Lmfao,

I am Backkkkkkk, Did ya miss me

Back in business!!! (Almost)

After selling all of my CoCo stuff a little over two years ago, I didn't think I'd take this long to get back too it. Boy was I wrong...

Well, thanks to Mark Marlette over at Cloud-9, I'm back in business...

Why yes, that badge DOES, in fact, say 2048k Color Computer 3. She's not quite usable yet. I've also ordered an SDC from Ed Snider. Getting there, still need to pick a few things up...

Maybe it's time for some perspective?

Greeting CoCoNutz, it has been a while. When I moved to Maine in 2017, I basically sold out of my CoCo collection, transferred my fan site to another person, and basically disappeared for a while.

That didn't mean I wanted to be gone forever. In fact, a few fellow 'nutz strongly encouraged me to stay on as a Facebook admin, participate in discussion, etc...

I'm sure some will accuse me of choosing sides after reading this. If so, all that does is put their reading comprehension skills into question.

When I first found out the good ol' CoCo still had a following, I was stunned. This was late 2005, and the main resources for information was Roger Taylor's coco3.com and the mailing list ran by Dennis. Another guy named Cris had a website, blog and forum as well.

Online resources were available, yet far from organized; Cloud-9 was one of the VERY few makers of new hardware devices; memory upgrades, hard disk adapters, MPI service and updates. Chris Hawkes had an S-video device and Roy Justus was the first to make a VGA adapter.

Needless to say, a lot has changed in thirteen years. There's more vendors doing hardware now - the most prolific of the new producers being Ed Snider. I know I'm skipping over some, but, this post would read like a novel if I touched on every single hardware developer out there.

On the software side, there were some very cool releases. Roger's Bejeweled clone, Jeweled. Sock Master stunned the entire retro world in 2007 with his release of the Donkey Kong emulator for the CoCo3 - then did it again a few years later with Donkey Kong Remix. Nick Marentes came back to the CoCo world with PopStar Pilot, and now Gunstar; and the Glen Hewlett transcode of Pac-Man recently has continued a slow but steady stream of impressive releases.

John Linville started a craze with his Fahrfall game. It was written specifically for the CoCo 1 or 2, and not the CoCo 3. Then he re-released it on his Game Master Cartridge, adding music and more SFX. This essentially started lots of discussion about sound add-ons. Ed Snider has implemented a sound chip in his Mega-Mini MPI as well, and Jim Brain has stated he has a project in development as well. The Mega-Mini and I think even a product announced by Jim spawned a lot of whining about wanting the addition of an RTC module. The seemingly never ending constant in many hardware projects seems to be a desire for design by committee.

The irony in all of this, regarding sound hardware, is the GMC seems to be the only available design that's actually having any software support (Fahrfall and a game under development by Steve Bamford). Truthfully though, the GMC isn't a sound card as much as it is a platform - maybe John will correct me if he disagrees. Much like you could get certain games on the Genesis and SNES with custom chips to boost those systems performance, the GMC adds much better sound capabilities to games or software. The caveat being, as a cart, the software must have a ROM onboard  the cart, and be written to take advantage of the features. I'm unsure if a disk game can be written to utilize the hardware in the GMC as it's designed right now.

Historically speaking, most of the events/products mentioned above have the following in common: they all sparked very opinionated, and in some cases hatefully opinionated comments. To be honest, we're all fans of the CoCo, yet to an extent only rivaled in politics, we cannot seem to agree to disagree. Some feel the necessity to browbeat others into submission. It almost seems as though their lives are so miserable they have to make others feel bad just to feel good.

Lately there has been a LOT of not so pleasant discourse regarding similar products being dropped into the market. Rightly so, one question asked was about why there is so much duplication of existing products. Honestly, it does show a lack of imagination for coming up with something new. However, we are a free market capitalist society, so people really can make and sell what they want to.

Even in a free market society, it seems that fair competition and discussion of etiquette can sometimes be controversial. The CoCo universe is relatively small. When last I  checked, it had about 4,000 followers on Facebook - yet active members seem to be a small percentage of that. In comparison, the Atariage group has more than 24,000 members, a Commodre 64 group has 88,000 members, one Amiga group has 22,000 members.

On two occasions I can remember, when CoCoFest! time was approaching, Mark Marlette released a chart comparing one of his products with a competing product. On both occasions, members of the insta-rage gang that hides out on the Facebook page went nuts. Why? In a free market society, you should expect product comparisons, and if yours comes in on the low end, you have a choice to make: improve it or accept the situation as is.

The latest case of this was when Mark compared his 2MB TRIAD+ board to the 2MB Boomerang board. Some of the chart info was incorrect - which wasn't Mark's fault since the updated information was not public knowledge - sorry but just because something is spoken about among the 18 or so Discord members that were chatting that night doesn't make it public.

Certain members of the Facebook group cried foul at just the creation of the chart. Others calmly, and others no so calmly, pointed out the discrepancy. Basically, some seemed to want free market capitalism, but, without giving producers a way to talk about and compare competing products. Perhaps next year, the CoCoFest! should have a WWE ring set up?

There's been discussion for a long time about projects, and selling products that compete. It's a gray area for sure, and opinions are strong. The general consensus for the two sides are as follows:

1. Anybody can sell anything they want, for whatever price they want.

2. Does it really help the CoCo Universe to have multiple products, with the same features, that serve the same purpose? And why not discuss and possibly collaborate if you're going to introduce a competing product?

Now group (1) is certainly free market capitalism - impossible to dispute that.

Group (2) type thoughts have been attacked as anti-competitive, I think someone even compared it to a violation of antitrust laws - which it's most certainly not.

Boisy Pitre wrote an article about it - the response was mixed. Certain people respected where it came from. Others compared it to trampling ideas, silencing others and claims of trying to control the market, all the way to being un-American.

But is it really? Looking at the size and potential market share of any device, sure, there's probably enough room in the CoCo-verse for competing memory upgrades. But doesn't that show, as I commented earlier, a lack of imagination?

Mark has had 512K memory upgrades for years - dating back to the late '90's. Few years ago, he produced a 512K SRAM upgrade - the TRIAD. At CoCoFest! 2018 Mark demonstrated a 2MB version of the TRIAD, and admitted he didn't like the design and was working on refining it. Shortly after, the 2MB Boomerang was released to the public. This might be considered a coincidence if it were not for the developer of the Boomerang attending the Fest - it would be surprising if he weren't aware of the Cloud-9's product. But, was it wrong or just good business strategy to be first to market? Since there have been several revisions of said product, the argument could go either way as to if being first to the market is a good thing or not.

The people in Group (2) would like to see some courtesy displayed to long time developers of both hardware and software. If you're working on a competing product, reach out to discuss it and see if there's a way to collaborate - ways to make an existing product better, or just to say 'hey, I have this idea on a new SRAM upgrade'. If there's room for collaboration, great. If not, nothing and nobody is trying to stop another from creating a widget or game. At least the attempt was made, and a little respect was shown, and likely earned.

If that's anti-competitive and anti-American, then I'll claim the development and quick release of the 2MB Boomerang is tantamount to corporate espionage. However, I would be just as incorrect - it was a window of opportunity that was taken. By bringing it to market, though, some expectations of product comparison should not be surprising. Hysterical rants brought on by product comparisons help nobody.

John Linville recently posted a video asking people to calm down, take a breath, and try to remember we're all fans of the CoCo. Not surprisingly he was attacked for it. Think about that a minute. The fact he took the time to make and post a video like that, I'm sure he did a little self reflection as well. Then to be attacked for it. Are those people even capable of self reflection?

Unfortunately, where I see all of this leading is to a fractured group. Those whom are first to attack, also seem to be the easiest to offend if they're called out. Once that happens, certain individuals get in rage mode, and any type of logical, rational discussion goes out the window. In some ways it's humorous, in others it's very, very sad. 

We cannot even agree to disagree. There was a response to Boisy's article that took his exact format, and attempted a point by point rebuke, by changing paragraph wording to reflect their view. However, there was nothing serious about it, and ended up being nothing more than a pathetic mockery attempt. In fairness, there was some decent discussion on the topic as well. 

However, mockery seems to be a tool being utilized by several people, and I'll admit I've done so as well - I'm not proud if it, but, at least I'm man enough to admit it. I'm also still capable of fighting the mockery or hysterics fires with like fire - I've raised five daughters and a son, trust me, I've seen hysterics and mockery. Let's not go there - try to be grown up, and not keyboard warriors.

In closing I'd like to say this: is all the infighting and hysterics worth it?  Because you disagree with someone, does it make you feel better when you beat them into submission? This is a retro computing HOBBY. We're supposed to be having fun, not trying to neuter people with words. If all you have to offer is a combative personality, seek help. In all seriousness, if you're so much of an asshole that you have to browbeat and be condescending to others to feel good about yourself, SEEK HELP.

Finally, if you disagree with someone, debate the topic, don't insult or berate the person - you have no idea what the person is like in the real world. Just because you have differing opinions doesn't mean the other person is evil. That same person might pull you out of a burning car or building. You never know...

Something to 'fall on

Let's see... the last reviews I wrote were back in 2013 - 2014 when Retrogaming Times Monthly was still around. In all reality, I never wanted to wait to get back to writing, however, life seems to interrupt occasionally.

The last few reviews I wrote were more like comparisons of the same games on differing systems, in an effort to show that the CoCo had a fairly robust gaming catalog. Obviously, this is more true today than just a few years ago. The only issue I had when I started considering reviews again was: which game to choose.

Fortunately or unfortunately, recent events made that easy.

A while back, starting in 2012 I believe, long time CoCoNut John Linville wrote a game called Fahrfall, based on Downfall, a homebrew game he found for the Atari Jaguar. The premise of the game is fairly simple: safely guide your player on upward, vertically scrolling platforms, and stay alive. If you fall, you die. If you hit the top of the screen, you die. The longer you live, the higher your score.

Atari Jaguar Downfall

As I said, the video tells it all, the premise is simple. According to John's Blog, he initially decided to create an original arcade style game on the CoCo 1 & 2, also while entering into the Retro-Challenge. I'm not going to take the time to take a bunch of screenshots or original video. There's quite a bit on YouTube already.Here's one John himself posted showing off the Game Master Cartridge.

The addition of the GMC with it's sound chip (the same one in the Tandy 1000) doesn't add anything to the game play, but, it DOES add to the experience. While the musical composition will not win any awards, it's not offensive and actually sounds really good. The game play itself is really good, john has the controls dialed well. The character (Fahrve, I believe is his name) goes left and right when you want him to, and stops on a dime. I noticed no lag in his movements whatsoever. 

In fact, I was able to get what I consider to be a decent score during my first night of game play. Next milestone is 20k - we'll see.

I'll get back to playing it again. These types of games where the goal is to beat your previous best score are the types of game I appreciate most. Video games with a definitive ending to them just seem anticlimactic. Again, this is personal preference, yet explains my affinity for Donkey Kong and Pac-Man.

Farfahll is an exceedingly fun, and addictive game. The animation is smooth, the controls are spot on, music and SFX are there. Is it going to be everyone's cup of tea? Probably not. However, in showing off the GMC's sound chops a little with the Master Edition, John has created a platform for anyone who wants to create a game with far better sound capabilities than any CoCo before it. In fact, John tells me a disk game can access the GMC when an MPI is in use as well. So I guess in reviewing Fahrfall, I've also reviewed the Game Master Cartridge.

Listening to my work-in-progess game for the very first time through a real GMC! :) I should add I currently don't compensate for 50/60Hz so the music sounds slightly slower on my PAL Dragon. Big thanks to John W. Linville for hooking me up and Simon Jonassen for bringing it back from CoCoFEST.
Posted by Steve Bamford on Sunday, June 2, 2019

Above is a video linked from the Facebook CoCo group, posted by Steve Bamford, demonstrating his progress on a game using the GMC. And really, the audio is nothing short of incredible. Much kudos should go out to John for developing this cartridge, and Steve for really taking the audio to the next level. You can read about, and hear, what another developer is doing with the GMC here.

So no, this isn't just a review of Fahrfall, the game. It's also a review of the GMC, and the value it can add to a game. Is it a sound card? No, as stated in my previous 'drama' post, the GMC is actually a platform for developing games with features the Color Computer and it's cousins do not have. And it does it well. Fahrfall the game can stand on it's own as a very fun and addictive game with great controls, lots of action and even some frustration. The Master Edition, with the GMC, adds to the overall quality of the game by providing the sound improvements. It's a win-win.

Now, if only the story ended there... (queue ominous music?)

There's been some drama recently. Sadly, even after lots of discussion and seemingly a burying of hatchets, so to speak, there appears to have been a shot fired from Australia. Now, I could be wrong, this next game might have just been in jest. However, the public commentary during its reveal, not to mention the discussion of like projects that's been going on since before the CoCoFest!, leads me to believe there's more to to the story.

During an 'impromptu' episode of CoCoTalk a week or so ago, the guys did a review of a new Nick Marentes game called Waterfall. I'm sure everyone knows who Nick is; some of the best shooters on the CoCo were developed by him, like Space Intruders, Cosmic Ambush and PopStar Pilot, as well as a Pac-Man tribute game which is Pac-Man using 100% Nick Marentes code.

Waterfall, has a webpage set up for information about the game, it's origins and it's features. It's without irony that I can state that Nick places Waterfall's origins in the same games that John Linville did on his Farfahll blog. In fact, much ado was made in the video cast and the project webpage about Waterfall being an "Inspirational" new game - seemingly taking words straight from John's blog pages. Waterfall is a semi-graphics game, programmed in Extended Color Basic, using ML routines to improve performance - straight from the project webpage. Also, it uses what I consider to be one of the most overrated CoCo devices ever - the Speech and Sound cart - to provide sound and voice. The vocals are reminiscent of Stephen Hawking, if his batteries were running low. Below is a video, provided by Nick, of the game play and the SFX of the SS/C in all it's glory.

Before I get into the game play, I know the question will be asked: 'Did you even play it? Where's your video?' Simply put, I no longer own a CoCo 1 or 2. However, I DID play BOTH games using a CoCoPi3 - my high scores for both games are displayed in the two screen shots - the High Scores from Fahrfall, and the title screen to Waterfall. The Master Edition of Fahrfall played perfectly on Xroar with the GMC option. Waterfall, not so much - I couldn't get the SS/C to work in MAME or Xroar - it kept crashing. So I played Fahrfall on Xroar and Waterfall on MAME and Xroar. Besides, the SS/C not working for my game testing saved my ears from the torturous speech in Waterfall.

Again, no original video, there's plenty already out there showing the same thing I'm going to record. So what's the game look like? Well, the video above will tell the story. The graphics, being semi-graphics, look like the first generation of color computer games. The platform scrolling reminds me of cheap and quickly assembled stop-motion animation. The California Raisins clay-mation stop motion commercials were much smoother.

While I don't think the choppy animation necessarily hurts the game play, it doesn't help it at all. This effect could be a byproduct of the game being coded under ECB. Full screen animation will only be so smooth, even with ML speed up routines. Or it could be that this isn't a serious attempt at making a GOOD game.

Player control is also a weak point. Watching the CoCoTalk watch party, whomever was playing experienced the same issues I did at first. Again, due to it's nature as an ECB game, I do not believe there's enough speed in the system to afford the same level of player control Fahrfall has. Either that, or it just wasn't important enough to the programmer. After a while you get used to the lack of responsiveness, and can anticipate when to start and end your player movements. Missile Command on the Atari 2600 had much better and more accurate controls than Waterfall.

As previously stated, with both Fahrfall and Waterfall, the goal is to stay alive while dropping from platform to platform. Waterfall stayed closer to the 'Inspirational' games that came before it by having items on platforms for extra points. I don't think this adds or detracts from the game - it adds to points totals quicker, and if the controls were better would be a cool addition.

Listening to the commentators on the CoCoTalk video, I'm left a little confused. Their excitement over this game seemed to be coming from a place of dubious sincerity. Feel free to interpret my meaning, you'll probably get it right. The graphics look more like an Atari game than a CoCo, and maybe that was part of the intent. However, a game with bad graphics and great game play would beat a game with great graphics and poor game play anytime. For example, Combat on the Atari. Blocky graphics, but really good control - it's a fun game.

For me, Waterfall falls into neither category. Since the guys on the watch party seemed to be so enthusiastic about the game, I attempted to be as well. And that didn't last long.

There are a few points I'd like to make in closing:

1. These games are far from equal
2. Fahrfall is a much better implementation of the premise than Waterfall
3. Waterfall isn't bad for a game coded in a week
4. The GMC makes Fahrfall a more enjoyable game
5. The SS/C makes Waterfall less enjoyable than the graphics, animation and player control
6. I have no idea if the author of Waterfall took the game seriously, or had other intentions for it's development

Fahrfall is by fahr the more enjoyable game to play. I'd rather pay for it, than play a free version with clunky graphics.

Update

Well, as my last post indicated, I'm back to blogging. The grand experiment that was my dedicated website and forum for all things CoCo fell flat on it's face. Well, Facebook, that is. With the popularity of social media, Facebook won out. Well, that and the fact the Joomla site crapped out after a failed update. Anyway, I'll be blogging my thoughts and ideas here as I have them, and/or get the time. Till the next random thought...

Aaaand I'm back

Well, I'm back to using the Blogger format... more to come!

Getting ready for closure

Howdy folks. I think I started this blog about four years ago. Cris (CaptCPU) had asked me to start posting on the CoCoHut blog, and I created this blog to catalog my progress with my repack project.

Fast forward four years, and I have way too many projects to keep track of. I've got my hardware testing, website, repack blog, and many others too numerous to list. Pre-accident Brian could have handled all of this, but, it's all a little hard to handle now. Too easy to get frustrated, disappointed and aggravated; something has to give. Unfortunately, it's gonna have to be the blogging. Since the blogs have been the areas that have suffered, they are gonna go. Both of 'em.

The CoCoHut is Cris' blog; he started it and he can make the decision to close it when he sees fit. He's been AWOL for quite some time - I haven't heard from him in over a year. This blog, however, was and is all mine.

I will not be leaving the CoCo Scene. My latest project has been the creation of an actual forum, which can be found here. Slowly, I'll get the contents of the repack blog transferred over to the 'Mod My CoCo' section of the forum. When that's done, I'll close the repack blog.

This was a tough decision, but, I've got to lighten the load some. It's been a fun ride, and I hope everyone will join us over at the forum.


Later,

Brian

New CoCo related forum

Hello everyone. Just dropping in to let you guys know I'm still here, still kicking, and still working on the repack. S - L - O - W - L - Y. But, I am still working on it. Several other projects have side-tracked it. I was working with one of Roger Taylor's Serial Paks and getting it to run with an XBee wireless modem. There is a complete write up for that coming out in the next CoCoNutz issue. I've also gotten quite a few web sites to work on, which has taken a chunk of my time.

For the last two weeks, though, the thing that took the majority of my time was the creation of a CoCo related forum. I had quite a few requests for this, and I finally caved in. It's sort of a work in progress, but, it's functional, and hopefully will start seeing some increased traffic. If you want to take a look and maybe join up and post, go here.

CoCo 'Rules of Aquisition'

No, I haven't become an honorary Ferengi, but, I am going to have start avoiding eBay like the plague. So far this year, I have picked up the following:

1 - CoCo3 w/512k
1 - dual floppy unit with full height drives that need AT LEAST an alignment, with an FD-501 cart
3 - MPI's
1 - Complete FD-501 Disk System w/2 DS/DD drives
1 - CoCo mouse
1 - RS-232 pak
1 - Speech Systems 'The Voice'
1 - WICO j/s adapter
1 - FD-500 cart
1 - FD-501 cart

Now, add that to the following...

3 - 512k CoCo3' (2 have 6309's)
1 - My repack CoCo3 which is 128k (soon to upgrade to 512k), upgraded to a 6309, 2-3.5" floppies, 1-5.25" floppy, Roy's VGA adapter connected to a 15" HP LCD, MPI, and a Radio Shack multimedia sound system is being installed. All jammed into a Model III case.
2 - CoCo2's (one is a 3127B lowercase capable)
1 - grey CoCo1
1 - White CoCo1
1 - MPI I am trying to repair
2 - FD-501 (1 with 2 DS/DD 5.25's, and 1 with 1 5.25 and 1 3.5)
1 - FD-502 with a single DS/DD drive

And...

Atari 800XL
Atari 1040STf
External floppy for ST
ST Monitor
ST Modem

2 - TI-99/4A's, with a bunch of carts and a speech module

TRS-80 Model IV

I need to stop this and get back to the repack... My wife is gonna divorce me if she ever finds out how much classic computer stuff I really have...

MPI Hell -> CoCo Hell

I have no clue what it is about my MPI's, but, the things never seem to want to work right. Just got one this week and it was not working well. At all. Noticed noise coming from the transformer so I switched it. Didin't help at first . Got out another CoCo3 and it works perfect with this one. Now my frustration level goes up a little higher. I get out the MPI I've been fighting with for a few years. The one I know did not work on several CoCo3's. The one I replaced almost ALL of the IC's on and it still did not work right.

So, now I try the MPI on this other CoCo3. Floppy access is flawless (it even loaded Gold Runner 2000, the other one will not - no PAL upgrade). Plugged in the Speech & Sound Cart - normal boot, normal operation - cool. Next, I plug in the Orchestra 90 - looks like a bunch of Egyptian hieroglyphics on the screen. Okay, so the MPI does NOT like the O-90 - this particular MPI never has. Weird stuff....

Quick post

Well, I got some REAL disks made today so I could properly exercise my CoCo. Tried TW128, WorddPower 3.3, and VIP Writer (couldn't get it to print). Kinda cool watching that old Okidata 320 Turbo's print head flying back & forth. Noisy as hell, but it still works. Son next, I made a few disks of games. Goldrunner 2000 absolutely ROCKS!!! I spent most of the day playing that. I also played some Z-89. Cool graphics, but, a little sluggish.

Emulation

Well, I finally got an emulator back up an running. I like VCC since it runs on XP/7 and I can still create REAL floppies with it. Since I finally have real CoCo hardware set up, it was time. An important note about VCC and the fdrawcmd utility - the documentation for VCC states it will not work with any version of fdrawcmd than 1.0.1.9, and that is a fact. 1.0.1.10 will not work with VCC, as I found out this week.

Hopefully, this week I'll get the sound system installed in the repack unit, and the I can work on the MPI. The repack has already been 6309'd, and I need to order a 512k kit from C9. After all of that is done, I need to wire up all of the CoCo's ports to be accessible from outside the case, AND, make the Atari j/s interface. Once all of this is done, tested and working, I get to clean up all the rough spots and then paint the case. Sounds easy, huh...


Later,

Brian

Some more CoCo love...

Well, I spent a little quality time with my newly repaired and upgraded CoCo3 yesterday. After reassembling everything, I played Donkey Kong for a while.

Which reminds me, last week when I was playing DK, my daughter and her boyfriend were over. He heard the sound FX coming from my office and came in to watch. I got the expected 'what the hell is that?' remark. I said 'Donkey Kong', what, you've never seen it?' His reply was, 'I've played Donkey Kong on in the SNES, but, it didn't look anything like that.' So I offered him a shot to play it. He never made it to the fourth girder on the first level. He hung his head and exclaimed 'Old skool kicked my ass...'

I told him this wasn't a sappy ass run-and-shoot game you can buy for a PS3 and solve it a few hours. The goal is to see how high of a score you can get, and how many levels up. I then consoled him some before telling him he got his ass handed to him by an 8-bit computer!!!

At any rate, I got out my old Botek serial->parallel converter yesterday, downloaded the manual to my Okidata Microline 320 Turbo dot matrix printer (could not remember how to set the damn thing up to save my life) and played around with TW80 and WordPower3.3. While doing some printing, my 10 year old daughter ran in a asked 'Daddy, what's wrong with the printer?' I said 'What do you mean?' She replied with 'I see it works but something has to be wrong with it to be so LOUD!!!' Kids, they crack me up...


Later,

Brian

Success.....?

About two weeks ago, I ordered a 512K upgrade kit from Cloud 9. The kit arrived yesterday, got it all soldered up (yes, you have to solder the kit yourself) and plugged in (great product BTW). Was all jittery and excited, as with this one updated, I only have one CoCo3 with 128K - the re-pack.

Well, I turned the machine on and realized I forgot to plug in the VGA adapter - rats!!!. So I plug in the VGA adapter and turn the CoCo3 back on, all excited to see that nuclear green screen... and was greeted with a black and blue checkerboard pattern. WTF??? So I turned the power off. unseated and re-seated the upgrade board and tried again. Same damn thing.

After going over the work with a big ass magnifying glass, I discovered that when I removed the 6809 and installed the socket last week, I cut (really broke) a very small motherboard trace. Underneath the 'H' bar on the CPU socket of all places. No idea how I missed it when I was looking everything over before I soldered in the socket. Well, I got that fixed with a piece of voice coil wire (do you have ANY idea how difficult it can be to solder a piece of wire to a trace when the solder point is under some you REALLY don't want to have to remove..???), but, still had the same problem. 

After reseating the memory - again - and a few other checks, I was left with swapping out the 6309, which fixed it.

I doubt anything else was wrong; I ran the included memory test program for about 2000 loops, and played Donkey Kong (great CoCo3 stress tester) for about a half an hour and had no other issues.

Overall, the whole process was maybe an hour, including soldering the upgrade board. This was my first experience with a CoCo3 CPU going bad. Anytime I've had a PC CPU go, the computer failed to do... anything except turn the power LED on. Live and learn...

Holding pattern....

While I wait for the Cloud9 512k upgrade I ordered, I figured I'd operate on another CoCo3 and do a CPU transplant. What was the point of getting 10 63C09EP's if I didn't intend to install them? The very first one I did on my repack (seems like ages ago) I carefully removed in an effort to save the CPU. For what, I have no idea. That could have turned to disaster as the heat was enough to slightly warp the motherboard, so I doubt the CPU survived anyway.

These latest ones I found myself just clipping the damn things out, cleaning everything up and soldering in the sockets. Repack CPU swap time, somewhere around 4 hours. Clip & solder swap time, about 30 minutes. Yeah, don't think I'll be wasting time like that again.

Above is a pic of the bottom of the motherboard, showing the 'cleaned-out' holes. Of course I got the bright idea to take some pics AFTER I had already started to solder the socket in... oh well....

Above are the two recent sacrifices. Didn't dawn on me until I was writing this that the damn things were upside-down in the picture... sigh....

Well, I don't consider myself a vintage computer repairman by any stretch, but, that didn't stop me from getting out my malfunctioning MPI on Saturday and going thru it again. When I last had it out, Gene and I had been diagnosing a strange problem (yes, those seem to follow me...). With a floppy plugged into it, it might load, or might not load a program. Sockmaster's Donkey Kong is a no-go with an error in line 15. I Can get DIR commands to complete, but, they take longer than they should and the drive sounds like it's going to throw an I/O error. The O-90 cart seems to work by itself, can't get any disk access, tho. The REALLY weird part is, with the FDC in slot for, and the speech and sound cart plugged in - does not matter which slot it's in, and the selector on '4', the CoCo boots to a Ext Color Basic 1.1 screen. Essentially a CoCo 1/2 screen. I have replaced the 74LS245 chip and all of the 74LS367 chips. When this problem started way back in '07, I think Robert Gault suggested to check the power supply. I'll be doing that this coming weekend...

Later,

Brian

It's FIXED!!!!

Well, anybody who followed this thread on the mailing list has an idea of the problem with this CoCo3. It seemed to have a fear of floppy drives. After all of the troubleshooting (including a couple miscues by yours truly) we thought we had it pegged to the 74LS138 chip, aka IC9. So, I placed an order with Jameco last Friday for a replacement (and the IC's to build an MPI, that's another story), and that order landed yesterday.

This morning, after my wife went to work, I clipped the 138 off of the motherboard, cleaned the holes and soldered a socket in the chip's place. After cleaning everything up, I inserted the chip, hooked the mobo back up inside the CoCo3 case, made the necessary connections and powered it on. And it worked!!! The two pics below show the floppy light on drive 1 doing a 'DIR' command and loading Sockmaster's Donkey Kong conversion.

Below is the loading screen (for those living under a rock since 2007) of DK. Note the little beige and grey box with lit green LED - Roy Justice's VGA adapter. If you don't have one, buy one. It does not disappoint!!!

The pic below shows the socketed 6309 and 74LS138 chip.

All in all it was a fun learning experience. Anytime I come away from a situation like this and have learned something, I'm happy. Incidentally, how hot should the heat-sink get for Q1? After about half an hour of Donkey Kong, that thing was hot!! I'm thinking about yanking the PS off of this one and using a 90w ATX unit or some other type, maybe something like theotherBob had posted on his now defunct GeoCities page... just for giggles. My repack is powered by a 200w ATX that runs everything except the LCD (which runs off of it's own PS tapped from the 120vac plug the ATX unit runs from), so I think 90w for the CoCo and maybe an internal 3.5" floppy would be fine.

Later,

MCCM

Ordered parts, and update...

Well, I ordered the part today to (hopefully) fix my malfunctioning CoCo3. Gene and I think it's been narrowed down to IC9. Find out in a few days. The CoCo3 that has been flakey had a PBJ 512k memory expansion on it. So, I took it off, clipped C65 & C66 on my 128K CoCo3 and commenced to playing Sockmaster's port of Donkey Kong for a few hours. It was pretty fun.

Along with the part I ordered for the CoCo3, I ordered all of the IC's to make Tom Gunnison's MPI clone, as posted on CoCo3.com. The IC's are dirt cheap - <$20 for them and the capacitors. I'm drawing up a board layout in ExpressPCB right now. Think I'm on my third revision. It's gotta be a double sided board, I don;t see any way around that. I think the cost is gonna be around $125 for 3 6 x 8 double sided boards. I'm trying to find ways to move things around and make it smaller. I think it'd be cool as hell to have it small enough, and dimensioned so that it'll fit inside the existing MPI cases. Then you could continue to use your existing case, or buy one to make your own. The biggest problem I see right now is getting the power and ground planes down correctly... 

One change I am going to make, is going to be a modification to my CoCo's. I'm going to either replace the card slot with a dual row header and just use and existing IDE cable to connect the MPI since I'm using a dual row header on it, or make a male card edge with the header installed on it. Finding a 40 pin male card edge connector has been a royal bitch!!!

I'll be back working on the re-pack again pretty soon. I gotta borrow my dad's Roto-Zip to do some case mods. I thought the Model III case would give me ample room for component placement. I'm questioning that thought, as with Roy's VGA adapter installed, I still have to fit the electronics of the sound system in, and the MPI.

Troubleshooting a perplexing problem...

After all of the new developments on the CoCo scene, I decided to set up a CoCo to play around with. My re-pack is in no condition for this yet, so I pulled my 3 CoCo3's out of the closet and picked one of the 512k models. Wouldn't you know it, it has developed an issue. Seems it doesn't like the FD-502 FDC I have that works fine with my other CoCo3's (and 2's and 1's).

The descriptions of the problem can be found in the MaltedMedia mailing list under the following subjects:

Re: [Coco] Weird CoCo3 problem

and

Re: [Coco] Weird CoCo3 problem - AAAARRRGGGGGHHHHH!!!!

I have checked the power supply and pretty much ruled it out; all of the waveforms match the CoCo3 Service Manual.

I started checking the signals and comparing waveforms and had a few issues with some. For ALL of the pictures below,

execpt for one and it's noted, I set the volts/div and time/div as specified in the CoCo3 SM.

The pictures below are for the guys helping me diagnose the problem (good luck to us all):

This is the waveform of TP2, ECLK - supposed to be a 5vp-p square wave

Here's TP3 - QCLK - again, supposed to be a 5vp-p square wave, and apparently according to the SM, time shifted a bit - these two signals are identical.

Here's TP4 - /RAS - Supposed to be 5v with negative pulses. To save bandwidth, TP5 - /CAS is the exact same waveform. These two signals, according to the SM, are supposed to be virtually identical to each othe - but, negative going pulses and slightly different in timing.

This last one is one Christopher Hawks told me to look at - P3 of IC9. It's supposed to be 5v with negative pulses. However, it's the EXACT same as TP2 & 3, this picture I was using a different Time/Div setting. Pins 1 & 2 of IC9 are identical to P3. P6 of IC9 is a logic HI at 5vdc, P9 of IC9 is close to 2vdc.

Looking at everything as a whole - there's a better than average possibility I'm wrong - but, with all of the malformed waveforms coming from the GIME I'm wondering if that isn't the problem. I've cleaned and reseated it, but, for E and Q to be so different from the pics, and the same signal being on pins 1,2 & 3 of the 138N chip (IC9) it has me wondering. I'm hoping someone else can point me in a direction to either prove or disprove that. Tho the computer is not displaying any of the tell tale signs of GIME problems (graphics issues, sparklies,. etc...)

Only took a little over a year to get back to it...

Well... I started back doing some work on this 'long term' project today. I'm still looking for something to use as a male 'card edge' adapter so I can mount the MPI unit on top of the case. I'll need two since there will be a shielded cable running from the CoCo3 to the MPI, and one running from the floppy controller to slot 4. Will be asking a few people if doing that way will cause any problems. The cable from the CoCo3 to the MPI will need to be 2-3feet long in order to be able to take the thing apart.

Anyway, I finally got the Model III keyboards 'reset' button wired to the CoCo's. I'm also, thanks to a recent acquisition, planning a little surprise any one who wants to play games or listen to vintage CoCo music... You should be able to tell by the attached pics (sorry, they're from my iPhone), however, they don't tell the whole story.... :)

Actually got a little work done..

On the repack this past weekend. Small stuff, but, progress is progress. I'll post pictures later, but, here's a short run down;

1. I removed the toggle switch I was using with the rocker switch from the original Model III

2. Added a 'power on' LED by the reset button.

Like I said, small items, but, still progress...


Later,
mccm