SUPPORT PAGES
TEARDOWN GUIDES
CoCo 1
CoCo 2
CoCo 3
COCO DOWNLOADS
Software Manuals
Game Manuals

DEPARTMENTS
MORE MARSHMALLOWS
LOAD 'eM
COCO LINKS
SCRAPBOOK
LETTERS TO THE LOUNGE
ABOUT QuarkX

Volume 1, ISSUE 5

August 2005

Welcome everyone to the Fifth issue of the CoCo Lounge online Magazine.

Games and the CoCo 3 : Games produced during the CoCo 3 era. -by Glen VanDenBiggelaar

In my mind, the CoCo 3 was the pinical in games. Although it could be argued that most programmers never too the full power of the CoCo into effect, they still produced many good games.
I recently had a chance to finally play some of these games, as I finally got my 512K CoCo 3 up and running. Because I didn't have a "good" set up growing up, I am experiencing these games for the first time now. Also, allot of the game company's are still around (in one form or another), which makes these game part of their history as well. The game appeared in the order that I have actually played them, the reviews are mostly from the Color computer games page, by by L. Curtis Boyle with a bit of my 2 cents at the bottom.

RoboCop (Data East) Cartridge
Data East was a huge game maker in the late 1980's. The CoCo had very few licensed franchises, but we at least had Robocop! This is a Cartridge based game and in a lot of ways reminds me of the game Double Dragon. Its basically a side scroller game, although you should have a deluxe joystick with 2 fire buttons on it. The game is mildly fun (even now) and the graphics are great for the CoCo. The music is ok, and the tile screen does have a voice that says "RoboCop" with a really bad very Low res picture of our hero. If you can find it, it is definitely worth picking up.

The Quest for Thelda (SunDog Systems) Disk
It Looks to me like Sundog was the number one game maker for the CoCo, but I had never seen any titles here in Canada because it was mail order only.
Quest For Thelda is a clone of the popular Nintendo hit, Zelda . It is an adventure/arcade style game where your character goes on quests, killing monsters and exploring the world along the way. You will also find entrances to shops, healing places, and underground caverns as well. You also can get special weapons, learn magic spells, etc. The main object of the game is to collect the 6 pieces of the Life Force required to rescue Princess Thelda. You are allowed to have up to 3 saved games as well. The game features huge maps, and takes a long time to complete, just like the original Zelda. It plays just like the NES version and the graphics are the same (what I can remember anyway) .

Crystal City (SunDog Systems) Disk
The Crystal City is probably the most ambitious game ever done for the 128K Coco 3. It featured extremely fast gameplay, hardware horizontal scrolling terrain (30 megabytes worth - non repeating) throughout the 6 levels, and crunched down to fit on two 35 track disks. It's author, Jeremy Spiller, also did another amazingly fast arcade game called Zenix as well. The game plays somewhat similar to the arcade games Scramble and Super Cobra , although at a much faster pace. Also, most of the game is flying over the planets surface, although you will notice that there are mountain tunnels to fly through in one of the above screenshots. The main key to doing well in the game is to collect as many of the parachuting fuel supplies as you can; this will increase your shield power (although you're shields are useless against running into the ground). There are also large boss ships to destroy at the end of each level. On level 5, Jeremy programmed the colors so they were intense daylight colors when you were outside, but dimmed to dark colors once you entered cave systems. Another nicely done touch was that your shots (as well as crashing alien planes, helicopters and other opponents) could actually damage the terrain; on level 6 this becomes mandatory so that you can blast holes through buildings in order to fly through them. This game is FAST, if you don't like fast moving games, stay away from this one.

Rad Warrior(Epyx) Cartridge
Rad Warrior is original arcade game, with some adventure game style elements. Although it used a fairly lo-res Coco 3 graphics mode (160x192 16 color), it actually looked pretty good, graphics wise. The sound was fairly rudimentary, and the controls (either on joystick or keyboard) were a little awkward, but the gameplay was a lot of fun, and pretty difficult. The meltdown sequence when you win the game was quite impressive as well. Basically, you are a survivor of the human race, after a nuclear war, and aliens have just invaded (as if the war wasn't bad enough). At the beginning, you are only armed with rocks to through at the beings, but your first mission is to wander through the forest trying to hunt down some advanced technology left behind by your race from before the war. The suit can recharge you, and also can eventually be made to fly, fire, and serve as an anti-radiation device, all by finding the appropriate power packs, and installing them in the suit. By doing all of that, you can eventually go to the top of the radioactive volcano, and defeat the alien masters, and save the human race.
Rad Warrior was a cross-platform game available on several micros (Apple, C-64, IBM PC/CGA, Sinclair Spectrum, Amstrad CPC - some of these versions were known as "Sacred Armor of the Antiriad"... which I think is the original title of the game by Palace Software, before Epyx started distributing it) ). The Coco version's graphics were based on the C-64 version, although, because the 160x192 mode was used (instead of 320x192), it looks a little blockier. The colors appear to be a little more enhanced on the Coco version, though, and the graphics in general were much better than in the PC CGA version. The author, Jesse Taylor, also did the Coco port of Mind-Roll for Epyx as well.
I found the joystick a bit hard and unresponsive on this game, but that could be just the stick (I tried 5). This game was a bit frustrating but I will get back to it and give it a fair chance.

Super Pitfall (Activision) Cartridge
Not much is mentioned on the web for Super Pitfall, other than it was one of the worst game ever made for the NES. Even less is mentioned about the CoCo version, but I did play it (briefly) and I can't say its all that bad! Steve Bjork Did the programming for this game (supposedly ) at the same time he programmed Mine Rescue and the 2 games are somewhat identical and share the same code. I could only find 1 screen shot for the CoCo version. This game is somewhat of a Super Mario Clone, so if you like Mario, you will like this game,

Next Month More CoCo 3 Games

The Long Road Ahead : Confessions of a newbie PART1 . -by Glen VanDenBiggelaar
Ok, As most of you know, I started to get back in the CoCo with full zealous back in November of 2004, when my good friend Brain Hahn gave me the web space and entrusted me with the task of building a "CoCo" site to be spun off from the parent site 8 Bit micro.com.
Brian had owned a couple of Radio Shack stores in the past, and is a real big fan of most of the TRS 80 line of computers, and his shop is a Time machine of old TRS 80 machines to prove it. Brian was a big fan of the model 4 and the model 100, but he never paid too much attention to the CoCo. He had been after me for the last 2 years to get "my butt in gear" and take the hobby seriously. So in November, I started the pages and spent thousand of dollars on E-bay, trying to put together a "decent" system.
GETTING THE RIGHT GEAR
It took me almost a year, and I am nowhere near happy with all my system, Right now the money is tight, so I am not even going up on E-bay to look for what I want, but if you are going to make the jump, take your time and get the right equipment. Rome wasn't built in a day, and your complete CoCo system won't be either.
COCO 3
I had decried a long time ago, that if I was to get serious with the CoCo, I was going to Use the most powerful CoCo I could easily obtain. I also wanted a "NEW" one, not some system that had been abused before.
I had stumbled across Cloud 9 about 2 years ago, when I was researching the CoCo with Brian, so I knew, that one of my first purchases would be a CoCo 3 with the Ram upgrade from Mark and Boisy, at that time also, I ordered a copy of NitrOS 9 and a Pal upgrade for a multipak. Although I had no Multipak yet, I knew I had 1 coming from an auction I had won. It turns out the first Pak I received had the switch busted in transport. I though I could just get another 4 post switch, but it looks like Tandy was proprietary in parts back the, so that Pak still sits on my shelf.
CM-8 MONITOR
I also knew that using my TV was out of the question, as I have so much stuff hooked up to it right now, its a nightmare of wiring, so I set my sights on a CM-8 monitor. I started to bid as high as $150 dollars for them, but I was still out bid. I managed to pick up a CM-5, hoping to convert it, but I didn't have the time nor the knowledge to do it. It wasn't until a good friend of the site decided to trade some stuff for one (thanks Mike!), that I finally had the monitor. I Just got the monitor about 3 weeks ago, and now am starting to get going.
Floppy Drives
One of the biggest challenges was getting floppy drives on E-bay. I am convinced that there is at least one person out there who is buying up all he can .I would bid $100 and he would out bid me every time. I made him spend over $600 us. in one week. I decided to try and get a F501 drive, but the auction I did end up winning, the guy never sent it out. I finally settled on a F502 with dual drives, but I made the mistake of putting up for sale on my online store at a price, I thought so high, that no one would buy it, but I was wrong. I shipped it off last month. I also bought a J&M disk controller, for the dual DOS, but the best drive I have right now is a F502, and it is not compatible with the 502's cable (there is a "tooth" in the cable and it seems non-removable". I have a couple of older drives kicking around, so a future project will be to see if I can make one into a second drive.
MULTI-PAK
The Muti-pak is a very useful addition, but right now, I am by passing it. Again, The one I had, was sold, because my spare that was up on the on-line store, died. I do have a newer style Pak, but I have yet to send it off to Mark to upgrade. Soon.
MOUSE
I have a Tandy Deluxe 2 button Mouse, that I have been saving for just this day. I also have a regular mouse for a back up. So fare I have only used the mouse with DeskMate.
JOYSTICKS
I have boxes of Joysticks, and a lot of the disk games need the 2 button deluxe, so I have one hooked up at all times, The Big task is finding one that responds best to your game play.
PRINTER
I have my DMP 106 hooked up, although I haven't used it yet.

I have elected NOT to use a cassette drive at this time, maybe, its because I still have nightmares from my teen years, using the tape drive all the time.

SOFTWARE
As you can guess, I have bought a lot of software for the CoCo, Even though one of the first things I bought was NitrOS 9, I had bought 3 copies of OS 09 L2, because the first 2 copies had no software and the binders were worn and abused. The last copy I bought was almost mint and the pages were still shrinkwrapped. I even had to put them in the binder. What I still can't quite figure out, if there was actually 2 binders or that Tandy was dumb enough to ship it out with too many pages to fit nicely in the binder.From the same seller I also got a mint copy of OS-9 level one, and a still sealed copy of deskmate (Version 1). I had 2 copies of Deskmate 3.

Once I had gotten everything hooked up, I turned it on and held my breath, I mean this equipment is almost as old as I am and some of it, probably had not been used in 20 years, while others had never been used. Over the last year, I have been reading the Disk Extended Basic Manual and trying to comprehend the OS 9 manuals. The have been excellent reading materials in the "Private Study", but I had not printed out the manual for NitrOS 9. So I knew the "DOS" command and not much else. I followed the binder's "Getting Started" chapter, but using NitrOS 9 instead. I liked the look of the boot, but once I got past the time and date, I was a bit stuck on what to do next. I decided to make a copy of the NitrOS 9 disk, but I made the mistake of not setting the ram size for one reason or another and was swapping disks for over an hour. I just gave up and tried loading some games and software disks. I loaded up the original OS-9 to see the difference. The original is not Y2K compatible and ended up showing the year 1905. I did notice that "in the old days" OS -9 came with a lot of programs and games, so you didn't have to officially buy a copy, unless you wanted the tools and the manual. DeskMate 3 was a bit of a hoot to play with, but with the RGB monitor, everything was pink and yellow. I have the books for multivue, but So far have been unsuccessful in getting the software, I do want to play with it.

Over the next few months, I will bring you more of my adventures learning OS-9. I am not a Unix guy, so I am starting "Fresh".

Click here for last Issue 1,issue 2 . Issue 3 Issue 4

(c) 2007 QuarkX.

 All Rights Reserved