Using the Coco SDC like a ninja, without the SDCX explorer (well, Ninjas wouldn't use it like that)

It's been ages and ages since I've uploaded anything at all. See, I tumbled down a deep and long rabbit hole and I'm still falling... after making my Bob game I decided to try to do the same for the Coco 2 (and 1 and 3) but learned very, very quickly that a good working knowledge of 6809 assembly language would be the only way forward if ever I wanted to pull off such a feat. The learning of said assembly is however going very, very slowly hence my silence over the past few months. I'm getting there though, and a version of Bob for the Coco may well be available in the next few months :) In the meantime I've stumbled across some footage I forgot I had and thought that although it may not be the cream of KZbin content, it may be of interest to some of you. So here's a video I started but never finished in May 2022 about the Coco SDC. I hope you enjoy it. Also, I've not forgotten about finishing up my "Learning bAtari basic" series and taking a in depth look at the bAtari code for Bob and the alien fireflies. I'll try to get to it as soon as I scramble a little more out of this warren I've gotten myself into. Take care ;)
Check out these great channels :
8 Bit Retro Repairers' Group:
www.youtube.com/@8BitRetroReF...
www.youtube.com/@CaptainCommo...
www.youtube.com/@JosipRetroBi...
www.youtube.com/@Retro4u/about
www.youtube.com/@YARC-1981/about
www.youtube.com/@RetroKrazy/a...
www.youtube.com/@TimsRetroCor...
Take a look at these guys too:
www.youtube.com/@RudysRetroIn...
www.youtube.com/@RetroRepairG...
www.youtube.com/@CanadianRetr...

[@apiario2899]

Please continue producing this content. This year has been rough, despite not being far into it, and your videos provide a wonderful distraction from all that I am going through at the moment. Your content is very much appreciated and I wish you all the success in the world. Even if you never break the 2K barrier, I will remain a devoted follower of your videos. While our community is large, we need more original and varied content, something that you are quite good at. Please don't let the algorithms get you down. I always look forward to your videos and, if there is anything that can motivate you to produce more regularly, I want you to know that it enriches my life to hear you talk about and remember the retro systems that got you and I and others of our generation fascinated with technology. Thank you so very much for all that you able to do in this regard.

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Thanks for your kind words, it's really great to get a comment like this it shows that my efforts are not in vain. I'm so very sorry to hear that you're going through a rough patch at the moment. I went through a very rough one in Jan of 2014 and I know only too well how small distractions can help to provide respite from everything else that's going on. I don't like to make promises, because I can't always be sure to keep them but know that although I have slowed down making videos at the moment, I have no intention of stopping making them. Take very good care of yourself and again many thanks to you for leaving such a great comment ;)

[@Beertwofeathers]

"Bob" is one of my all time favorite 2600 games of all time. Love the channel and content. Thanks.

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Really, it makes it worth the time and effort it took to make the game to hear someone say that, a million thanks buddy and happy new year :)

[@talideon]

Welcome back, Peter! And bonne année to you and all! The CoCo's 6809 is one of the more interesting 8-bit CPUs, so I hope you're having lots of fun with it!

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Fun and hardship, I know what I want but not exactly how to do it. But I'm getting there, I really think that the 6809 is one of the easiest to program for (at least that's what I keep hearing. No self modifying code and 16 bit addressing as standard). If ever I manage I'll try a 48k Spectrum conversion just to see first hand how different CPUs can be. I'm green as green can be when it comes to this stuff. Happy new year to you too buddy, hope you had a great Christmas ;)

[@RudysRetroIntel]

Great yo see you again! Happy 2024, and I'm looking forward to your next video and the Coco Bob

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Thanks Rudy, I hope to make a few vids on the 'ol Apple you gave me too. I've learned so much about that system over the past year. You take care my friend :)

[@YARC-1981]

Welcome back, Peter! Nice video. I have the CocoSDC as well, but I haven't properly taken the time to get to know how to use it (apart from using SDCX to load games). I'm learning a lot from your content. Thanks.

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Thanks Todd, really these commands aren't needed unless you're using the SDC with a 16k Coco (the 16k isn't capable of running the SCDX, not enough memory). You can always use the SDCX explorer which will auto boot for you and everything (it's great really). I just like using these things in every way possible. Glad that you're learning from it though. Coco forever, as they say ;)

[@viditibi]

:) assembler reclaims your whole life like a frightening God... ;-) but it deserves all effort ! great news to know you were working on porting Bob to Coco!

[@viditibi]

I've also been working on porting Bob to ZX Spectrum and Jupiter Ace and come to same conclusion, assembler is needed here but I still struggling with the idea to make it in basic and forth (just for fun)

[@byWilliamJMeyer]

I don't own a mechanical keyboard, but the sound sure is satisfying. Best wishes with Assembly. I've bookmarked some resources if I decide to give it a go after my bAtari Basic game. Just seeing some of the code here and there is like whaaaaaat. Welcome to 2024 (holy smokes!).

[@8bitsinthebasement]

I know exactly what you mean, I was put off by the code at first but if you persevere you'll find that it's really not as hard as you first thought (really, not at all) but be careful, it's like a drug it doesn't give you the choice. You start and you can't stop :) Happy new year, to you too, I know where did the time go, it was just like the other day I was watching Star trek Voyager season 2 for the first time.

[@byWilliamJMeyer]

I'll keep that in mind, about Assembly! For me, the premiere of Enterprise, wasn't that a couple weeks ago...

[@CheshireNoir]

Great (and timely) video. I have a CoCo 3 on the bench right now with the Coco SDC. Oddly I only discovered SDCX recently. I spent a lot of time doing things the long way 😀

[@8bitsinthebasement]

A true 8 bit enthusiast ;) I like fooling around using this stuff in every way possible. But I have to admit that SCDX is a godsend ;)

[@thomo5]

Je te souhaite une bonne année, une vidéo, vraiment intéressante, merci pour la découverte

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Merci, thomo5. si jamais j'arrive à faire fonctionner bob sur le Coco j'essaierai de le convertir pour le MO5 (c'est le plan en tout cas) ils ont tous les deux le même processeur de toute façon. Je veux dire, à quel point ça pourrait être difficile ? J'imagine vraiment impossible ;) merci d'avoir regardé mon pote.

[@CaptainCommodore]

Nice to see the coco sdc , I have the dragon with a gotek type adapter but havnt ewally used it, back in the day I briefly had a real dragon disk drive with the interface in the cartridge connected with a ribbon although I think the commands were different to what you displayed with the coco sdc, cool device

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Hey Lee, the commands I've shown in the video would have been very different for sure with what you used with your Dragon back in the day. The SDC uses it's own version of DOS as far as I know, however it is compatible with the Dragon too (as you know the Dragon and Coco have but a few lines of ROM code different between both of them and a 12V line on the cartridge port). A simple flick of a DIP switch on the SDC will convert it to work with the Dragon. But to be honest if you have a Gotec for theDragon there is little point of investing in a SDC, very little software was distributed on disk. It's a great system for getting software onto a Coco though.

[@Keeping_IT_Simple]

A welcome return to the world's favourite basement!! Who is ET's new friend stood behind him in the intro/outro?

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Thank you. And thanks for the support ;) As for ET's friend, he was a gift from my son's girlfriend, the same person who drew the Bob picture for me last year. He has no name and no back story, he is, but there :)

[@mytimetunnel]

Pretty cool :) I never had a Tandy, in my area it was all Vic-20's and Commadore 64's :) I hope your new Year is going great, don't get to lost in that coco :)

[@8bitsinthebasement]

I never even knew that Tandy / RadioShack had a computer range until 2019 :) Where I come from it was all C64s and Amstrads (I had a VIC 20 for a while though). A belated very happy new year to you too. Oh, and I'm afraid that it's much too late, I'm well and truly lost in my Coco ;)

[@mytimetunnel]

Yup, i had one friend that had radio shack computer lol i played them once back in the day, but they were still a bit spendy and uncommon, oddly, they are sometimes the cheapest vintage computers you can find online now days, i def keep my eye open for them, Amstrads I never used ever, they were never in my part of the woods lol soo you went Coco loco?:) Funny enough, is the name of some American Ice cream treats lol@@8bitsinthebasement

[@BenScarboro]

Ah yes, the addiction of coding, welcome to the world :) Good to see you back. (Not a coding tutorial, hehehehhe, slippery slope that one!)

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Never did I ever think that I'd like coding so damn much, still I can't complain even though it consumes all my free time (I'm not kidding!) I'm really enjoying it. And really that bAtari thing was never supposed to be a tutorial, really it just happened to work out that way, now that I come to think of it I'll have to tear myself away for a day or two to finish the series up. Take care Ben ;)

[@stevanr_]

Don't worry, it was not such a long time since your last video ! Interesting content, thank you. But beware of the time consuming assembly programming !

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Assembly really does eat away at all the time you've got (even the time that you're supposed to be sleeping). But it is a lot of fun and a great feeling when you finally figure out how to solve that problem that's been bugging you for days. I'm not going to let it take all my time though, I've got a few ideas for a couple of videos I'd like to make.

[@stevanr_]

@@8bitsinthebasement This is the wise choice ! If days lasted 48 hours, I would spend half of them programming cool stuff in assembly...Failing that, higher level programming languages like the bAtari basic are the way to go.

[@CocoTownRetro]

I think being consumed with CoCo assembly coding is an excellent reason to be too busy to do other stuff. I'm eager to see what you come up with Bob-wise on the CoCo! Oh, and this video was great. I don't think I've seen a vid before with CoCo SDC showing the extensions to the decb commands like DRIVE. I'd been curious what that looked like (I don't have an SDC myself).

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Thanks, I'm glad that it was in some way useful to you. Coco-Bob is progressing nicely, I'll put something up about it this weekend. I have to say that I'm really loving this ASM stuff much, much more than I ever thought I would (had I known I would have taken it up decades ago) and your videos have really been a great help ;)

[@erroneus00]

Why have UK folk recently (as in the past few years) started pronouncing the letter "H" as "haytch"? I seriously don't get it. I heard something about people not wanting to sound "Cockney" or whatever so they started pronouncing the "H" when speaking the letter H. Why not start saying "Ses" for the letter S? It would be consistent with this new way of saying "H" right? What about the letter X? That's complicated isn't it? Q? F? That should be Feff right? If you're going to do it for the letter H, why not do it for all of the letters? What the Lell?

[@8bitsinthebasement]

Honestly, I don't know. You'd have to ask someone from the UK about that. All I know is that the Irish have been pronouncing "H" as "haytch" for as long as I know.