News stories for Episode 170, July 25, 2020 show

News stories for Episode #170, July 25, 2020 show:

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• • These first, un-numbered stories may be part of acquisitions/project updates if the people involved are live on the show. If they are not, I will add them to the regular news line up **

David O'Connor has some pics of his "Coco 4" (Coco 3/SDC in a Model 4 case) in action, but if he is on the show, he can present in project updates rather than as a news piece. If he isn't on:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158466056207641/

Brian Wieseler has some pictures of the book, "The Working TRS-80 Color Computer" (one I have not seen before):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158464403837641/

Our own Ron Delvaux posted some really cool pictures of the A-Bus (which is a multi-pack style card extension board, that also had dozens of special hardware add on boards available) from back in the day on his Ron's Garage page:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/487282281640389/permalink/1174451636256780/

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1) Boisy has now sold his "Marty Goodman edition" modified Coco 3 on ebay. This is the same one he showed recently on his Coco Collector YouTube series, and it sold for $177.50 USD

 https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Tandy-Color-Computer-3-Marty-Goodman-As-seen-on-the-CoCo-Collector-Episode-3/303620738239?hash=item46b134ccbf%3Ag%3ABSoAAOSwVghfCdJi

2) Brian Schubring has posted some scans of the NRI Coco course books he briefly showed us on last week's Coco Talk. It looks like they had both Coco 2 and Coco 3 versions.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/permalink/2625497341046527/

3) Newsmakers Tech has a Tandy Lab episode they just released, showing unboxings for a Coco 1, Coco 2, Coco 3 (sans box) and MC-10:

 https://youtu.be/-RaLfqnzb8s

4) Sheldon MacDonald is working on an RSDOS disk imaging tool for windows, and has some screenshots of his progress, and the features it supports:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158440446867641/

5) Garrett Meiers posted photos from a major Coco haul he found in North Carolina (including a Mark Data Products keyboard, software, some TRS-80 Model I/III stuff, etc.):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158438627787641/

6) One of the newer Netflix series is "History 101", season 1 episode 4 (plastics) at around 10:35 has a very brief, bad quality video (as part of it's "1980's" part of the segment) that is Color Space Invaders by Spectral Associates.

 (load desktop file "netflix_history101_s1ep4_spectral_invaders.png")

7) There is an ebay auction for a 3rd party Dragon joystick (the ALT A1) that I have never seen before:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2671600099766309/

8) I had missed this before, but Greg Dionne had posted a link to his GitHub account for MC-10 (6803/6847) assembly language programming. It includes a powerpoint slide show, as well as multiple small assembly source listings to try:

 https://github.com/gregdionne/tasm6801/tree/master/tutorial

9) Roland's Recycling YouTube channel has his VLOG #8: "Tandy Coco2 Part 1 - Testing it out". Another younger guy (born in 1992) works on firing up a Coco 2 that he aquired for the first time. He also has an interesting amperage testing system involving a heat lamp.

 https://youtu.be/_-dkwUv_Vy4

10) And speaking of really young people: ZENITH System 3 on Youtube gets and tests (another!) CRT. At 9:06 he adds that he went with his mom shopping, and he ended up at Vortex Video games store. And he found a Coco 2 there, for $10.00 (power cable was cut off, so it needs repairs)... he decided on some other things, and when he went to pay for them, the store owner basically said "you know... we probably won't fix this Coco 2... you can have it for free". Fast forward to around 17:40, where he decides which CRT he is going to use with it. Now, he just needs to replace the power cable in a future episode... (unfortunately, comments are turned off, so we can't respond to him/help him out). Skip to 17:52 for the Coco summary

 https://youtu.be/paP_TECYdFk

11) "8bitsinthebasement" (real name Peter, from France) on YouTube has a video about his Coco 2, including a look under the hood and some overdue upgrades (his even has "Colour" spelled correctly, and is the SCART version!). We are going to try and get him on the show over the next little while to show the SCART Coco in depth. He also does some upgrades: 16K to 64K, and adding Extended BASIC (skip to 7:21 to show the motherboard for SCART coco):

 https://youtu.be/VZnCd0ZGNBE

12) Soren Roug posted on Facebook about a new OS-9 Level 2 emulator he is working on, loosely based on the Dragon 128 and it's implementation:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/permalink/2629002100696051/

13) Garrett Meiers on Facebook posted a picture of a different Videotex terminal than I have seen before: It's the later grey case version (not the earlier blue Agrivision one), but it does have a different label: "Professional Farmers Instant Update":

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158465793097641/

14) Bart van Akker shows some new Dragon & Coco related donations that they received at the Home Computer Museum on Friday (includes a 4K Coco 1):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158469864952641/

15) Ed Snider did a "re-organization" of his retro-computer storage room, including, but not limited to, Coco stuff (including some not seen before projects, like a composite board add on for F board Coco 1's - see Ed's picture in the comments):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158454039607641/

16) Robin Buckley, under the sad circumstances of his dad passing away, received his father's old Coco 1 with 32K RAM, with a low serial number (this is a PAL Coco), although likely the 2nd serial number run (for F boards):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158458429082641/

17) Nathan Byrd put some pictures up on Facebook showing his hooking up a Teensy 3.5 to his Coco 3, and being able to read the data bus using it:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158459941237641/

18) Alexander Von Hartmann posted a picture from the 1986/1987 time period of his office at Australian Coco (a Coco magazine from late 1984 until mid 1988) headquarters:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158457784067641/

19) Jeff Salzman posted some screenshots from an old Silver Spoons tv show episode, where the Coco 1 featured prominently ([REDACTED] also uses some clips from this episode as background during his [REDACTED GAME] III game testing this week):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158457004347641/

And also a later episode with a Coco 2:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158457194887641/

20) Andrew Marshall has some interesting photos of a Coco 2 on Facebook - showing some stickers on the underside of his computer. But these aren't the normal warranty, etc. stickers - these are Crime Evidence labels:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158457889137641/

21) Richard Harding posted some code to allow using a Dragon keyboard through USB, using a Teensy 2.0:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2674959899430329/

22) Roger Taylor is working on getting a Dragon 64core running on the MiSTer, and has been getting help from the members of the Dragon Facebook group on things like how the disk controller works differently than a Coco (Ciaran has been one of the people helping). It sounds like he is making good progress:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2674468819479437/

He also has a demo video showing it running (early Beta version), running Mark Data Product's Astro Blast:

 https://youtu.be/cyn5N9w7BXI

23) Thanks to a discussion on the Dragon Facebook group, found an online PDF copy of the book "advanced sound&graphics for the Dragon computer" - which includes 3D, some machine language, and advanced BASIC techniques. Since the Extended BASIC between the Coco and Dragon is identical in function, and the SAM/VDG work the same way between the two, this book should apply to the Coco as well:

 http://www.retro8bitcomputers.co.uk/Content/downloads/books/Advanced-Sound-And-Graphics-For-The-Dragon-Computer.pdf

24) Tony Jewell posted a ... rather interesting method of getting the CocoVGA to fit into a Dragon 32, using sockets (lots of them):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2672583473001305/

25) John Whitworth showed off some cool masks for the CoVid era that he got made at Contrado (unfortunately, he is not selling them):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2672410019685317/

26) Darren Ottery posted some cool photos on the Facebook MC-10 of the Home Computer Course #17, which used an MC-10:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3047156445411157/

27) Brian Blake did a video review of SoundChaser - a NitrOS9 based multi-format music player - written by Bill Pierce. In it, he shows off some Ultimuse III & Lyra based MIDI music and using custom playlists. It's an older video that he made a few years ago, but just posted on YouTube:

 https://youtu.be/4VzPnrCEb68

28) Brett Gordon put up a short video demoing his UDP based debugger/monitor running on a Coco 3:

https://youtu.be/x4XqAvkIjxk

Game On news:

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1) Jim Gerrie has an update to his MC-10 port of Akalabeth, with an updated font and font renderer which is a little faster, and more legible:

 https://youtu.be/c6_5yqClck8

He also ported a Coco 3 card game "Ono" (by Charles Bartlett - based on Uno) to the MC-10 as well:

 https://youtu.be/RWuCcoZzSuo

2) [REDACTED] did a few live streams testing [REDACTED GAME] III levels on Facebook this week, but he also did a "level 24 design" video, where he was live designing and play testing a new level 24 he is in the midst of designing.

 https://www.facebook.com/[REDACTED]/videos/3408829199136725/

He also took a break to play some Super Pitfall (colorful language alert):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158468112882641/

3) Paul Thayer did some live game play this past week - both with BASIC games for the Coco 3 (like Strata, Wizards II), and ML (Kyum-Gai: To Be Ninja (note, may want to mute - colorful language):

Strata, Wizards II:
 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158457068637641/
Kyum-Gai: To Be Ninja:
 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158464997407641/

4) Trey Tomes ported a Python based Sudoku generator to Coco BASIC, and made it available for download on Github:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158467682677641/

5) Erico Patricio Monteiro has some further animations and moves to show off for his upcoming semigraphics fighter game:

(note: some further ones in the comments as well)
 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158465131082641/

6) Joey Cabral showed off his arcade cabinet playing Temple Of ROM on Facebook (similar concept to Henry Reitveld's from last week, but a different cabinet and game controls layout):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158453402712641/

7) Paul Shoemaker has a video update of his Poker Squares game, utilizing patched BASIC (thanks for Nick Marentes, to support 320x225x16 color graphics), and some ML routines to speed up the display of the cards:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158457589917641/

8) A new to me YouTuber called "Might Heidi Dream Warrior" put up a gameplay video of Downland, where she makes it through the all the levels (and also comments while playing) (video quality isn't the best, unfortunately):

 https://youtu.be/bguFtiKn1qA

9) Marlin Lee has a video up of yet another Moon Patrol based game: Sand Rover by Rodger Smith:

 https://youtu.be/IdrvfWEYThI