainbow
hangs on, that you will get too many commercial
software / hardware manufacturers to advertise in
your new venture and make it worthwhile.
However, many of us have Computers, modems, and
all kinds of other hardware and software laying
around that we would like to sell and / or trade.
Also many of us, including me, are looking for
hardware items that are no longer =>
____________________________________________________
commercially available. I have for example a
brandnew, never been used, FD502 drive which
has a defective track zero sensor.
the sensor is no longer available from Radio-
Shack or National Parts. I would gladly buy a
used non working drive to replace that sensor.
However, how do you let people know that you are
in the market for such a thing.
************************************************
* YOUR NEW CLASSIFIED SECTION WOULD BE PERFECT *
************************************************
George Q.
=>
____________________________________________________
ED. Great idea George! That's what CFDM is all
about...communication of ideas.
Let's do this. We will accept classified ads under
the following guidelines:
1) RICK'S COMPUTER ENTERPRISE will not assume any
responsiblity for any transactions. This means
your address should be included in your ad so
that interested parties can contact you direct.
2) CLASSIFIED ADS must be no longer that one screen
page. Three ads may combined into one entry.
3) The cost will be $2 in advance and ads will be
published as space permits. =*
|
TO RICK RICK, HOW ABOUT A KEY TO RE-DISPLAY THE COVER PAGE ??? GEORGE QUELLHORST ***** ED. George that idea would be nice...but believe it or not, the driver for CFDM uses most of the memory in a 128K machine. The only way I see to re-display would be to BREAK from the magazine and have the BASIC boot program restart from a "(S)tart over or (Q)uit?" prompt. What about it COCO FRIENDS? Let me know if you want this option. =* |
| Articles in section: POTPOURRI |
| !
THE GREAT DEMO CONTEST ! WISHING ON A COCO STAR! |
| Back to top |
! THE GREAT DEMO CONTEST ! Ever need to show that guy next door what your COCO
could do? We've seen some very impressive demos on
the COCO and now's the time to see what our COCO
FRIENDS can do. Let's have a contest!
HERE'S THE RULES:
1) Your demo must be your original work.
2) Your demo must work on a 128k COCO.
3) Your demo must use 10 or less granules of disk
space.
4) Make a backup of your starter diskette. Use the
ENTRY WRITER in the POTPOURRI section to enter
any instructions we need plus any interesting
facts about your demo. Kill all the files on the
disk, then copy your demo on the same side. =>
____________________________________________________
5) The deadline for receiving your demo is June 15.
As I receive demos, I will put as many as possible
on the current issue (space permitting). Issues #2,
#3, #4, and #5 will each have some demos (If you
send them in.).
With issue #5 each subscriber will receive a ballot
with the names of all entries. Please make your
decision, mark your ballot and return it to me by
August 1st. I will get a nice prize for the winner.
But we'll all be winners by doing a demo and seeing
all the others! Please don't be afraid to enter.
We're here to have some fun!!
=*
|
WISHING ON A COCO STAR! Some of the best programs have come from ideas
someone else gave the programmer. You may have a
great idea for a program but not the programming
skills to bring it to life. Lucky for us we have a
great many talented COCO FRIENDS. Let's see if
they will help.
Submit your programming idea via the ENTRY WRITER in
the POTPOURRI section. Entitle it "WISHING STAR".
Someone may decide to write that program you always
wanted to see! (If so we expect to see it in CFDM!)
=*
|
BLOCKS..A TRIVIA GAME BLOCKS is a trivia game with an additional twist.
The object of the game is to get your man from the
start position to his home before your opponent does
(you may choose to play the one player game, just to
see how fast you can make it). Movement of your
piece is made with the four arrow keys. The 10 by 10
block playing board has green, blue and red blocks.
You may move freely to any green block. If your
destination is a blue block, you must first answer
a trivia question correctly before you are allowed
to proceed. If you wish to move to a red block, you
must answer a question correctly to turn it blue.
On your next turn you must answer another question
to turn it green. You may move as many times as you
wish on green squares. Your turn ends when you
finish answering a question. =>
____________________________________________________
The idea for this program came from a COCO FRIEND
who wishes to remain anonymous. I think it's an
interesting program and hope everyone will enjoy it.
You may wish to use your own data for BLOCKS. Here'
show you can add your own questions.
1) LOAD "BLOCKS"
2) DELETE lines 2000-
3) Type in your data using the following format:
a) On each line type one entry. Each entry has
6 fields. Each field separate by a comma.
b) Field one is the question. It should be less
than 80 characters. If you find it does not
print out correctly, go back and reword it to
make it shorter. =>
____________________________________________________
c) Field two thru five are the answers. If you
wish to have less than four answers you must
use two quotation marks with no space between
as that answer. (looks like this "")
(Answers should be 20 characters or less!!)
d) Field six is the number of the correct
answer.
4) SAVE your program under a name other than BLOCKS.
(such as MYBLOCKS.BAS)
By the way there must be 60 questions for the game.
If you have more or less questions, change line 20.
If you have a great set of questions, please share
it with your COCO FRIENDS! (That means send it in!)
=*
|
BOWLPLOT If you bowl regularly in a league, you probably keep
a close watch on how you do each week - what are
your highest and lowest games so far, what is your
highest weekly average, is your overall average
going up, etc. BOWLPLOT is a program that lets you
see all this graphically. It is easy to use.
RUN"BOWLPLOT". You will be asked for the name of the
bowler, the season (for example, 90-91), then the
number of elapsed weeks in the season. If the season
is 25 weeks old, enter 25 even though you might not
have bowled all of those weeks.
Next, you will be prompted to enter the three scores
for each week, separated by commas. If you were off
any given week, enter three zeros, separated by =>
____________________________________________________
commas. Until you press <ENTER> on any line you can
make changes by backspacing. But, if you have made a
mistake, you can correct it later, so just continue
entering data.
When you have entered scores for the designated
number of weeks, your entries will be listed, ten
weeks at a time, and you will be asked if you want
to make changes. After going through all the
listings, you will have one more chance to make
corrections by selecting the group of ten weeks
containing an error. If all are correct, select (5),
and the plotting will begin after a slight pause.
For each week, the scores are plotted as a vertical
line from the highest score to the lowest score =>
____________________________________________________
with a "tick" mark indicating the average for the
night. When all the weeks have been plotted, a
green line will be drawn indicating the cumulative
average as it changes from week to week.
You can exit the plot by pressing <BREAK>. You will
have the opportunity again to make changes in the
data if, from the plot, you spotted an error. You
can also use the change option if you wish to return
to the plot, but do not have any more corrections.
Other options allow you to start a new plot for a
new bowler or end the program.
=*
|
CFDM V 1.2 UPGRADE PATCH A number of changes have been made in the CFDM driver over the last few weeks. Some of the changes were to correct bugs while others were to add new features or improve old ones. The program "PATCH" on the magazine side of this diskette will allow you to make a new STARTUP (submission) disk. Please read the following instructions to create your new disk. THOSE FRIENDS WITH STARTUP DISKS MARKED V 1.2 WILL NOT NEED TO MAKE THIS UPGRADE!!! ------------INSTRUCTIONS FOR PATCH----------------- 1) Make a backup copy of this disk (CFDM issue 1). 2) RUN "PATCH" from the magazine side of the backup. 3) You will be able to press the ENTER key when prompted from that program if you have left the newly-made backup disk in drive 0. => ____________________________________________________ 4) Your newly-made STARTUP disk will not have any entries on it. DO NOT BE ALARMED! THIS IS NORMAL. ---------------------------------------------------- Some of the improvements made to CFDM are: 1) Faster display of text to the screen. 2) Page numbering in upper left corner. 3) Page prompt whenever you press the CTRL key. 4) Menu routines that "remember" where you were when you left that menu. Upon return to that menu you will be at the point of departure. 5) A bug was fixed that did not allow ENTRY WRITER to always locate TRACK 17 (DISK BASICs directory) PLEASE USE YOUR NEW STARTUP TO MAKE SUBMISSIONS. =* |
CONVERSIONS (CONVERT/BAS) CONVERT/BAS is a three way conversion program.
Hexadecimal - Decimal - Binary
Conversion time takes less then one second !!
All base values are displayed on the screen at the
same time. !!
USER SELECTABLE INPUT BASE. !
May be changed at anytime while running the program.
Unlike the Coco which can convert values up to
65535 Decimal, FFFF Hexadecimal or
1111.1111.1111.1111 Binary,
=>
____________________________________________________
This program will convert values up to:
1048575 Decimal, FFFFF Hexadecimal or
1111.1111.1111.1111.1111 Binary
Which comes in real handy when working with the
larger addresses used by the Coco III.
Instructions to use this conversion program are
listed in "CONVERT/DOC".
In order to access the information contained
therein, just run "PRINTME/BAS".
PRINTME/BAS will print the "DOC" neatly formatted
to your printer. Instructions for the use of printme
will be listed to your screen when you run the
program. =>
____________________________________________________
The programs CONVERT/BAS, CONVERT/DOC AND
PRINTME/BAS are for the exclusive use of
subscribers to CFDM. They are copyrighted
and will remain the property of the author,
George Quellhorst
203B Meadows Drive
Painesville,Ohio.44077-5361
If you have any questions about this program, you
may call me at (216) 354-3812 from
8:00 AM to 11:00 PM EST. Or write me a letter.
However, I will answer only those letters that
include a SASE. Enjoy.....Enjoy...!!!
George.
=*
|
HARDCOPY...PRINT #-2 CFDM Here's the utility to hard print the entries in
CFDM. I planned to have it ready by the 2nd issue,
but folks are already asking for it. If you have
learned to get thru CFDM, you will find HARDCOPY
easy to operate.
Here's how:
1) LOAD "HARDCOPY"
2) Turn your printer on and set the paper to the top
of the page.
3) Poke in your baud rate if other than standard.
4) Place your CFDM disk in drive 0 (to access the
magazine side).
5) Type RUN and press ENTER.
6) Use the UP and DOWN arrows to highlight the =>
____________________________________________________
section, now press ENTER.
7) Use the UP and DOWN arrows to highlight the entry
you wish to print. Press ENTER.
8) You will notice the disk being accessed and a
prompt which says ....DECOMPRESSING... This will
execute very quickly!
9) After decompressing is complete a new prompt will
appear which says ...PRINTING... After a couple
of seconds printing will begin.
10) You may continue to print entries by moving to
the appropriate section and entry name. BE SURE
TO ADJUST YOUR PAPER BEFORE EACH PRINTOUT!
ENJOY!! =*
|
LLISTing in RAINBOW Format The RAINBOW magazine has traditionally presented its
listings in 32 characters per line format. Until
the last few years every listing was in a two column
per page format. The program LLIST2C provides a hard
copy listing in the aforementioned formats.
Such a printout is invaluable in checking the
accuracy of one's typing of BASIC programs published
by the RAINBOW. Furthermore, it is a convenient and
elegant way to augment any program submission to the
RAINBOW.
LLIST2C will provide a printout of any BASIC program
that is saved in ASCII on disk. At the end of line
20 of LLIST2C is the POKE that sets the printer baud
rate. If your printer operates at a rate other =>
____________________________________________________
than 2400, you will have to adjust the POKE
accordingly. In line 50 the two alternative printer
control codes are for near letter quality and draft
printing, respectively. The codes are those used by
most Epson and Epson-compatible dot matrix printers.
If your printer uses different codes for these
functions, you will have to change line 50,
accordingly.
If the program to be listed is very short, the
printout will only fill the left column of the page.
Each page, except possibly the last page, of a long
program will be printed in a double column fashion.
So, get LLISTing on the double!
=*
|
Prefix My prefix program is part of a package that I
hope to finish someday that will contain a diskfull
of utilities for Amateur radio operators.
Each country of the world is assigned a set of
letters and numbers to issue to their Amateur radio
operators. Each countries prefix is unique as is
each individuals call sign.
Being a casual operator, I do not have this pre
fix list memorized as many hams do, and I find that
I had to keep dragging out a list from a book. This
little utility is kept on a shack disk and when I
hear a prefix that is new to my ears, I load it up
and in a bit have it in front of me, if it is in the
data file.
If it is not, it may be added simply by adding
a new line number in the data section of the pro- =>
____________________________________________________
gram in the same format as the others are listed and
changing the variable N in line 70 in the amount of
new prefixes you added.
The program simply asks for you to input the
prefix you want to search for and it does the job.
It is not a real fast search, but then, I am not in
a real big hurry. You may modify the program as you
see fit. Since yours will probably be an improve-
ment over mine, please send me a copy...chuckle.
For now, let me say 73, (that means best re-
gards in ham lingo). Mike Brown (KM4IY)
=*
|
SPLIT/BAS SPLIT/BAS reads in a long text file, then breaks
the file up into smaller files so that they can be
read into a word processor.
For years I used TELEWRITER-64 for word processing.
After purchasing MAX-10 from COLORWARE, I found
that many of my TW-64 files were to long to be read
into MAX-10. Also, many files that are on public
domain disk are also to long.
SPLIT/BAS will break up a text file into smaller
files of a length that you specify. The only
entries that you need to make are the name of the
file and the length of the new files. All other
=>
____________________________________________________
operations are automatic.
SPLIT/BAS will automatically number the new files
using the EXTENSION of the file. These numbers
will begin with /001.
The original file will be left unchanged.
The instructions can be read either on screen or
printed out to your printer from the program.
To read the instructions and or run SPLIT/BAS
just run SPLIT/BAS.
=>
____________________________________________________
Filenames of program and instructions:
SPLIT/BAS
SPLIT/DOC
J. R. Waggoner
911 North Grand Avenue
Stuttgart, Arkansas 72160-2913
=*
|
VCR CARD The program VCR CARD is used to print the contents
of a VCR tape on 3 x 5 inch cards. Since most people
tape over programs once they have been viewed it is
impracticable to maintain a list of the movies
recorded on the cassette. I find cards filed in a
photo album an easy way to maintain a catalog of
what is on each video cassette. Since I seldom
record more that two shows on a single cassette the
program is written to provide up to two shows per
tape. The only mark made on the video cassette is a
tape number. Each card will contain the tape number,
up to two show titles and up to four remark lines
per show. The tape number is printed at the top and
bottom of each card in case the photo album used is
of the flip file type. The printer codes are for the
Gemini 10x printer and all printer code lines =>
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are the function. Tape numbers and show Titles are
printed in normal Pica font and remarks are in con-
densed print. This allows a maximum of 70 characters
per remarks line. The program is self prompting so
little instruction is needed to run the program.
Running lines 1800 to 1820 allows a test print on a
card to determine where to align the top edge of the
card. When saving a file the extention CRD instead
of DAT is assigned by the program. A sample file
titled SAMPLE/CRD is included. Loading this file and
viewing and editing will familiarize you with using
the program.
=*
|
| Articles in section: REVIEWS |
| About
REVIEWS C3Packet DISK EDTASM |
| Back to top |
About REVIEWS This section is for reviews. You can try your hand
at reviewing products old or new. That's right even
those that have been reviewed before here or in
other places. Pick out a product that interests you
and do your best to give it a fair shake. I believe
you'll be able to tell us something that we don't
know and that we need to know. Your review may even
change someone's mind about a product they thought
they didn't like. Give it a try. It'll be great
fun!!
=*
|
C3Packet Monty Haley of Rt 1 Box 150-A Evening Shade, Ar
72532 has written a program for Packet Radio.
I was unaware of this program until I purchased a
used Coco at a Ham swap meet last summer and I find
myself using it very often. It has all of the
necessities for packet communication, plus several
goodies to make it better.
An 80 column split screen, transmit and receive
buffers with a built in editor, 10 programmable
macros, disk or tape i/o, and printer output are all
available to the user.
Communication parameters such as parity, baud rate,
etc. are programmable. Communication to the TNC =>
____________________________________________________
may be done via the serial port or the RS232 pak or
both if you have two TNC's. Several keys and key
combinations have been programmed in by Monty to
perform the most commonly used commands to the TNC
such as streamswitching and changing from converse
mode to command mode.
I use this program quite often. I especially like
the buffer editor. I can prepare my messages and
files for uploading in the buffer editor while I am
able to keep up with what is going on with the guys
on the frequency with a simple keystroke to change
screens. I even use the editor for simple word
processing chores.
This program is available from Monty at the =>
____________________________________________________
address I showed at the beginning of this review.
The price listed in the documentation on the disk I
got was $18. Along with the Coco III version, there
is also one that works on the Coco I & II. Each of
the different versions also have a second copy for
tape users. Also included is a packet bbs program.
I have seen the Coco II packet program working and
it is much the same as the one I describe...the
differences being the screen width and the buffer
sizes. I have never seen the bbs in operation.
Someday, when I have the time to be a sysop, maybe
I will be able to get it running. If any of you
have, let me know.
My ham call is KM4IY and my mailbox is N4YUU.KY..
...best regards to all until next time.
=*
|
DISK EDTASM DISK EDTASM has certainly been worth it's price to
me!! Without it I couldn't have written the CFDM
driver I'm now using! There'd be no RAINBOW INDEXES
or NIB COMPRESSOR! No MASTER DIR 3, VOCAB, GALLERY
MAKER, PUZZLES...and the list goes on.
If you're familiar with the original ROM-PAK version
you'll have no trouble with the disk version. What
I really like is the ability to use the 80 column
screen. I believe I missed a patch somewhere along
the trail. I've heard of a patch that let's you
see the opening screen on WIDTH80, but I missed it.
I have learned when to press the '2' and renamed the
EDTASM.BIN file to E.BIN so now I only have to type
'E' in the blind.
=>
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If you like to program, you would probably love
assembly language. If you want to do assembly, I
heartily recommend DISK EDTASM.
=*
|
| Articles in section: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS |
| BAD
CHIPS??? CFDM AND A RAM DISK Ham Radio Software POKE QUESTION Problem with ULTRA-BASE Question |
| Back to top |
BAD CHIPS??? I am experiencing some trouble with my COCO3. The screen which is displayed when you press CTRL + ALT and reset (the three stooges) is now automatically displayed when I power up. This will stay on until I switch the computer off. Some friends and I believe that the PIA chip(s) have been damaged. IC 4, which is a 68B21, is easily available in Australia, but IC 5, the PIA select, LSC81001 is not available here because it was custom manufactured by Motorola for the COCO. So would you be able to tell me where in the U.S. I could get the LSC chip? I noticed that the diagrams and other semiconductor information show that both chips are internally the same. If this is true, would you know if it is possible to use two 68B21's instead of one of => ____________________________________________________ each? Pieter and Andrew Vervark 37 Peters Drive Cheltenham, VIC 3192 Australia =* |
Will CFDM work on a RAM DISK?
......
Ed...I was interested in that question myself. I
can't speak for other ram disks, but those produced
by a program called PHANTOM have worked great for
me. Anyone else tried it?
=*
|
Ham Radio Software I use the Coco in my Amateur radio shack and am
always on the lookout for software that I might be
able to use. If anyone knows of a source for this
type of software, I can be reached at the following
address.....Mike Brown....Rt 6 Box 130...Liberty, KY
42539. I have several pieces of software that I
have scrounged the past few years if you are in need
of it.
=*
|
POKE QUESTION There is a POKE, and I used to have it, but
lost it, that will render the cursor on the
40 and 80 text screens invisible, not there,
gone, forget about it period.
If anyone there in CDFM land knows about or has
seen this "LOST POKE", please inform the Question
and Answer section immediately. WITHOUT DELAY !!!
'''''''''''''''''
George Quellhorst, which is me, the person that
lost the darn thing, will be eternally greatfull.
THANKS - THANKS - THANKS - THANKS - AND THANK YOU !
=*
|
Problem with ULTRA-BASE One of the databases I like to use is ULTRA-BASE by
'Tothian Software'. I find it to be a very flexible
database and suits my needs. During the 3 years I
have been using it I have never been satisfied with
the way it drives my DMP105 printer. My printer
works great with Telewriter 128, for example. It
buzzes right along with the program and the printer
set at 2400 baud. But, with ULTRA-BASE, although the
printer seems to print at a 2400 baud rate, the
program seems to be feeding the printer at 600 baud.
It takes much longer to fill the printer buffer with
ULTRA-BASE than it does with Telewriter. I sought
assistance from Tothian some time ago and all they
said was necessary was to introduce a POKE 150,18
statement in the program. I had already done that
without success. =>
____________________________________________________
The program is filled with POKE statements that I do
not understand, so I have not been able to correct
my problem. Do any of you have experience with ULTRA
-BASE using a DMP105 printer? Have you had this
problem? Have you corrected it? I'd love to know
how. As it is it takes so-o-o long to print out my
data.
Herb Schuler
=*
|
Question Is it advisable to pick up 512K upgrade kits
for future use for the CoCo 3? I'm not sure
how long these memory chips last. I have been
using my CoCo 3 512k computer for about 5 years
now. The 512k has only been used for about
2 1/2 years now. Before that time 128k was
used. I received the computer (128k) in
December of 1986.
Thanks for the info!
=*
|
