News stories for Episode 167, July 4, 2020 show

News stories for Episode #167, July 4, 2020 show:

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1) Tim Halloran has an updated video on using DC power to power his Coco 2. He mentions that the previous video, most of the ports didn't work (except joysticks). He shows his progress on the eventual goal of getting the whole system (including all the peripheral ports) from USB power:

 https://youtu.be/6UN1XvJG-bs

2) Possible discussion topic from Facebook - Playing on an emulator or actual Coco - which to choose, and why?:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158399124387641/

3) Bill Garretson has a video of a Fireworks program he wrote for the Coco 1/2:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158410702962641/

4) Joey Cabral has some photos up of his upgrading a Coco 3 to a 6309 using his newly aquired Hakko desoldering vacuum - which gets good review.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158398004597641/

5) Interesting discussion started by Jim McClellan - asking what is an "acceptable" word processor for the Coco 3, and also asking about Print Shop type programs. The bonus is he actually wants to use said programs on his DMP-105. He had a lot of Coco 1/2 suggestions (including usual suspects like Telewriter-64 and VIP Writer - but what were good Coco 3 packages?

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158398348812641/

6) Christopher Mayeux (whom we have had as a guest on the show) posted a newspaper article from September 13, 1990 talking about some Color Computer User Groups in his area, helping each other out to expand membership:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158398828332641/

7) Coco Crew episode 61 is out. Includes an interview with Simon Jonassen and Paul Fiscarelli about a new background sampled sound routine they are working on that is both compressed (4 bit ADPCM) and fast (no more than 63 CPU cycles per sample). An interesting discussion topic was "What Coco software did you use the most?".

 http://cococrew.org

8) Nir Dary in the Dragon Facebook group shows a Hebrew font he has been working on, that uses John Whitworth's board that allows custom fonts:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2659735700952749/

9) Interesting Ebay find in Europe in the Dragon Facebook group - a Dragon 32 with *native* RGB support:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2657678064491846/

10) Robert Gault has apparently uploaded a large world map program for OS9 up to the Color Computer archive, but it's not up yet as of this time.

11) Simon Jonassen has posted a brief video showing his new demo program, and using the ADPCM sound routine that he talked about on the latest Coco Crew episode:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158411807097641/

Game On news:

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1) Jim Gerrie has a video showing his MC-10 port of the game "Touch Down", based on the computer book "Space Games" published by Osbourne NOTE: he finally lands safely on his 6th try):

 https://youtu.be/pIJznvSBUP4

2) Neil Blanchard's new run of Rick Adam's "Bomb Threat" game cartridge is shipping, and several people have received it already. This is the Game On featured game in a few weeks.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158405524972641/

3) Lee Perkins put up some screenshots of his initial conversion of an MS-DOS game screen to a Coco 3 (palettes are still wrong), as part of a possible porting project (if you load the video in the comments, and fast forward to the end, you can see it with a proper Coco 3 palette):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158394680422641/

4) Pere Serrat shared a video showing his more advanced version of the AGD engine, now using the Wordpak2+ for additional sound effects and music:

 https://youtu.be/zYMfmzttu3w

5) Robert Allen Murphy has put up his latest blog post on converting the PC6001 game Nostromo to the Coco line:

 https://exileinparadise.com/nostromo:assembling_the_blocks