News stories for Episode 178, September 19, 2020 show

News stories for Episode #178, September 19, 2020 show:

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1) Rutherford Le Blang posted a tip about hooking up a Samsung TV with VGA to a CocoVGA:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158603518812641/

2) Assuming that they aren't sold out by the time this airs, Ed Snider (www.zippsterzone.com) has another batch of Coco 2 composite boards (2 types, which should cover all NTSC based Coco 2 models) currently in production:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158602662797641/

3) As part of SepTandy, RebelFoxxy presents his Coco 2/64K. He has a number of his facts wrong, but still good that he made the video.:

 https://youtu.be/9FsJY2rP9mk

4) Another SepTandy entry this week is by Retro Hack Shack. (with Aaron Newcomb, whom some may recognize as a regular guest on the giant podcast network TWiT, where he has appeared on FLOSS Weekly, All About Android and This Week in Google, numerous times, and is somewhat famous in Coco circles since he has worn his Dungeons of Daggorath shirt on these shows multiple times). He takes his Coco 1 (his very first computer) and "attempts to install a composite mod, fix up the keyboard, re-cap the mother board, and clean it up". There is a bit of info on him here:

 https://twit.tv/people/aaron-newcomb

And his Coco 1 video is here:

 https://youtu.be/MIv6qxfItGQ

5) Ken @ Canadian Retro Things has a new video for SepTandy, using a CD player to load programs onto his MC-10, experimenting with both 22 and 44 KHz.

 https://youtu.be/Ik-5G1CeM4A

6) Yet another pair of #SepTandy videos is from Newmakers Tech on YouTube. He even goes through the pre-history of the Coco, including Project Green Thumb. It emphasizes the Coco 1, although it mentions and briefly shows the Coco 2 and 3:

 https://youtu.be/dUa1s9uFKHs

The second episode concentrates on the Coco 2:

 https://youtu.be/UIdJqM63A6k

7) AC's 8-Bit Zone on YouTube, released two more SepTandy related videos, covering some Coco 2 repairs and Coco 2 composite video (after he covers some C64 ZIF sockets that he received in the mail):

 https://youtu.be/DxW5ONFsaJc?t=279

His second video is his attempt to get 5 Coco 2's running:

 https://youtu.be/y-7xmleAE54

8) Another SepTandy episode this week is by TheRetroChannel, where he delves into taking a look at his heavily modified Coco 1 with HJL-57 keyboard (he briefly showed it to us last week, when he went through his stock Coco 1):

 https://youtu.be/a3I5s1CLHsU

9) Also part of SepTandy, LGR released their full episode on the Coco, after showing a teaser about it last week:

 https://youtu.be/I3lhtcGzhkc

10) Still more SepTandy: Retrospectreviews from Australia (whom we have covered some of his Coco relate videos before), has a quick look at the Coco SDC:

 https://youtu.be/CAiLmDUFiLY

11) And our final Coco related SepTandy video is from 8bitsinthebasement on YouTube (who was a guest on our show with his SCART Coco 2), where he shows hooking up digital joysticks to his Coco 2, including explanations of the differences between digital and analog joysticks, how voltage dividers work, and his home made solution:

 https://youtu.be/5JLUlmT3mko

12) John Evans uploaded a PDF scan of the CIE MTL-1 Microprocessor Trainer manual (a manual/course to learn the 6809 on a custom 6809 based hardware platform from the Cleveland Institute of Electronics). This was a very basic computer; 2K of RAM (expandable up to 4K), 4K ROM with CIEbug, a hex keypad for entry, an 8 digit LED display, and an expansion port for custom add-ons:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/6809assembly/permalink/2448040948822606/

(Load the "MTL-1 Reference Manual OCR.pdf" from my desktop to show the manual)

13) Chris Burke posted a photo on Facebook of what he found when opened up a "bargain" 128K Coco 3 - a pre-installed J&R electronics 512K upgrade from back in the late 1980's:

 https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10157145288166331&set=gm.10158609452732641

14) James Diffendaffer posted a video comparing the speed of the C64 vs. the MC-10 with a BASIC Solitaire solver, which he let run over night on both, and then captured where they were the next morning. James will have to explain exactly what we are looking at here, though.

 https://youtu.be/JBFzZE_nu4M

Game On news:

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1) Simon Jonassen uploaded several updated videos for his Boulderdash style game engine that he is working on; his latest one is (note the other videos in the comments, too):

 https://www.facebook.com/simon.jonassen1/videos/10164278981620506/

He also had screenshot showing the whole virtual area, and shows the 8K MMU boundaries with red rectangles, so that you can more easily see how much RAM each portion takes up (including the horizontal scroll enable, which makes the virtual screen 256 bytes wide):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158612935192641/

2) Nick Marentes premiered an updated "Work in Progress" video for Pipes on the first International Computer Club live stream on Saturday, and has posted the video for all to see on his YouTube page:

 https://youtu.be/ShAsi-4iYzY

3) [REDACTED GAME] III is now available on the Color Computer Archive as well as Facebook:

 https://colorcomputerarchive.com/search?q=[REDACTED GAME]+iii

And also on itch.io:

 https://[REDACTED COMPANY]gaming.itch.io/[REDACTED GAME]3

[REDACTED] has also released the manual, and a version for composite monitors - with an amusing disclaimer when loading that version.

4) Paul Thayer posted some screenshots of his progress on his upcoming Coco 3 game, CocoBan:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158600357392641/

5) Jim Gerrie has released another Lunar Lander game for the MC-10, this time based on the Bally Astrocade version:

 https://youtu.be/-n95GpEFcjs

6) Ken @ Canadian Retro Things put up a gameplay video of his game of [REDACTED GAME] III for this weeks Game On challenge:

 https://youtu.be/BczmMtoFLUk

7) Noriko Miyagami put a full playthrough video of the Coco version of Zork I on YouTube. She also goes through some of the history of Zork, and the cross platform virtual machine the Infocom games used:

 https://youtu.be/kXT6QNZqHHA

8) Jay Searle and Brett Gordon put up a video showing off development video #1 for the upcoming Coco 3 MMORPG, Legends of Alcarron:

 https://youtu.be/Q0wcsMSeHK4

9) And speaking of [REDACTED GAME] III, Roger Taylor has put up a video of his MiSTer FPGA Coco 3 core running the game (the opening text file loading screen is incorrect, but the main game play seems fine):

 https://youtu.be/RaGz4tPcmu8