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Table of contents: |
| COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE Issue #58 | Home | Index | Magazine | ||||||
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| Articles in section: ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE |
| "ABOUT
CFDM" ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE |
| 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! =* |
| Articles in section: ABOUT THIS ISSUE |
| BONUS
DIRECTORY (#20) CONTENTS...PART 1 (i58) CONTENTS...PART 2 (i58) PROGRAM DIRECTORY (i58) THIS MONTH'S COVER |
| Back to top |
Here's a description of the files on the BONUS DISK.
File names preceded by an asterisk are data files
or program files used by other programs. Do not RUN
or EXEC files preceded by an asterisk.
------------ SIDE 1 ------------
NAME.........COMMAND..SECTION OR DESCRIPTION
GTPTTEXT.BAS..RUN...Programs of the Month
NIBSHOW .BAS..RUN...Art Gallery
TORNADO .BAS..RUN...Potpourri
* NIBLOADR.BIN........NIB picture loader
* PIXMOVER.BIN........Memory mover utility
* OCFRAC1 .NIB........Art Gallery
* OCFRAC2 .NIB........Art Gallery
* OCFRAC3 .NIB........Art Gallery
* OCFRAC4 .NIB........Art Gallery =>
____________________________________________________
* OCFRAC5 .NIB........Art Gallery
* TORNADO1.NIB..
* TORNADO2.NIB....
* TORNADO3.NIB......
* TORNADO4.NIB........NIB pictures for
* TORNADO5.NIB........ TORNADO.BAS
* TORNADO6.NIB......
* TORNADO7.NIB....
* TORNADO8.NIB..
------------ SIDE 2 -------------
C .BAS..RUN...CFDM template for RGB monitors
M .BAS..RUN...CFDM template for tv or b&w
* CUTILS .BIN........Utility for RGB
* FONTS .BIN........CFDM fonts
* MUTILS .BIN........Utility for tv or b&w =*
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ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE (2)
1 "ABOUT CFDM"
2 ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE
ABOUT THIS ISSUE (2)
1 BONUS DIRECTORY (#20)
2 CONTENTS...PART 1 (i58)
3 CONTENTS...PART 2 (i58)
4 PROGRAM DIRECTORY (i58)
5 THIS MONTH'S COVER
ACTIVE COCO (4)
1 CFDM SUBMISSION DISK TEMPLATE
2 CoCo Preservation Society
3 JIM'S TRS-80 COCO PAGE
4 RAINBOWS CAUGHT IN THE WEB =>
____________________________________________________
ADVERTISEMENTS (3)
1 CFDM SUBSCRIPTION
2 COCO SYSTEMS FOR SALE
3 STRONGWARE FOR THE COCO
ARTICLES OF THE MONTH (6)
1 Assembly Language Programming 6
2 COCO CHRONICLES 9 PART 1
3 COCO CHRONICLES 9 PART 2
4 CRICKET IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE
5 CRICKET 2 - (SORRY)
6 Playing With Video part 1
COCO FRIENDS ART GALLERY (10)
1 A PAIR OF DUCKS
2 BEN'S QUESTION PICTURES =>
____________________________________________________
3 BOOP/NIB & BOOP/CLP
4 CFDM SNOOPY
5 FOR RENT
6 FRACTALS
7 RAY'S ART
8 SPARK OF GENIUS?
9 Steve Bjork
10 VIEWING THE CFDM ART GALLERY
FAMILY TREE (5)
1 LONG LOST COCO FRIEND
2 MISSING FRIENDS
3 THE SOCKMASTER CHECKS IN !
4 THE SOCKMASTER CHECKS IN ! PT 2
5 Update time again
=*
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FORUM (4)
1 COCO PRESERVATION SOCIETY
2 EMAIL CFDM, an idea whose time..
3 IN THIS FORUM
4 THE COCO REGISTRY
FROM THE EDITOR (3)
1 KUDOS (i58)
2 MESSAGE FROM RICK
3 THIS MONTH'S HOLY SCRIPTURE
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (6)
1 ALLEN'S REPORT
2 CHICAGO COCO FEST
3 ELECTRONIC VARIA
4 EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS =>
____________________________________________________
5 RENEWAL
6 SOME CHANGES...
POTPOURRI (7)
1 HISTORY REWRITTEN (PART 2)
2 HISTROY REWRITTEN
3 LA BELLE LUCIE REVISITED
4 PATIENCE! PATIENCE! CHANGE
5 THINGS I FORGET
6 TORNADO
7 novel progress report
PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH (5)
1 10-20-30
2 GETPUT FOR FLEXIBLE HPRINTING
3 LOTOLUCK - if you're lucky! =>
____________________________________________________
4 STRINGART NUMBER 18
5 Word Search 11
REVIEWS (2)
1 Carlisle PA CoCo Fest
2 FEST PART 2
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS (4)
1 HIDDEN ACES
2 LOOKING FOR SOME CLASSICS
3 QUESTION ABOUT ART-DELI DISKS
4 SICK COCO
=*
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Here's a description of the files on the PROGRAM/ SIDE. File names preceded by an asterisk are data files and are not to be RUN or EXECed! NAME.........COMMAND..SECTION OR DESCRIPTION * PART6A .ASM........Articles of the Month * PART6B .ASM........Articles of the Month * RAINBOW .ASM........Articles of the Month 10-20-30.BAS..RUN...Programs of the Month LOTOLUCK.BAS..RUN...Programs of the Month NIBSHOW .BAS..RUN...Art Gallery RAINBOW .BAS..RUN...Articles of the Month READFILE.BAS..RUN...Programs of the Month STRING18.BAS..RUN...Programs of the Month WORD11 .BAS..RUN...Programs of the Month * BFR .BIN........Called by 10-20-30.BAS => ____________________________________________________ * NIBLOADR.BIN........NIB loader utility * BOOP .CLP........Art Gallery * CFDM .LST........Articles of the Month * PART6A .LST........Articles of the Month * PART6B .LST........Articles of the Month * BIRDRENT.NIB........Art Gallery * BOOP .NIB........Art Gallery * BWREFTAC.NIB........Art Gallery * DATEBORN.NIB........Art Gallery * DILBERT .NIB........Art Gallery * SNOOPY .NIB........Art Gallery * SPARK .NIB........Art Gallery * STEVE .NIB........Art Gallery * WILECOYT.NIB........Art Gallery * WOODDUCK.NIB........Art Gallery * PART6 .TXT........View with READFILE.BAS =* |
THIS MONTH'S COVER For only the second time in 58 issues, the cover
picture is by someone other than our resident cover
artist Jim Gibbons. Jim had sent me 3 pictures last
fall, but I have already used them. Now Jim finds
himself in the hospital and I'm sure he doesn't feel
like doing much, especially drawing. But our prayers
are that Jim will be back home and on his CoCo very
soon. You can send your well-wishes to Jim at the
following address: Jim Gibbons
2110 West 3rd Street
Williamsport, PA 17701
Meanwhile we'll feature one of our other derserving
artists, Ray Berney, with the cover spot. I had to
"shrink" Ray's DILBERT to fit, but it is "fitting".
See the original on side 2 of this disk. Also, =>
____________________________________________________
who can remember the occasion (and the issue #) when
someone else's artwork was featured on the cover?
=*
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| Articles in section: ACTIVE COCO |
| CFDM
SUBMISSION DISK TEMPLATE CoCo Preservation Society JIM'S TRS-80 COCO PAGE RAINBOWS CAUGHT IN THE WEB |
| Back to top |
CFDM SUBMISSION DISK TEMPLATE Over the years I have made pleas for material for CFDM. You have always responded and we always enjoy your submissions. But now with our numbers falling and sometimes our creative spirits taking a respite, we need your help more than ever...and I'm sure you will respond. We need programs......we need Family Trees.....we need articles.....we need reviews...... we need music and graphics. Please help where you can! In order to make it easier to submit material I've included the standard Submission Disk Template on side 2 of the Bonus Disk. Many of you have used it to submit material. Others who joined us later, may not have this disk. So now there's no excuse for you to put off submitting your material! => ____________________________________________________ If you need some instructions, here's some tips on how to submit material. (See CFDM docs for more.) - MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF THE SUBMISSION DISK TEMPLATE - USE THE BACKUP COPY TO SEND IN YOUR MATERIAL - RUN "C.BAS" (if you use RGB) OR "M.BAS" (TV/CMP) - WHEN THE MENU IS DISPLAYED, ENTER THE SECTION THAT BEST FITS YOUR ENTRY. - WHEN YOU ARE IN THE APPROPRIATE SECTION, HIGHLIGHT 'ENTRY WRITER' AND PRESS ENTER. - ANSWER THE EACH PROMPT AND PRESS BREAK => ____________________________________________________ - PRESS SHIFT/0 TO GET IN LOWERCASE LETTERS. - TYPE IN YOUR ENTRY AND PRESS BREAK WHEN COMPLETE. Please note that the Submission Disk Template has 39 FREE granules. Use the same side of the disk to place any programs, graphic, etc. files. A note to all: Please send an entry explaining your contributed programs, graphics, etc. by using the Entry Writer. I cannot include material in CFDM without your explanations. Although I attempt to do some editing of text entries, I sometimes leave it basically as you send it. Be careful not to use more words than necessary to explain your work. =* |
CoCo Preservation Society The CoCoPS was formed during the Fest. It is
dedicated to continuing the CoCo in all its flavors.
The CoCoPS will support OS-9,RS-DOS,A-DOS, the
emulator, 128k, 512k, 6809, 6309, and any other
CoCo variations.
There will be two support services:
1. A web site at http://stg.net/cocops
2. A quarterly newletter
The newletter is $5.00 per year, money to Rick.
You can e-mail the CoCoPS at: cocops<at>stg.net
-*
|
JIM'S TRS-80 COCO PAGE Just wanted to let anyone interested know that I
have set up a small COCO web page on the internet.
I finally got it up and running! I'm still messing
with it in my spare time and it's mostly for fun. So
anyone who has access to the internet...feel free
to drop in for a peek!
JIM'S TRS-80 COCO PAGE
HTTP://MEMBERS.AOL.COM/JDAVIS2516/TRS80.HTM
=*
|
RAINBOWS CAUGHT IN THE WEB Recently I visited a web page on the internet that
had some information about obtaining back issues of
the RAINBOW magazine. I decided to send Lonnie Falk
an e-mail and find out more about this and see which
issues were still available. He responded by
sending me a list of available issues. Also in my e-
mail I told Lonnie how I missed reading his PRINT#-2
column in the RAINBOW. Lonnie said he missed writing
it and that no one pays attention to him any more!
:-)
I just had to share this with others who may have
enjoyed reading his column in the RAINBOW. I sure
used to enjoy it! He was the inside word on the COCO
community. Now lets see if I get the RAINBOWS I
ordered! (Supplies were very limited)...JIM
=*
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| Articles in section: ADVERTISEMENTS |
| CFDM
SUBSCRIPTION COCO SYSTEMS FOR SALE STRONGWARE FOR THE COCO |
| Back to top |
CFDM SUBSCRIPTION Is your subscription running out? Here's how to check: On your mailing label next to your name is a number. The number after the last dash (-) is the last issue on your present subscription. Please don't let your subscription expire. CFDM is offered only by yearly subscription. Each subscription consists of 4 regular disks issued at 3 month intervals and starts with the September issue for that year. With each issue you will also receive a Bonus disk and a copy of HARDCOPY. The cost for the subscription is $30. Back issues are available for $3 each. Please include $2 s/h on back issue orders. COCOs FOREVER!! =* |
COCO SYSTEMS FOR SALE Here are four parties that have CoCo systems either
for sale or to donate. Please get in touch with
them.
Carole Burke (Had a CoCo in mint condition)
128 Cypress Grove Ct. (May be gone by now.)
Marina, CA 93933
Mrs. Judy Shapiro (Has Bill Trefrey's systems)
5020 SW Begonia Court (This is Bill's widow.)
Dunnellon, FL 34431
Tel: 352-465-0689
=>
____________________________________________________
Mary Ellen Smith has: 128k CoCo3
73 Highland Drive FD-502 disk drive
Wabash, IN 46992-2123 RGB Color Monitor
CMP132 Printer
Tel: 219-563-1089 2 Deluxe Joysticks
Cables, instruction
booklets, original packaging.
Used no more than 150 hours.
----------------------------------------------------
Mrs. Edith Stern (Widow of Harry Stern)
189 Sierra Dr. (No phone #)
Miami, FL 33179
OR
BOB WISE (Their son, I believe.)
1-800-269-9505
=*
|
STRONGWARE FOR THE COCO One of the familiar faces I saw at the Pennsylvania
Fest was that of John Strong. John is owner of one
of the still productive CoCo software companies,
STRONGWARE. A number of years ago John allowed me
to present a number of copies of his HPRINT FONT
EDITOR to subscribers of CFDM. A number of our
current Friends didn't get a chance to get a copy so
now I have one more copy, compliments of John, to
award to a lucky CFDM Friend. If you don't have a
copy of HPRINT FONT EDITOR, just send your name and
address and the phrase "HPRINT FONT EDITOR CONTEST",
to me at: CFDM P.O. Box 276 Liberty, KY 42539 I
will draw one luck winner at random and send the
software prize to them.
=>
____________________________________________________
Now there are other neat CoCo software packages that
John has to offer. I've seen some of them in action.
For the CoCo3 there's:
SOVIET BLOC - $15.00
GEMS - $20.00
COPYCAT - $ 5.00
John also has some programs for the MM1:
GRAPHIC TOOLS - $25.00
STARTER PAK - $15.00
BSHOW - $ 5.00
COPYCAT - $10.00
PAINTER (beta)- $35.00
=>
____________________________________________________
You can reach John Strong (STRONGWARE) at this
address:
John Strong
c/o STRONGWARE
BOX 361
Matthews, IN 46957
email - jstrong(at sign)comteck.com
voice - 765-998-7558
Tell John you saw it in CFDM!!!!
=*
|
Assembly Language Programming 6 View text file associated with this article This is the sixth article in my series on assembly
language programming. For more information about
this series, see the first installment in CFDM#54.
To read this entry, use READFILE.BAS to read
PART6.TXT.
I can be contacted via email at
astler(at)telusplanet.net
or through CFDM. I don't have a stable mailing
address at the time of this writing.
=*
|
COCO CHRONICLES 9 PART 1 THE THIRD YEAR (July 1982 - June 1983)
Despite rumors of its demise, the CoCo celebrated
its second birthday in fine health. With year 1
shrouded in mystery, and year 2 producing tons of
information and software, what could we expect from
year three........ARCADE GAMES and HARDWARE!
First shown at the West Coast Computer Fair in
February, George Associates' CoCo CP/M expansion
unit hit the market in July. Although it looked
impressive, who was going to drop $1200.00 to
upgrade a CoCo? Did anyone out there buy one of
these??
In "the best get better" department, The Micro =>
____________________________________________________
Works unveiled its disk based editor/assembler,
MACRO-80C.
Tony Distefano's first COLOR CLINIC column in 68
MICRO explained why some CoCos would not accept the
double-speed poke, and DONALD J. SOMMER of Seattle,
WA. details the steps required to upgrade a pre
E-board CoCo to 64K.
CCN, in July, continued putting more emphasis on
FLEX, OS-9, and other CoCo operating systems but,
features DARREL WRIGHT'S utility to convert Tele-
writer text files from binary to ascii and vice-
versa, and some pictures taken at a Cincinnati
TRS-80 users meeting.
=>
____________________________________________________
Plans are discolosed to offer CCN ON TAPE and
winners of the first CCN programming contest are
announced. They were: J. VENTLING for the GEORGE
C. SCOTT portrait, GARRY HOWARD for the WILLIAM TELL
OVERTURE, and REGENA's COOKIE FILE program.
The RAINBOW's first anniversary issue was a beauty!!
Featuring its first full-color cover and typeset
copy throughout, it's hard to believe tht it started
out in a drugstore a year ago.
Rumors circulate that the 4K CoCo will be
discontinued and a 64K version introduced in the
near future.
(See COCO CHRONICLES 9 PART 2.) =*
|
COCO CHRONICLES 9 PART 2 The first CoCo hardware to reach the market in
August includes F&D Associates' EPROM board, COLOR
PORT from MAPLE LEAF SYSTEMS, BOTEK INSTRUMENTS'
serial to parallel printer interface, plus SHAWN
MCCLENAHAN'S article describing the installation of
a Mod III keyboard (with numeric keypad) in the
CoCo.
80 MICRO runs its first annual READER's POLL to find
out the most popular software for Radio Shack
machines.
With Frank Hogg writing the editorial in the August
issue of CCN, things were really getting out of hand
with all the FLEX material. There was the editorial,
plus several full-page ads for his products, and =>
____________________________________________________
of course his 64K KORNER. It seemed like CCN had
turned into the Frank Hogg magazine.
Although a bit less technically oriented, if the
Rainbow continus growing at its present rate, it
will soon surpass CCN in size.
With the addition of his second BBS, Bob Rosen's
Spectrum Projects was growing too. His ads now took
up three full pages, and in August, include Eigen's
one key entry utility, BASIC AID. Both Basic Aid
and another new single key entry utility, PLATINUM
SOFTWARE's PLATINUM WORKSAVER offered much more than
the first such utility, SSM's Master Control. MED
SYSTEM started marketing its software.
=>
____________________________________________________
MORE COCO CHRONICLES NEXT ISSUE....
SEE YOU IN DECEMBER !!
=*
|
CRICKET IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE If my CoCo has been neglected lately it's because it's on again in England: the Australian cricketers (the Ockers) have arrived to do battle with the Eng- lish (the Poms). There will be five "test" matches, usually lasting five days (weather permitting). In the first test the Poms wallopped the bejabbers out of the Ockers. On displayed form the Poms would pro- bably have won the second test but there were so many interruptions because of rain that it ended on the fifth day with a "draw". That's the "glorious uncertainty of cricket"! But I am not writing this with the hope of tempt- ing US CoConuts into converting their hallowed dia- monds into ovals even though it would be great if the "Yanks" could join the fray and measure their skill with bat and ball against the Ockers, Poms, => ____________________________________________________ Indians, Pakkies, Kiwis, Springboks, Windies, Zim- babweans, and residents of other parts of the former Empire on which the sun never set. No! Surely not! However, I marvel on how the electronic miracles of television and satellite communication have made life better for sport fans. In was much different in my long gone boyhood days (early in the 1930s). When the action was in England, down under we were first dependant on "shortwave" from the BBC. But then some genius invented simulated broadcasts. In England, a cricket commentator scribbled a cryptic description of each ball as it was bowled, if hit where to, how many runs if any and so forth. Next to him was a telegraphist with a morse key and a line permanently open to the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The code was tapped out immediately. On receipt in Oz => ____________________________________________________ studio announcers read a dramatised verion of the message and added realism with pencil taps on wood for clicks of ball on bat, and very convincing crowd noises. A broadcast usually finished at 3 am and at school next day, weary teachers and weary pupils got through the day as best they could. Now, no simulations but simultaneity! Zoom lenses and shots from every possible angle have taken over techniques from horse racing and photos can decide if a batsman is in or out! You probably know that at each end of the pitch there are three wooden stumps that the batsman must defend. Now, in the offside stump there's a mini video camera and transmitter to add closeups to the picture and settle doubtful points from close up if necessary. But please note that disputes with umpires are "not cricket"! =* |
CRICKET 2 - (SORRY) At the risk of taking more space on CFDM than the
subject justifies I would like to add a a little
more to my article. Firstly, please note that if any
uninitated spectator feels tempted to yell "Kill the
umpire!" that will finally set London Bridge falling
down.
Apart from their obvious use for keeping scores
and statistics, computers play a role in the TV
presentations. The commentators now have a mouse
with which they can draw a rough cursor trace around
any part of the field they want to highlight for the
attention of viewers.
Since the introduction of video cameras a "third
umpire" has been introduced into the game to supple-
ment the two on the field. At any sign of uncertain-
ty he replays, runs the action in slow motion with=>
____________________________________________________
still pictures if necessary. That serves to reduce
arguments in the pubs afterwards. Window displays ar
e used frequently: thus we can follow a fieldsman's
pursuit of a ball (or a streaker!) all the way to
the boundary and, in a corner window, the batsmen
running back and forth between wickets.
The first match between England and Australia was
played at Melbourne in 1877. It was regarded as a
"test" match just to see if it was feasible. Austra-
lia won. In 1882, when Australia won on English soil
"London Punch" published a mock obituary to mourn
the demise of English cricket and said that the de-
ceased would be cremated and the Ashes taken to Aus-
tralia. Ever since then, each series is regarded as
a contest for the mythical Ashes.
Seemingly, wherever British colonialists ruled =>
____________________________________________________
they left cricket behind when they left for home.
Somehow, during their 30-year mandate in Palestine
after WW1, they taught the locals the fine points of
the game and left it well established there. Recent-
ly an Israeli team toured Malaysia. There was some
local protest but that was shushed because it was
just not done to drag politics into the serious
business of cricket.
=*
|
RAINBOW.BAS & RAINBOW.ASM This is the first in what will hopefully become a
series of articles about getting the CoCo3 hardware
to do special effects with the video display.
There will be examples so everyone can see what
happens, explanations so you'll know why it works
and EDTASM source codes so the more adventurous can
experiment with the code themselves.
RAINBOW.BAS
We'll start with something as simple as palette
switching, but expand on it a bit. What would
happen if you changed one of the palettes many times
each time the screen updates? You get more than one
color on the screen where there should have only
been one color. You've probably already seen tricks
like this used in CoCoMax III. This program lets
you do something similar, but from BASIC! =>
____________________________________________________
RAINBOW.BAS pokes a small machine language program
into memory. 58019 to 58248 is a neat place to store
small ML programs because it won't use up any free
memory nor will it interfere with existing programs.
The ML program sets up two interrupt driven routines
, one triggered by the GIME's TIMER and the other by
the 60Hz video sync. Every time the TIMER counts to
zero, it updates the palette to the next color in a
list. Every time the screen gets updated (60Hz) the
other routine resets the color back to the first
number in the list. Both interrupt routines together
make sure that the same colors always appear in the
same place on the screen, making the image appear
solid.
So, what do you get? Your 32 column green screen
is now replaced by a RAINBOW of colors! =>
____________________________________________________
You can change the spacing of the colors by setting
different TIMER values. Try POKEing numbers 1 to 128
into 65429. 1 is very dense, 128 is very wide apart.
You can also change the palette you want to cycle
with POKE58199,176+x (where x=color #0 to 15). For
instance, you can put the Rainbow into the PMODE4
screen with POKE58199,187!
You can also change the data numbers in LINE100 to
make the program show any set of 18 colors you want.
Unfortunately, due to it's reliance on hardware
timing for syncronization the program doesn't gener-
ate a solid display on the CoCo3 emulator. You can
try POKEing different numbers to 65429 to see if any
of them look better, 2 isn't too bad on my PC but to
get the full effect you need to use a real CoCo3. =*
|
A PAIR OF DUCKS
Here is another picture taken from a calendar
photo. As the title indicates, these are woodducks.
While I think of it, the area code for my phone
number is being changed -- the second time since
I've lived in New Jersey. In case anyone wishes to
call me, the new area code is (732) which is
effective right now. The old one will still be
usable until December, after which a recorded
message will give the new one.
Norm Barson
7 Ridge Court
East Brunswick, NJ 08816
(732) 254-7767
=*
|
BEN'S QUESTION PICTURES
Here is another of Ben's question type pictures.
This one if pretty hard. See if you can figure it
out before looking at the answer on page two of this
entry.
RUN "NIBSHOW.BAS" on the back side of this disk to
view "DATEBORN.NIB".
Don't go to page 2 unless
you want to see the
answer now.
=>
____________________________________________________
Here is the answer:
My birthday is December 31.
Under this scenario, today (January 1), I'm 2.
Two days earlier (December 30), I was 1.
At the end of this year (December 31), I'll be 3.
And next year, I'll be 4.
RICK: I hope all the Friends enjoy Ben's picture-
questions as much as I do. Keep up the good
work Ben!
=*
|
BOOP/NIB & BOOP/CLP
I recently found a pair of automobile floormats that
had a great picture of Betty Boop on them. I drew
the picture a little bit different from the original
Marilyn Monroe style picture. I then added the text
with the BoBo Bold Font found on Disk #1 from the
CoCoMax Font Disk Collection. I also included a CLP
file of Betty Boop for use with Max-10....Enjoy!
=*
|
CFDM SNOOPY
SNOOPY/NIB was a quickie drawing I drew of Snoopy
laying on top of CFDM instead of a Dog House!
(See Jim's SNOOPY.NIB on the back of this disk.)
=*
|
FOR RENT
BIRDRENT.NIB shows a vacancy that most people will
never see in their neck of the woods! <GRIN>
(See BIRDRENT.NIB with NIBSHOW.BAS on side 2 of this
disk.)
=*
|
FRACTALS
I have not seem many fractals in the past issues so
here are some of mine if you wish to use them.
Buck
P.S. At last count I have save over 700.
(There are 5 of Buck's fractals on side 1 of the
Bonus Disk. I've changed them to .NIB files so you
can view them with the NIBSHOW.BAS.)
=*
|
RAY'S ART
Here's 3 more great pictures from Ray Berney.
WILECOYT.NIB
Here's a simple portrait of the nemesis of the road
runner. I copied it off a shirt I purchased
recently. The shading took a little skill.
BWREFTAC.NIB
The graphic, "Ben Walker's relaxation tactic,"
speaks for itself. Thanx, Ben Walker.
DILBERT.NIB
This is no place for wimps.
(All 3 graphics are on the back of this disk.) =*
|
SPARK OF GENIUS?
Here's a NIB picture with a quote that really hits
home with me.(The ignition part that is!)
(See SPARK.NIB on side 2 of this disk.)
=*
|
Steve Bjork
One guest at the Fest was Steve Bjork, who created over two dozen CoCo games. I took this photo of him using a digital camera. The orignal picture had 16.7 million colors, and using PhotoStyler on my PC, I cropped the image, added the writing, and reduced it to 16 colors. To see the picture better, stand back from your screen about 6 feet or more. I chose Steve because he was probably one of the highlights of the show. -* |
VIEWING THE CFDM ART GALLERY Please use NIBSHOW to view the .NIB pictures on this
month's disk. As you recall, NIBSHOW was featured
in issue #18 and a more complete documentation can
be found there. NIBSHOW is the contribution of our
Friend Stuart Wyss-Gallifent. Thanks Stuart!
After RUNning NIBSHOW, press D for a directory of
the NIB pictures on the disk. Use the arrow keys to
choose a picture and press the spacebar to view it.
Press BREAK to leave the picture. Press X at the
MAIN MENU to exit NIBSHOW.
=*
|
| Articles in section: FAMILY TREE |
| LONG
LOST COCO FRIEND MISSING FRIENDS THE SOCKMASTER CHECKS IN ! THE SOCKMASTER CHECKS IN ! PT 2 Update time again |
| Back to top |
LONG LOST COCO FRIEND RICK: Long ago, before CFDM, I carried on a long-
distance CoCo friendship with John Crawford of
Eureka, Montana. Somehow I lost his address when
I began CFDM (or he would probably have been with
us all these years). Now all of a sudden John found
my email address and has re-kindled a little of his
interest in the CoCo. John has recently purchased a
copy of the CoCo3 emulator and reports a little
problem with configuring his joystick when playing
CoCo games on the emulator. I do not have a joystick
on my PCs and cannot share any advice to him..if you
can help, please write John at the address given
below.
One of the reasons I wrote this entry was something
John wrote in a recent email to me. It sheds =>
____________________________________________________
some light on how I was feeling at that time...and
it really is a little surprising!
John writes:
I went through some of my CoCo things in my hobby
shop and found several hand and typed written
letters you sent me in 1989 and 1990. You were
getting tired of programming at that point, and
Donna and Kristin were working on some word search
puzzles that you made them from my Word Search
program. You were 41 at the time, so you must be
around 3 years older than me. You sent me a pinball
demo, some pig animation stuff, source for Icon16,
etc.
=>
____________________________________________________
I am still running my machine shop here, I would
hate to have to find a job where I had to punch
clocks and keep regular ridged work hours again.
My last regular job for other people was in 1984,
I've been self-employed since. I work on the side
on PCs and do internet installs, hardware-software,
troubleshooting, etc. also.
-----
RICK: I hope John will join us and I hope some of
you will write an encouraging letter to him (or send
an email). Here's his address:
John Crawford email: john(at sign).libby.org
P.O. Box 1048
Eureka, MT 59917
=*
|
MISSING FRIENDS I have recently seen a few new friends join CFDM,
but I've also had a few to leave our company. In
an earlier issue I reported the death of our good
friend, Harry Stern. A letter came from Edith, his
widow, just this last week. Edith is looking for
someone in her area, who would be interested in
Harry's CoCo things. (See the Ad section for address
and more info.) While trying to contact Bill Trefry,
a faithful supporter for years, I found out that
Bill had passed away. Now Bill's widow, Judy
Shapiro, is looking to sell Bill's things. (Again s
ee the Ad section for details.)
Also, Marie Boudet and Henry Kszepka, have decided
not to renew. Marie has purchased a PC. Henry did
not state his reason for leaving. But, I do =>
____________________________________________________
appreciate those friends who have been thoughtful
enough to send a card or letter stating their
intentions. These kind of communications are very
depressing to me..it's hard to come by good friends!
We did have Calvin Wilcox to re-join us at the PA
Fest. And Mike Fulmer, Ray Watts, and Jerry Combes
are newcomers to our group. Also, we picked up some
commitments from some great CoCo talent. Carl
England of Georgia has promised some material in the
near future. Allen Huffman did too. John Kowalski,
better known as the SOCKMASTER, has made a firm
commitment and I believe we'll see something from
him in this issue. I also want to commend one of
our Canadian Friends, Lyone Boult. Lyone wrote a
wonderful letter about how she had recently =>
____________________________________________________
purchased a PC, but she will continue to subscribe
just to get Hardcopy so she can keep up with her
CoCo Friends! I GREATLY APPRECIATE THAT LYONE!!
At this time not everyone has resubscribed. Our
numbers stand at about 80. I'll send out a notice
soon and hopefully we'll pick back up again.
I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I STILL FEEL LIKE OUR GROUP
AND OUR EFFORT IS WORTHWHILE! THERE WAS A TIME WHEN
THIS PROJECT WAS FUN AND ALSO ALLOWED ME TO MAKE A
LITTLE SPENDING MONEY. NOW WE RELY ON THE FUN PART
TO MAKE IT WORTHWHILE...I CERTAINLY HOPE YOU FEEL
THAT WAY TOO!!
=*
|
THE SOCKMASTER CHECKS IN ! The following Family Tree is taken from John's responses to some "leading" questions I asked over the Internet. - Rick ---------------------------------------------------- I'm from Montreal. Always stayed here, it's a nice place to live if you don't mind the sometimes cold winters. Basically I was a self employed programmer doing contract jobs, but I've been working for Digital Eclipse for over a year now and that's keeping me busy. The CoCo wasn't my first computer, but it's one I've stuck with over the years. I used to hang out at the local Radio Shack where I was friends with the people there. My first experiences with the CoCo were just passing time in the store, => ____________________________________________________ experimenting with it's neat BASIC. I ended up buying one after I got hooked :) I always find different things that I like about the CoCo. That keeps changing. The 4 analog inputs come in handy sometimes when I want to record real world events. I've often used it as a work tool because it's so quick to program. I'd make a program to filter, translate or edit data from my job for me and let it run while I do something else on the PC! It's like teaching the CoCo to do some of the work so I can get things done faster than if I were working "alone". I've always wanted to be able to digitize a complete song (4 minutes) and fit it onto ONE 360K disk => ____________________________________________________ and allow it to be played back on a 512k CoCo yet still sound good. The best I've managed so far is about 2 minutes using real-time 4X compression. That's about halfway there! I'd need 8X on-the-fly compression to do it, or even higher if it's so lossy that I'd have to use a high sample rate as well. The big problem there is squeezing enough power out of the CPU to sample the joystick AND do good compression at the same time. (Regarding Jeff Vavasour) Jeff's a great guy. When we met, we went out for supper with our boss and the two of us were going on and on about CoCos while our boss (who never had a CoCo) could only listen. It's great working with him because he really knows his stuff. (See Part 2.) =* |
THE SOCKMASTER CHECKS IN ! PT 2 The Pennsylvania CoCo Fest waa my first CoCo fest.
I've always wanted to go to one, but never acted
on it - This time, I promised myself that I would go
and that was that. It was definitely a great
experience. I finally got to meet the CoCo people
who I've only seen in writing before. Even bought
some new CoCo stuff!
----------------------------------------------------
RICK: John Kowalski is the "real" SOCKMASTER. John
is one of the most talented people in the CoCo
Communtiy. He is known for his CoCo demos which are
usually the result of someone saying, "That can't be
done on a CoCo." He usually proves them wrong. You
will find a special demo in this issue of CFDM.
=>
____________________________________________________
It was a pleasure meeting John and now having him
join us as a CFDM editor!
Oh by the way, how did John get his nickname? Stuart
Wyss asked that question at breakfast one morning at
the PA Fest. John said he was checking in to a BBS
for the first time and was asked for a user name. He
looked down at his feet and saw that he only had on
socks. So he wrote, "SOCK". Then thinking that was
not enough, he added, "MASTER". That's where his
nickname "SOCKMASTER" started!!
=*
|
Update time again Well, much has changed since my last Family Tree
entry. It is the beginning of June,1997 when I am
writing this.
I officially graduated from Augustana University
College in Camrose, Alberta, Canada on May 18, 1997
with a Bachelor of Science degree with a double
concentration in Computing Science and Mathematics.
I still own two CoCo3s, one with 128K and one with
512K, a dual FD502 disk system, multipak interface,
RGB monitor, etc. I also own the same PC I used to
have, but now it has 36Meg RAM, two operating
systems, CD drive, sound blaster, and a new printer
(I've finally come into the 24pin age).
=>
____________________________________________________
I still enjoy programming and I still read a lot.
That story I was writing a year ago is still in the
same state it was then. The previous year of studies
just about did me in.
Anyone looking to contact me can do so most reliably
through CFDM or c/o my father via email at
astler(at)telusplanet.net
By the time this is published, my mailing address
will have changed and I do not know what it will be
yet.
Well, that is enough babbling for now.
=*
|
| Articles in section: FORUM |
| COCO
PRESERVATION SOCIETY EMAIL CFDM, an idea whose time.. IN THIS FORUM THE COCO REGISTRY |
| Back to top |
COCO PRESERVATION SOCIETY One of the most exciting things to come out of Ron
Bull's Pennsylvania Fest is CoCoPS. That's the
initialism for "The Color Computer Preservation
Society." During a round table discussion several
of the attendees agreed that one of the things most
needed in keeping the CoCo Community alive was an
organization that all CoCoists could join that would
provide unity to ALL segments of the community. In
short CoCoPS will provide a two page communication
on a quarterly basis to all who join. The cost is
$5.00 per year and can be paid to Rick Cooper at our
regular address ( P.O. Box 276 Liberty, KY 42539 ).
Steve Bjork, Allen Huffman, and Scott Griepentrog
have agreed to be co-editors for the first year.
Rick Cooper is treasurer and publisher for =>
____________________________________________________
the first year. Scott is in the process of setting
up a CoCoPS web page and email address. The email
address is cocops(at sign)stg.net. The web page is
http//stg.net/cocops. You can send messages to the
email address.
Now let's talk a little turkey!! For years now WE
have dedicated a portion of our time and finances to
keep CFDM and the CoCo alive. I've never printed
harsh words about those who "live in" the CoCo world
and yet never support any of its groups (and there's
plenty other than CFDM). But now I'm ready to deride
anyone who calls themselves a CoCoist, if they do
not support this nonprofit entity that has been
established to strengthen the community. Watch for
such statements on the CoCo list and other avenues=>
____________________________________________________
that I can find to spread the word.
I hope my friends in CFDM will join the CoCoPS and
give their support to it's efforts. We have a great
opportunity to help our community grow!!
=*
|
EMAIL CFDM, an idea whose time.. I've recently been letting people know that we are
prepared to offer an email subscription to CFDM via
their internet email address. This will be quite a
bargain to some and will also be helpful in keeping
CFDM strong. Here's how it works.
Our stated goal is to keep CFDM going for 3 years,
so, for $30.00 you can subscribe to CFDM for 3 years
via your internet email address. That's right, 12
issues over the next 3 years for the regular price
of one year's subscription. Please note that you
will not receive HARDCOPY nor any disks through the
postal service. The files you receive will be in
the CoCo3 emulator .DSK format. You'll need a PC
and the emulator to read them.
=>
____________________________________________________
Now for those who have already paid for their CFDM
subscription for the next year, you can trade your
present subscription for the email subscription at
the low, trade-in cost of only $5.00. (That will
help offset the cost of this issue which has already
had the postage, mailer, disk, etc paid for.) I
hope you will find this a fair deal.
Not only will this help your finances, but we will
be able to save on the already scarce supply of
flippies. And it will cut down on duplication of
disks, losses through postal destruction, and it
will even speed up delivery time!!
Please consider making CFDM email your new choice!!
=*
|
IN THIS FORUM In the FORUM this issue you will find entries that
pertain to keeping the CoCo Community strong. After
attending the PA Fest (organized by our friend Ron
Bull) I have been rejuvenated and wish to work
harder at keeping us alive. I believe we'll get
some help for you and others who appear to be coming
back to the CoCo as a hobby machine!
Please keep the faith and we'll have a lot of fun in
the coming issues of CFDM.
=*
|
THE COCO REGISTRY Without a doubt the CoCo Registry can be one of the
cornerstones to a meaningful CoCo Community. It has
been my intention that the next edition of the CoCo
Registry be the final. But, with the number of new
folks we're seeing that seem to be sincere about
rejoining the community, this next one may not be
the final edition. But for now......
I am working on the "latest" edition. Our goal of
500 records has evaded us until just recently. Now
we have over 500 records and I need to go back and
remove some of those who have passed away just to
make room for the extra records. I'm also updating
the old records and now may be your last opportunity
to get your data correct. Please print out this
entry (Press F1 to get the SYSOPS MENU), update =>
____________________________________________________
your data and send it to me QUICK!
Name -------------------------- Tel: ---------------
Address --------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
City ------------------- State ----- Zip -----------
Your Interests: Circle all that apply.
RSDOS OS9 ADOS Graphics Utilities Games
Printers BBS MSDOS Clubs Fests Forums
Education Emulators Databases Hardware Projects
Spreadsheets Music Word Processing Programming
----------------------------------------------------
You can get a copy of the CoCo Registry for: =>
____________________________________________________
$12 if purchasing for first time or $7 by sending
in your last disk of the registry for updating.
----------------------------------------------------
Organizations your support: (Circle)
CFDM COCOPS 68micros MI&CC Adventure Survivors
OS9 Underground Glenside CoCo Club
Atlanta Comp. Society Delphi Internet UP-2-DATE
----------------------------------------------------
Your System: (Circle)
CoCo3 CoCo2 CoCo1 PC Apple Commodore
128K RAM 512K RAM TV RGB CMP DRIVE0 DRIVE1
DRIVE2 DRIVE3 35 Track 40 Track Hard Drive
Printer brand (specify.........................)
Mouse Joystick Digitizer Cassette =*
|
| Articles in section: FROM THE EDITOR |
| KUDOS
(i58) MESSAGE FROM RICK THIS MONTH'S HOLY SCRIPTURE |
| Back to top |
I wish to announce a very special "THANKS" to all of
you who are featured in this issue. We still have a
lot of talent in the group and it seems like there's
still plenty of news in the CoCo Community. I'd like
to see your name in this entry next issue!!
William Astle, Norm Barson, Ray Berney, Lyone Boult,
Robert Bruhl, Carole Burke, Buck Carden, John
Crawford, H. Allen Curtis, Jim Davis, Alex Falconer,
Michael Fulmer, Jim Gibbons, Larry Greenfield,
Keiran Kenny, John Kowalski (SOCKMASTER), Harold
Moenich, Don Peters, Alfredo Santos, Joe Semenik,
Judy Shapiro, Mary Ellen Smith, Edith Stern, John
Strong, Ben Walker, Ray Watts, Stuart Wyss-Gallifent
=*
|
MESSAGE FROM RICK School has started for me again, and probably for
many of you! It's a busy time and I've basically
relegated CFDM work to Saturdays.
But, another issue is almost complete. I must admit
I've been a little fearful that we wouldn't have
enough programs, pictures, etc for the issue. Then
I decided it was time to once again include a copy
of the CFDM Submission Disk Template. This not only
assures that everyone has a copy to use when sub-
mitting material to CFDM, but also reminds everyone
that if we are to continue to have a "full issue,"
then everyone must submit material. I hope you'll
make it a point to send in something for the next
issue.
=>
____________________________________________________
As you know issue #57 was the last issue in the
first quarterly subscription year. We had about
128 (not counting the editors) Friends during that
year. Then everyone came up for renewal. In just
3 weeks the first issue of the second quarterly
year will be going out. Only 81 have renewed for
this quarterly year....
Now there's plenty of time for others to renew, and
we even have a few new Friends. But there are a few
who have probably moved on.
I do have reason to be a little optimistic (and I'm
not just saying that for your benefit). The reason
is that I am seeing many new and different names on
the internet CoCo pages. I will make an effort =>
____________________________________________________
to enroll them in our group. Who knows!
Another reason for optimism is the addition of the
SOCKMASTER, John Kowalski, to our group. He's
already made his first contribution (see Articles of
the Month). And, I'm hopeful that a few other new
talented people will join our already talented group
of friends in producing creative CoCo material for
our mutual enjoyment.
The recent Pennsylvania CoCo Fest and the creation
of CoCoPS are also positive items. Add to these the
2nd coming of Steve Bjork and the resurgence of
interest among former CoCoists and who knows what
might happen. In any event, WE'RE STILL COCOING!!!
=*
|
THIS MONTH'S HOLY SCRIPTURE PSALM 133
A Song of degrees of David.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for
brethren to dwell together in unity!
It is like the precious ointment upon the head,
that ran down upon the beard,
even Aaron's beard:
that went down to the skirts of his garments;
As the dew of Hermon,
and as the dew that descended upon
the mountains of Zion:
for there the Lord commanded the blessing,
even life for evermore. =*
|
| Articles in section: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| ALLEN'S
REPORT CHICAGO COCO FEST ELECTRONIC VARIA EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS RENEWAL SOME CHANGES... |
| Back to top |
ALLEN'S REPORT Here's an interesting excerpt from H Allen Curtis's
last report. If anyone can be of help in providing
Allen with some new ideas for Solitaire games, I'm
sure many of us would be very happy. (Try the one in
this issue. I certainly didn't do very well with it
and I believe my eyes crossed at times!)
---
While listening to your music selections, I was
reminded of a project undertaken by three of my
Harvard grad school classmates in 1956. The project
was the computer composition of hymns. As their
program "evolved" the hymns that it composed got
progressively better and better. Don't ask me how
they did it, but I do know that they had stored in
the program a sampling of over 100 hymns (not =>
____________________________________________________
computer composed ones) and that statistical
analysis was involved.
As you can see, I have enclosed another solitaire
game. I wish I had a 100 of them as samples and a
program to compose new games of solitaire because I
am running out of solitaires to program.
Your friend,
Allen
----
RICK: A very interesting story! I would be most
interested in learning more about that
project!!!! =*
|
CHICAGO COCO FEST Hi Rick,
Just wanted to tell you that I finally got
to attend a COCO fest! I picked up a few COCO items
and had a really good time. I was never able to
attend the fests in the 80's...so I decided it was
time to go to one! I'm glad I did. I just wish I
hadn't waited so long! - JIM
-----
RICK: That's great Jim! I know you met some very
nice people there. I've met a few of the Chicago
club members at the Atlanta Fest over the past few
years.
And I understand your feelings about missing the
great fests of the 80's. Although I've been a =>
____________________________________________________
CoCo nut since 1981, I never made it to any of the
huge fests that took place during that "Golden Age"
of the CoCo. When I started Rick's Computer
Enterprise, I started attending the Atlanta Fest. My
first one was about 5 years ago. Mike Brown, David
Breeding, and I went down. For the next 3 years
Donna and sometimes the girls accompanied me. I was
sad to see the Atlanta Fest close down.
I would like to attend the Chicago Fest, but that
comes at a bad time of year for me (and I don't
think I'd like the traffic there!!)
This summer (August 2nd and 3rd) the family and I
will probably make it to Ron Bull's Pennsylvania
Fest. Hope to see you there! =*
|
ELECTRONIC VARIA To supplement my article "Cricket in the Electro- nic Age" I thought you might be interested in a few snippets of information on developments in the elec- tronic field over here. Practically all Holland is served by TV and Radio cable. The cable services are provided by municipal energy providers. Here in The Hague we have 25 TV channels available. There are 13 Netherlands lan- guage channels (including 2 Belgian Flemish), 3 BBC, CNN, two German, 1 Italian, 1 Arabic, 1 Turk, 1 Chi- nese and Discovery (Australian?). American and Australian films dominate the prime time offerings. In Netherland and Belgium sub-titles are used but sound dubbing is resorted to on most other channels. Ever heard Pluto or Donald speaking fluent French, German or Italian? => ____________________________________________________ Subscribers to cable services have been promised that laying of fiberglass cables will be completed throughout Holland and that all services will go digital before the end of this year. All cable pro- viders have decided on a standard decoder that will be available cheaply. Our cable provider here in The Hague intends to function as an Internet provider via interactive cable and promises speedy access. There is also a suggestion of Internet access for TV viewers. There are many more TVs than PCs out there! Remember the Commodore? It seems to have made a comeback as a PC with Commodore-only retail outlets everywhere. But maybe results aren't what they hoped for. An attempt to sell out to the Tulip concern did not succeed. => ____________________________________________________ All channels on our cable have built-in Teletext. For me that's a real plus. My income is paid in dol- lars and I find it fascinating watching exchange rates fluctuating minute by minute. Occasionally it is just like the boss said: Hey, boys! Your pay just went up (or down!) by ten guilders! =* |
EXCERPTS FROM LETTERS ...I enjoy supporting CFDM.
- Don Peters 0-36-Q2
----------------------------------------------------
I am having a great time with the emulator and can't
wait to get more programs and information.
- Joe Semenik
Joe.semenik(at sign)mci.com
----------------------------------------------------
I recently downloaded from the Internet the CoCo2
emulator by Jeff Vavasour and was very impressed
with it. So I would like to order the CoCo3 version.
I have a 512K CoCo3 with 2 FDD and would like =>
____________________________________________________
to run some of the software on my ATIC 486 SX 25
with SVGA video.
- Alex Falconer
Box 2
Glentworth, Saskatchewan
Canada S0H 1V0
alex.falconer(at sign)sk.sympatico.ca
----------------------------------------------------
I just read about the idea for the CoCo Preservation
Society on the newsgroup. Sounds like a great idea.
Enclosed is my $5 for membership.
- Larry Greenfield
=>
____________________________________________________
..I am enjoying this (Zenix) and your other Sundog
games are a great deal.
I hope to submit something in the future to CFDM. My
brother, Andy, and I have worked on a few things
over the years, and have a couple more ideas to try
out. I gave a copy of my Monopoly game to Stuart at
the PA Fest, with the hopes that he might be able to
add/modify as time permits.
- Michael Fulmer
2251 Asics Rd
Hilliard, OH 43026
----
RICK: Great meeting you, Mike, and Andy! Your game
looks GREAT and I hope it gets finalized!! =*
|
RENEWAL Hi Rick!
Yes I am still around by being careful, too much
gardening, mowing, and keeping cool.
I am sending a check for the next years CFDM.
Keep up the good work.
BUCK *
----
RICK: Thanks for your continued faithful support
Buck! I always enjoy receiving your letters!
=*
|
SOME CHANGES... One of our good Canadian friends, Mrs. Lyone Boult,
reports some changes that she has recently made in
her life experience. Firstly there's been a move
to a "retirement" apartment. She describes it as
quite a convenient location with all the amenities
close by.
Secondly she reports that her CoCos 2 & 3 and PC
have all been moved to a new home belonging to a
technician friend, who just loves them. (He is
somewhat taken with the emulator too!)
Lyone has then taken up with a new COMPAQ with all
the impressive speed, power, and modern peripherals!
Her husband still enjoys his Tandy laptop.
=>
____________________________________________________
The most interesting aspect of Lyone's "changes" is
that, unlike many of our Friends who have "moved and
not looked back", she wants to continue to have news
from her CoCo Friends. And...she is willing to keep
supporting CFDM with her subscription just so she
can get Arthur's HARDCOPY!! Now that is "a friend
indeed!"
Lyone gives her "CoCo experience" credit, with all
it's challenges and learning opportunities, with
keeping her mind and spirit young beyond the normal
person's expectations.
"Keep up the 'flambeau' for us all, even the exiled
friends. Hi to your family - wish I could have met
everybody out there!" - Lyone Boult =*
|
| Articles in section: POTPOURRI |
| HISTORY
REWRITTEN HISTORY REWRITTEN (PART 2) LA BELLE LUCIE REVISITED PATIENCE! PATIENCE! CHANGE THINGS I FORGET TORNADO novel progress report |
| Back to top |
HISTORY REWRITTEN Here is another one for laughs. It is a collection
of lines in students' history papers, put together
by Richard Lederer, a teacher in St. Paul.
Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.
Jacob, son of Isaac stole his brother's birthmark.
One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the
Israelites.
The inhabitants of Egypt were called mummies. They
traveled by Camelot.
Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where
they made unleavened bread, which is bread made
without any ingredients.
David was a Hebrew king who fought the
Philatelists.
Solomon, one of David's sons, had 500 wives and
500 porcupines. =>
____________________________________________________
The Greeks invented three kinds of columns --
Corinthian, Doric and Ironic.
The mother of Achilles dipped him in the River
Styx until he became intolerable.
In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped,
hurled the biscuits and threw the java. The reward
to the victor was a coral wreath.
Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who died from
an overdose of wedlock.
Eventually the Ramones conquered the Greeks.
Nero was a cruel tyrant who tortured his poor
subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
In the Middle Ages, King Harlod mustarded his
troops before the Battle of Hastings.
Joan of Arc was canonized by George Bernard Shaw.
=>
____________________________________________________
The Magna Carta provided that no free man should
be hanged twice for the same offense.
William Tell shot an arrow through an apple while
standing on his son's head.
In the Renaissance, Martin Luther was nailed to
the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal
indulgences. He died a horrible death, being
excommunicatd by a bull.
The painter Donatello's interest in the female
nude form made him the father of the Renaissance.
Gutenberg invented the bible, Sir Walter Raleigh
invented cigarettes, and Sir Frances Drake
circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
Queen Elizabeth's navy defeated the Spanish
Armadillo.
(Continued in Part 2) =*
|
HISTORY REWRITTEN (PART 2) William Shakespeare wrote about Romeo and Juliet,
a romantic couplet.
Miguel Cervantes wrote "Donkey Hote".
John Milton wrote "Paradise Lost". Then his wife
died and he wrote "Paradise Regained".
Christopher Colombus was a great navigator who
discovered America while cursing the Atlantic. His
ships were the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Fe.
One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was
that the English put tacks in their tea.
Benjamin Franklin invented electricity by rubbing
cats backward. Franklin died in 1790 and is still
dead.
Abraham Lincoln's mother died in infancy. He
signed the Emasculation Proclamation.
=>
____________________________________________________
In 1865, Lincoln got shot by an actor in a moving
picture. His name was John Wilkes Booth. This ruined
Booth's career.
Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is
chiefly noticeable in autumn, when the apples are
falling off the trees.
Bach and Handel were famous composers. Handel was
half-German, half-Italian and half-English. He was
very large.
Bach died from 1750 to the present.
Beethoven was so deaf that he wrote loud music. He
expired in 1827 and later died from this.
Samuel Morse invented a code for telepathy.
Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis.
Madman Curie discovered radium.
Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers. =*
|
LA BELLE LUCIE REVISITED (MY APOLOGIES ROBERT...THE FIRST SECTOR OF THIS
ENTRY WAS BAD. I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT SAID BUT THE
REMAINDER STILL MAKES A LOT OF SENSE!)
In H. Allen Curtis's LA BELLE LUCIE, he states in
his instructions that the BREAK key has been
disabled and SHIFT BREAK should be used to quit the
game. The screen that is displayed after winning a
game says "PRESS BREAK TO QUIT". It should say
"PRESS SHIFT BREAK TO QUIT". A change to line 183
can correct this. Line 183 should read:
183 HPRINT(25,4),"PRESS <N> TO PLAY NEW GAME":
HPRINT(26,6),"PRESS SHIFT BREAK TO QUIT":RETURN
This will fix an excellent game.
=*
|
PATIENCE! PATIENCE! CHANGE PATIENCE! PATIENCE! by H. Allen Curtis consists
of two solitaire games; CANFIELD and HIDDEN ACES. I
would like to make a change to CANFIELD based on the
rules of Hoyle. Mr. Hoyle states that when CANFIELD
was played in the gaming houses, the deck was
purchased for $50.00 dollars. For each card placed
on the foundation, $5.00 dollars was paid back to
the player. Mr. Curtis doesn't give anything back
for the first card.
Line 13 shows SV=-52. This should be changed to
SV=-45. This now follows Hoyle's rules.
=*
|
THINGS I FORGET I was driving south a few days ago when a car from
Iowa passed me by. I don't know why he was on a fast
getaway. (I like Iowa.) After he passed I thought of
an old poem. I can only remember part of it. How
about some help from you oldtimers? It went
something like this. What did IOWA ?
She weighed a Washington
What did Delaware ?
She wore her New Jersey.
What did Idaho ??
(I forget the rest.)
I have not lost my memory. It is backed up on disk..
but I forget which one!!!
BUCK * =*
|
TORNADO
Welllllll, here I go with another animated NIB -----
I did escape from one tornado when I was a boy in
Florida, and I will never forget it ! I can not help
people by giving money or physical help, but my
thoughts and prayers do go out to them -- May God
bless them -- The people who have gone through these
terrible tornados.
As I sit here at my COCO3, I want to say I enjoyed
RICK'S 1-800-687-0600, EXT.699570, since it was so
nice to hear his voice and also his girls. I hope
you continue it, Rick.
I also want to again thank the COCOERS who wrote me
and I will answer as soon as I can. .
Labor Day will be upon us sooner than we think, so
have a nice time.
HJM 07-10-97 =>
____________________________________________________
See Harold's animated "TORNADO" on side 1 of the
bonus disk.
=*
|
novel progress report 6/10/97
harold moenich has agreed to review my first draft.
although only 2/3 done, i wanted an objective
opinion of my work. harold told me he had an
operation, so he's slower than before. he also told
me his second son has written 2 books & would be
glad to help me.
right now, my draft is up to 221 pages and i'm
almost to the end of chapter 12. i figure i will
need approx. 300 pages before i can call it
complete. editing to the final fraft will obviously
change the length of the draft. 300 pages comes to
around 16 chapters. i have included all of the
people that have sent me tickets in my page of =>
____________________________________________________
acknowledgment. others are included as well because
they have given me great ideas.
until the next report, this is your struggling cfdm
novel writter.
=*
|
| Articles in section: PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH |
| 10-20-30 GETPUT FOR FLEXIBLE HPRINTING LOTOLUCK - if you're lucky! STRINGART NUMBER 18 Word Search 11 |
| Back to top |
10-20-30 This game of solitaire features a Tableau and a Hand. At the beginning of the game the Tableau con- sists of 4 piles of 3 cards each. The Hand contains the other 40 cards. Each time the Hand is used, one card is dealt from the Hand to each pile of the Tableau. Three cards may be removed from a pile if they add up to 10, 20, or 30 and if the three cards are 1. the top 3 cards, or 2. the bottom 3 cards, or 3. the top 2 cards plus the bottom card, or 4. the top card plus the bottom 2 cards. The cards removed from a pile are returned to the bottom of the Hand for reuse. The value of each Ace is 1. Each face card, Jack, Queen, and King, has the value 10. Each of the => ____________________________________________________ other cards has the value showing on it, 2 through 10. The object of the game is to eliminate all four piles by removing all their cards. The center of the 10-20-30 screen from top to bottom displays at most 6 cards of each pile of the Tableau. The Hand is at the right of the Tableau. Key commands are used to deal cards to the Tableau and to remove them in sets of 3. If any pile has one of the four requisite sets of 3 cards with a total of 10, 20, or 30, then pressing the number key corresponding to the pile number will remove those 3 cards. To deal a card to each of the nonempty piles merely press the H key. At the bottom of the 10-20- 30 screen is a menu to remind you of the keys that can be used to make the plays. The menu shows => ____________________________________________________ one additional key, Q, which is used to Quit by pressing it twice in succession. Any illegal play, such as pressing a number key of a pile which has no valid set of 3 cards with a total of 10, 20, or 30, will cause a beep to be sounded. The game is scored as follows: A point is added to the score for every card removed from a pile. A point is subtracted from the score for every card dealt to a pile from the Hand. A point is also sub- tracted whenever a beep is sounded. 25 points are added to the score whenever a pile is eliminated. A bonus of 25 points is added to the score when you eliminate all 4 piles. At that time if you have had a SMALL number of beeps, the points subtracted for them will be restored. The maximum score is 125. =* |
GETPUT FOR FLEXIBLE HPRINTING In my program, WARSHIPS, in CFDM #56, I found it
difficult to HPRINT the identifying letters on the
ship silhouettes because the HPRINT coordinates are
multiples of eight. So I HPRINTed the labels separ-
ately on the screen and "got" each individually. It
was thus easy to make fine adjustments to the posit-
ion of each label when I put it on the ship's hull.
In this program, GTPTTEXT, I have gone further
with that experiment to put text on the screen in
semi-circular and sine curve patterns.
Lines 70-100 print four short lines of text on
the screen, bottom center. The letters in the lines
are "got" in 6x6 frames and labelled individually
1-88. Lines 110-140 "put" them at coordinates set by
the trig statements for the variables H and V in
semi-circles with radii 96, 85, 73 and 62. =>
____________________________________________________
The filled half-circle at screen center serves
only to demonstrate that the text letters are neatly
ranged in a semicircle.
Lines 160-190 provide a little extra: a rolling
light message like you see on newspaper offices. The
first 40 characters of the long string string, B$,
are HPRINTed on the screen. The first character of
A$ is then moved to the end of the string and line
170 then HPRINTs the next 40 characters and so on.
The pokes in line 40 enable overprinting with the
HPRINT command.
Press CLEAR for another experiment with got and
put text. The texts in lines 210-220 are got and
stored as with the first texts. In line 240 the trig
statement sets the vertical coordinate, V. in steps
of 9, anbd the horizontal, H, in steps of 8. =>
____________________________________________________
You don't need to be a trig whiz to produce pat-
terns like in this program. In fact, I have used the
trig formulae in this listing for many purposes and
my own knowledge of trig doesn't go much further.
I'd like to see any interesting patterns you can
come up with.
(You'll find Keiran's program on side 1 of the Bonus
Disk.)
=*
|
LOTOLUCK - if you're lucky! For picking lotto numbers, computer programs are no better than any other method. But they can take some of the strain out of the weekly ritual if, like me, you dither over whether to scratch a 6 or 7 and end up scratching neither. LOTOLUCK will choose 6 random numbers out of 45 on a card with up to 12 boxes (tries). It is intended for a draw in which 6 numbers and two supplementary numbers are drawn. In lines 11, 12 and 13 you can change the values CH (choice), HN (highest number) to suit your local lotto. Insert SU=1 in line 13 if only one supple- mentary number is drawn. To try LOTOLUCK, run and take option 1 on the choice screen. Enter 12 for the number of tries and the the screen displays its choice for Try 1. Scr- atch the number onto a card and press a key for => ____________________________________________________ the next try. There is a slight delay before the inkey prompts appear because as soon as a row of 6 numbers shows, subroutine 1000 pokes them into lines 640-750 pre- faced by"DATA" and separated by commas. Jeff Har- per's program produced a 3-D graph with some fancy math equations. Use of opcodes may be be necessary. In line 1090, the opcode for DATA is 134. Note that I had to pre- pare lines 640-750 by inserting the linenumber plus "D" followed by enough spaces to ensure enough room for the code to be inserted. Now run and take option 2. Enter 6 imaginary val- ues and 2 supplementary numbers on prompt and sub- routine 1000 will poke 8 values into line 630. Enter the number of tries and the result will be shown. => ____________________________________________________ Now save this whole listing as a normal basic file with a file name (the date or number of the next draw) and when that lotto is drawn, take choice 2 and enter the draw results as before. Next lotto, load the last lotto listing you saved and pick your numbers. On a computer, random numbers tend to cluster in a narrow value range and then break away to cluster in another. In line 60 I have tried to effect an even spread of numbers and added line 250 to reset the timer a random number of times before going on to choose the next number. I cannot guarantee that line 260 will work but it seems to help a lttle. Consecutive numbers occur in lotto draws but not as often as on computers. Lines 190-200 reject con- secutives in the first half of your tries. =* |
STRINGART NUMBER 18 It's been a while since I did a stringart picture,
so here is another one. As I mentioned before, the
procedure I use is to lay out the pattern on graph
paper, scale it to the screen size, and then find
the coordinates for each point.
Programming is fairly simple, but tedious -- first
plotting all the nails (points), then stringing the
thread (lines) to generate the picture. This one
took less than two days to complete.
=*
|
Word Search 11 Back in Feb/March of 1997, I decided to install Windows 95 on my computer. Something happened during the installation, and the entire hard drive was reformatted. I lost almost everything. I lost almost all my CoCo stuff. I had to get a new copy of the emulator, and reinstall every program for Windows. I had never backed up the system! My lap- top had some early versions of CoCo programs that I had been working on. I've finally had time to work on them, so here is one of them! It's a word-search creator. The menu is pretty easy to understand, and I've included a wordlist on the disk (called CFDM.LST) which contains words about CFDM. You can either create your own list, or load that one in. The options are logical. -> ____________________________________________________ You enter the size of the puzzle, and decide if you want the computer to try to fit all the words in. If you say NO, the computer will ask how many attempts to try before abandoning a word. If you say YES, the computer will keep trying, even re- starting the puzzle from scratch if necessary to try and fit the words in. You can watch the progress on the screen. If you don't like the look of it, just restart it when it finishes. When done, you can print it out to any standard printer. Enter a title (it will be centered), and then choose if you want the answer key printed on the next page. -> ____________________________________________________ The computer will print the puzzle out, in all uppercase, and list the words underneath in three columns, alphabetically. The answer sheet will be on page 2(if you requested it). I have tested this program on the emulator, using an HP600 inkjet printer. It works fine. I just have to press the "on-line" button on the printer when the CoCo is done, to force the printer to eject the paper. A regular dot matrix would not have this problem. The program has a lot of comments throughtout, so it would be easy to study how it works. -Stuart -* |
| Articles in section: REVIEWS |
| Carlisle
PA CoCo Fest FEST PART 2 |
| Back to top |
Carlisle PA CoCo Fest This will be a short report about the recent CoCo Fest in Carlisle, PA. If you have internet access, you can read a different report of mine, and see some pictures from the fest. Just go to: http://www.voicenet.com/-swyss (don't forget, that hyphen in the http addres is actually a tilde) I arrived on Friday night at Carlisle. I live about 2 1/2 hours away by turnpike, but I avoided most major roads, and simply took back roads. The trip took me about four or five hours, but that included some scenic stops on the way. I must comment that central PA is still very rural. Lots of typical small towns dot the countryside. People live in towns, walk to the corner soda counter, sit on porches, kids roam around, swim in the -> ____________________________________________________ Susquehenna, etc. It's very picturesque! Anyway, I arrived and checked in, then found Rick and Co. We met Ron Bull (the organizer), and got our things set up. Ron was expecting about 20 vendors, but I think five or six didn't show up,which was a shame. A few presenters didn't show either, including Marty Goodman, but there was some emergency situation. :-( The fest started next morning. It wasn't very crowded. I was glad to see Norm, Godfrey, Muriel, LE and Nan again, and meet new faces; Sockmaster, Steve Bjork, Carl England, Carl Boll, Ron Bull, Brother Jeremy, and others. For me it was more of a "reunion", than a sales event! During the day, Steve Bjork,a well-known programmer> ____________________________________________________ that developed games like Zaxxon for the CoCo2, spoke about his partnership with Tandy, and his future plans working with the CoCo as a hobby. Brother Jeremy told us about his oversized CoCo, and Sockmaster (John Kowalski) spoke about his GIME chip tricks, 4mhz CoCo accelerator, and other things. That evening, we all went out to dinner, and talked of CoCo and non-CoCo things. The next day, Sunday, was almost as quiet as Sat. We did have a big meeting and formed the CoCo Preservation Society. Steve (sort of) headed the discussion, and Rick (sort of) steered the group. SEE FEST PART 2 TO FINISH THE REST OF THE STORY-* |
FEST PART 2 I left around 3:00 PM,and taking some back roads and some highways, got home around 6:30. One side trip I made was to the Millersburg ferry to cross the Susquehenna River. Very pleasant! The down side of the Fest (and there was one) I felt was a general lack of enthusiasm. Perhaps it was just me, but I think people were quite saddened by the low turnout, some people didn't sell a thing, and the no-shows put a damper on things. During the Sunday discussion, I got the impression that one person wanted to try and sell the CoCo to the world again. Since we've got the machine to do many things, perhaps people who don't have a computer would buy a CoCo. The likelyhood of -> ____________________________________________________ that happening is very small. The best we can hope for is to keep the current users involved, and former users interested again. I doubt the field will get new serious users again. Of course, Microsoft just gave Apple $1,500,000 to help it out, so I guess truth is stranger than fiction!!! Please read the CoCo Preservation Society entry. -* |
| Articles in section: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS |
| HIDDEN
ACES LOOKING FOR SOME CLASSICS QUESTION ABOUT ART-DELI DISKS SICK COCO |
| Back to top |
HIDDEN ACES I have been playing H Allen Curtis's HIDDEN ACES
for the last few weeks. When I win, and I do win
sometimes, the score is not always the same. I have
scored 110, 250, 255, 260, 265, and 280. What does
this mean?
BUCK*
----
RICK: Can we get an answer for this one Allen?
=*
|
LOOKING FOR SOME CLASSICS I'm looking for the following Classic CoCo Games to
buy...if someone has them to sell:
Marble Maze (Diecom Products)
Paper Route (Diecom Products)
Wrestle Maniac (Diecom Products)
Jim Davis
PO BOX 1704
Nixa, MO. 65714
=*
|
QUESTION ABOUT ART-DELI DISKS It was great meeting you in PA. This was my first
opportunity to match faces with all those names
that have been a part of my CoCo life the past ten
years. I want to publicly thank Ron Bull for such an
excellent job putting on the 'fest'. Hope he is able
to do one next year. No wonder I was tired and had
to leave early Sunday: I had a slight bug which made
the drive in the Northeast Corridor all the more
"fun."
Finally, I have a question for you and your readers.
I brought home serveral ART-DELI disks from the
'fest' and immediately copied them to other disks
with the extensions renamed CLP for MAX-10. When I
tried to load one of them into MAX-10, I got an
error message "PARAGRAPH IS TOO LONG" and found =>
____________________________________________________
I could not load a paragraph of over 6000 bytes.
Since ART-DELI pix are PMODE4 and were meant to be
used with MAX-10, among other things, there must be
a way around this problem. Can you help?
- Ray Watts
P.O. Box 574
26 Corey Lane
Niantic, CT 06357
(860) 739-9729
----
RICK: I don't know the answer to your question Ray,
but I'll bet one of our friends does. You'll most
likely be hearing from someone soon! Really enjoyed
meeting you at the PA Fest! =*
|
SICK COCO What can I do for a sick CoCo3?
Several weeks back I was looking in a pawn shop and
saw a CoCo3. The price tage said 10 dollars. As I
turned to leave I thought, "Just bucks." I gave the
man the money and left.
When I turn it on all I get is the square screen, no
video. Some of you experts probably know what the
problem is. Could it be a video chip?
BUCK
918-689-7359
=*
|
