Coco War Stories
Recount tales from the front lines of my past development efforts for Tandy, along with an update on my latest projects.
About Rick
Rick Adams is the author of Tandy’s classic games Temple of ROM and Shanghai, as well as Bomb Threat and Omnistar.
A deep dive into a full screen editor based on The Microware Editor.
A discussion on the means and methods used to build a full screen editor in assembly language. A data structure overview with examples from the original code from the 80’s.
A overview of how an assembler creates machine code based on The Microworks.
A walk through for The Microworks Assembler – How it processes a text source code file into an executable binary file. This one is gonna be a fast paced session not for the faint of heart.
About Terry
Terry Steen started his COCO experience when he was given a 4K Standard BASIC Color Computer by his parents in 1981. At that time, he was an electronics hobbyist but had never used a computer.
He became intrigued in the COCO both from electronics and programming aspects. He spent a great deal of his time learning to understand the electronics as much as the programming aspect.
He eventually learned to programed machine code BY HAND, then assembly, and sold several games to Jarb Software, Chromosette T&D Software.
Not seeing an outlet for his interests, he enlisting in the USAF becoming an Air Borne Communications Specialist on the WWABCP system. He eventually returned to school in 1995 at the Klipsch School of Electrical Engineering at NMSU at Las Cruses New Mexico. He is now the senior electrical reviewer for the Commonwealth of Virginia where he does not program or do electronics.
His COCO interested returned in late 2017, through direct connection with Stevie Strowbridge. Since then, his nerdy hobby has bloomed a new where he has been seeking to restore his interest in VHDL, Electronics, Machine Language, and preserving old-school hardware and software techniques.
Since he was self-taught and did not have any formal training when he was a teenager, he is not at all happy with his larger projects structure and is seeking to rebuild his past efforts with the engineering structure he learned at New Mexico State University.
His Microworks Unraveled project is he first serious step back into the COCO marketplace.
Making and Creating in Under 225 ft²
(or 21 m² for metric folk)
What kind of spatial constraints are you up against? In this presentation, Henry describes the joys and compromises of working in limited space. You might be surprised at how little floor area you need—if you start with a problem solving attitude.
About Henry
Henry Gernhardt, third of his name, has been an avid computer nerd since his family’s first computer in 1981. Of course, this had to be the TRS-80 Color Computer, selected by his father due to (a) the need to have an in-home computer for further education and career realignment, (b) the insurmountable computing power of its advanced microprocessor architecture, and (c) the relatively low cost of entry. The presence of this computer opened to Henry the wonders of computer programming, computer hardware, mechatronics, and other avenues of technological investigation. Henry credits much of his technical acumen and autodidactic bents to the amazing manuals that came with the TRS-80 color computer, allowing him to not only progress at his own pace but learn how to learn.
These days Henry passes on to others his joy of learning and discovery. In his professional environment, he guides those under his professional care in growth and development in ways they may not have believed possible. In his personal life he enjoys playing around with electronic gizmos, programming close to the metal, and sharing with the world his enthusiasm for technology and learning on his YouTube channel, “The Break Key”.
Henry can be reached at henry@thebreakkey.com.
More to come…