Author: Jim Brain

We have Liftoff! I’m sure there are better photos others will take, but here’s a taste of the event:

Tables are set up, power strips are laid, exhibitors are filing in and setting up their displays! The Holiday Inn at Carol Stream put our name in lights!

NMBA!

One of the highlights of every CoCoFEST!, it’s the No Minimum Bid Auction. Thanks to the generosity of the community in both donating items for the auction, and for bidding on auction items, many of the funds needed to run each CoCoFEST are received from this auction. It’s such a draw that other classic computing events have implemented their own fundraising auction based on ours.

As in previous years, we’ve already amassed quite a collection of CoCo (and some non CoCo) items for auction, and I hope you consider sitting down with us Saturday afternoon and bidding on an item or 10.

Jason Timmons, co-organizer of the massive Fall VCF Midwest show, will once again wield the gavel as our auctioneer. If you’re on the fence about joining us, check out some of the items that went under the hammer in 2023:

In my opinion, gaming drives computing innovation, moreso than any other computing use case. I’ll fill my cup with some CoCo at the show and you can stop by and try to change my mind…

Even in the CoCo realm, I feel like pushing the platform via game development has unlocked significant platform secrets.

Over the years, we’ve enjoyed presentations on CoCo gaming from game designers/developers. Here’s Paul Thayer giving us a glimpse on his efforts to turn ideas into computing innovation through game development, using modern tooling:

As a relative “noob” in the CoCo community, I was initially surprised when CoCo discussions started comparing the the TRS80 Color Computer to an Apple Macintosh. Community support notwithstanding, it’s patently unfair to compare an early 1980’s 8-bit platform with a early 2000’s 32 bit one. That aside, both sides had their proponents. The discussions touted the graphical UI and multi-tasking capabilities in the latter, though I assumed everyone already knew the Mac sported those in spades.

After a bit, though, I realized the discussion was not about the short lived Macintosh operating system OS 9, but the Microware real time operating system OS-9 for the CoCo, and sometimes specifically about the open source variant called NitrOS9. Researching, I determined OS-9 wasn’t just a multi-tasking OS, it was a true real time operating system (RTOS), the same type of OS designers choose when stability and guaranteed operation is a must! Now, everything from toasters to watches have a real time multitasking OS, so OS-9 may not seem as impressive, but it’s important to remember OS-9 on the CoCo was a thing before Windows 1.0 even arrived and just as the Macintosh first came on the scene.

Glenside welcomes all OS-9 (and NitrOS9) enthusiasts, and we typically have at least 1 presentation each year on some aspect of the OS. This year, L. Curtis Boyle and Ken Waters will present on the platform at 10:45 on Saturday, May 4. Below is their 2022 BASIC09 presentation:

As in previous years, the 32nd Annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST allows community members an opportunity to showcase advances in the “state-of-the-art”. Often times, these advances are specific to a Tandy or compatible platform, but other times the advance is more general in nature.

To be sure, few things are more general that the central processing unit in the Color Computer, the MC6809E microprocessor. And, just like anything used in the CoCo, there’s always room for improvement. Here’s Kevin Phillipson discussing his Turbo9 research effort, a modern implementation of the venerable 6809:

Though the Glenside Color Computer Club hails from the Chicago, IL area, it long ago stepped over city, state, and even country boundaries. With the advent of the Internet and most recently the need to virtualize club meetings, we now enjoy a global membership. The fest itself welcomes visitors from Louisiana to Ohio, North Carolina to Oregon, and many points in between. Beyond the USA, we welcome folks from Canada all the way to Columbia.

To illustrate our global reach at the fest, Fabian Rodriguez and Reinaldo Torres share how to CoCo in Columbia:

If you’re like me, you’re panicking a bit at this point, feverishly finishing up stuff before you pack for the show and leave. In actuality, it’s T-5 for me, since I’ll be arriving Thursday evening to help with setup and just general prep. If you are, stop, take a deep breath, and remember that we’ll enjoy your presence no matter the situation.

As John Mark and others have noted in the past, the official title is The <number> Annual “Last” Chicago CoCoFEST!, where <number> is nominally the number of years since the first Annual event in 1992, with a skip in 2020 we don’t talk about much :-). Though, to be pedantically correct, except for the number, pretty much the entire name of the show is a lie…

As noted, with the skip in 2020, the word “annual” probably should have a “*” by it, as a few folks have noted. But, ignoring that for a moment, except for the current fest, the word “Last” in all the previous show names are lies, as we have held another one a year later. Obviously, it’s a bit of CoCo inside humor. But, if we give a pass for everything shutting down a year, us included, and keep a bit of humor in the title, I posit even the name “CoCoFEST!” is a lie.

Why, you may ask? Well, though we do tend to see quite a few Color (Colour for our members up North) Computers, we also see CoCo-like machines such as the Dragon 64, the Z-80 based Tandy machines, some related products (like the MM/1), and our favorite little Tandy system, the MC-10. Talk about an underdog!

A number of our community cater to this tiny member of the family, including Brendan Donahe. Here is Brendan explaining some novel constraints around the Tandy MC-10 video system:

So, if you have a non-CoCo Tandy or Radio Shack computer (or even a clone), you’re part of our people!