News stories for Episode 177, September 12, 2020 show

News stories for Episode #177, September 12, 2020 show:

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David O'Connors report on the retro computer club meeting he attended on Friday will be covered by him, so I won't cover it in the news. But I do have a window open for showing his 3&1/2 video clip from the meeting.

 https://youtu.be/aPvyyXXwgeM

1) Pere Serrat has released a demo set of 10 WAV files that were made using his VGM player, using John Whitworth's Dragon-MSX2+ card (which is getting close to release - he is working on some noise interference on the board, but all functions seem to be working):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2717318301861155/

Refresher on the MSX2+:

 https://www.dragonplus-electronics.co.uk/dragon-msx-2-board/

2) Robert Sieg has both a video demonstrating, and the actual webpage up, of his new MC-10 Solo Full screen emulator online (which includes the ability to upload .c10 cassette file from your own machine to the emulator):

Video:
  https://youtu.be/NC3Ghy8zAko
Online emulator:
   http://mc-10.com

3) Noel's Retro Lab on YouTube put up a video about his latest batch of hardware & software items that he had received for various retro computers. This includes a Dragon 32 (shown at the beginning) with some books & one piece of software. He is from Spain from what I can tell (but speaks perfect english), and he generally does retro computer videos, including restoring, repairing and enhancing them:

 https://youtu.be/lXIgYsLOXwM

4) AC's 8-Bit Zone, as part of SepTandy 2020, shows off his giant Coco collection, much of which was in his storage for years, before his re-opening of many boxes:

 https://youtu.be/k6z8J2K3o58

And just this morning, he released a second video, showing how he made the cable to hook his Coco 3 up to his Magnavox 85CM15 monitor:

 https://youtu.be/i73z0VZcMDU

5) Murilo Queiroz posted a link to Usborne books - which has now published some of it's computer books from the 1980's in PDF form... and put them up for free. These were generic BASIC type books with cross-platform style BASIC listings.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158596547067641/

6) Fred Rique posted a video showing some experiments he has been doing with mixed text and graphics scanline characters using Semi-graphics 24. He actually has it running certain parts quite fast for BASIC, by using a trick to fool BASIC into mapping the screen as a PMODE 3 or 4 type screen, and actually using GET/PUT, which is really cool.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158591374802641/

7) John Linville posted a link to the "Virtual VCF Midwest 15" schedule (which is today), so you can watch the presentations at your own leisure via the YouTube links included.

 http://vcfmw.org/virtual.html

8) A fun Coco "group project" on Facebook - a newer member named Xeox Gomazoa put up a small BASIC program that he wanted some contributions from other people to speed it up by repogramming it in ML. Instead, he had multiple volunteers optimize the BASIC code itself, with some results being almost 4 times faster.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158589453487641/

9) Raymond Jett posted how he patched his Sound/Speech pack to have a switch to switch between single and double speed (it only fully functions at single speed on a Coco 3). For those who don't want to wait for Boysontech's upcoming upgrade (which is also will work with Zippster Zone's upcoming GIME-X at triple speed as well), this project might be for you:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158585815712641/

10) Tony Jewell shared an ad from back in the day in the Dragon Facebook group - a "Turbo Datacorder" (computer cassette drive) made by Dragon themselves... but made for Commodore computers (which I had no idea that they did):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2714923838767268/

11) LGR Blerbs on YouTube (a sub-channel for LGR) just put up a video this morning of him unboxing his "new stock" Tano Dragon:

 https://youtu.be/ZK5eFZT2fVI

Game On news:

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1) The Amigos have released their ARG Presents Coco episode (feature Rad Warrior and The Interbank Incident) on YouTube (they had some streaming problems on the livestream at Twitch, so I would recommend the YouTube version):

 https://youtu.be/2ILJiEGMqnY

Also, John Shawler's (BoatofCar) 1.5 hour Coco livestream video done on Twitch last week is now on YouTube as well:

 https://youtu.be/3mVJaD-ChHM

2) Jim Gerrie release an MC-10 conversion of LEM from Creative Computing in 1976, which is a Lunar landing program that is done more from the instrument panel than a side shot like most such games.

 https://youtu.be/znw6QuUzRk0

3) Simon Jonassen has put up a quick video of what looks to be a new game/game engine that he is working on, for the Coco 3:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158588838722641/

4) Rick Adams has released his game Omnistar, and has increased the difficulty a bit from the earlier public betas:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158587884482641/

You can order it here:

 https://rickadams.itch.io/omnistar

5) Ken over at Canadian Retro Things put up a gameplay video of this past week's Game On challenge, Rally-SG:

 https://youtu.be/Mw5eKjxdVVs

6) Ken also put up a video of a video game in BASIC that is he is picking up again after 35 years, and showing some progress in it that he has made already, which he is on the show today to talk about:

 https://youtu.be/YH3r6w5N06A

7) GigerPunk (Rob's Retro Rambles) has a video up of Cuthbert and the Golden Chalice on the Dragon 32:

 https://youtu.be/9j8NF054KdY

8) [REDACTED] has put up an official "#SepTandy" demo video for [REDACTED GAME] III, which is out this weekend!

 https://youtu.be/L4CvsAfSrcE

And, he released the game a couple of days early, in full, for free, downloadable on Facebook (512K Coco 3 required, joystick optional):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158595404992641/