News stories for Episode 180, October 3, 2020 show

News stories for Episode #180, October 3, 2020 show:

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1) Tim Lindner has a video up on YouTube on how to use a Coco to control a Teensy (Arduino compatible):

 https://youtu.be/RF1irLrpTtw

2) As part of SepTandy, Aaron Newcomb @ Retro Hack Shack put up a different kind of SepTandy video - covering the comic collaborations Radio Shack did with DC Comics back in the 1980's (I have one or two of these myself), including Superman and other major DC figures working with the "Whiz Kids", who used different TRS-80 model computers to help save the day. The Coco is featured in some of these:

 https://youtu.be/_6jmx9T-kis

NOTE: I HAVE SOME SAMPLES MYSELF TO SHOW TODAY

3) Noel's Retro Lab did a mail call episode, which included him receiving a Dragon disk drive and controller, and *two* Dragon 200 computers (which are basically Dragon 64's with a new case that was built to support a monitor on top) that were made by Eurohard S.A. in Spain.

 https://youtu.be/4c1S88euc8U

4) Brian Schubring put up some videos on how to set up Drivewire 4 for VCC under Windows (including Windows 10):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/permalink/2690143171248610/

5) Keith (ChibiAkumas on YouTube) has his 5th 6809 assembly language tutorial up, which covers Logical operations (AND, OR, EOR, COM, NEG) including with the CC register, various bit shifts, BIT commands, DAA, & MUL):

 https://youtu.be/-JPpfRRXIc0

6) Dinty's Hideaway did another SepTandy video, demonstrating the CocoVGA on his F board Coco 1:

 https://youtu.be/yasLPOF2jTM

7) AC's 8-Bit Zone does a preview (going through parts, etc.) about his Coco 2 composite (and S-Video) mode for the Coco 2 (full video about the mod coming soon):

 https://youtu.be/W7PdScXD6Xw

8) While not technically a Coco video, TJBChris on YouTube put up a video explaining why he uses the phrase "HELLO YOU RUMMY BUZZARD" on all of his TRS-80 computers when he is doing tests (including his Coco). It has a surprising history having to do with TRS-DOS from the late 1970's:

 https://youtu.be/TmFcte-V7nY

9) Todd Wallace (Lord Dragon) has a video showing his DOSFORMAT command under NitrOS9 that can format MSDOS disks up to 720K (double density disks) - which some modern USB drives on Windows can not. I believe that this is an updated video based on an earlier one, with more text overlaid to help explains things:

 https://youtu.be/-qLXYJT_oQM

10) Along the same line, Peter Westberg posted a screenshot of the first OS-9 program he has written in 36 years - an expanded DIR command that shows both file create and last modified dates/times, and size both in hex or decimal):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/permalink/2693121000950827/

11) Soren Roug posted a screenshot of a recreated GIMIX OS-9 Level II boot, based on some found kernel source code for the Dragon 128. It's not fully ported yet, but enough to boot to a shell. GIMIX was probably the most advanced OS-9/6809 system made, with much more advanced hardware (DMA, hardware memory protection, etc.) than the Coco 3 had, and their machines sold for thousands of dollars:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/334403350011917/permalink/3332440416874847/

12) Bill Pierce is working on a new version of MShell that will run on a hardware text screen, thus reducing it's RAM requirements. In the comments, he shows a mockup screen shot of what it may look like: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/permalink/2694155670847360/ (Screenshot direct link): https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10219181748483178&set=p.10219181748483178&type=3

13) Robert Gault, who has programmed *many* things for the Coco's over the years (including both DECB and OS-9/NitrOS-9), and who just recently joined Facebook for the first time, released a graphic demo program that is on a special disk that will run both under DECB and NitrOS-9. It is in the Coco group Files area on Facebook, and he has a demo video as well:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158645223912641/

14) Aaron Davis also uploaded a DSK image to Facebook - his version of the "Game of Life", which he just recently re-found after thinking it was permanently lost.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158645100302641/

15) The Coco Crew released episode 64, which features a tech segment on RGB vs. NTSC color on the Coco 3, a review of Rick Adam's new Omnistar, and an interview with Nate Lockhart, who has been making the impressive full color cassette game inserts (sample here if you didn't catch our previous episode showing it):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158574643042641/
 http://cococrew.org

16) Ruth Kim Ann Moss has been going through tons of her fathers old computer stuff, which includes a lot of Coco things (cartridges, mice, etc.), and has been gradually posting them on Facebook as she goes through them, for eventual sale:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158643458482641/

17) Ed Snider released the latest GIME-X "firmware" update this week, which is mainly to fix a lot of small bugs. I have tested a few that have been fixed, but have not tested all of them yet. It still boots & runs special builds of NitrOS-9 at 2.86 Mhz, though... which is *awesome*.

18) Jim McClellan released a beta of a new MC-10 low res graphics editor (McDraw) that requires the MCX-128 (which includes an Extended BASIC upgrade). It is available for download (and feedback) on the MC-10 group on Facebook:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3269019503224849/

19) John Whitworth posted on Thursday that the lowercase daughterboards for Dragon 32's, 64's and 200's are back in stock again. This provides true lowercase, inverse video, and also has several built in alternate "retro" character sets (expanded characters, some graphics characters, a thicker CGA like font, etc.). He mentions that it has not been tested for size in a Tano Dragon, but that it should work:

 https://www.dragonplus-electronics.co.uk/product/lower-case-text-upgrade-for-dragon-32-64-200/

20) From Rob Inman - you can now order Ken William's book about the history of Sierra. We mentioned an interview with Ken that was part of SepTandy a few weeks ago that talked about his upcoming book, and it is now available in both physical and digital forms.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/permalink/2694222750840652/

21) Just this morning, James Rye posted a video called "Adventures in VCC #1", where he goes through the fun of adding 'paste' to VCC:

https://youtu.be/4V6cnMHGB1Y

Game On news:

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1) Robert Allen Murphy has a new blog post on his Nostromo game port (from the NEC PC-6001 to the Coco)

 https://exileinparadise.com/nostromo:welcome_to_the_grind

2) Simon Jonassen has an update on the game/sprite engine that he is working on, including a snippet of sample source code:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158637337362641/

He also put up a sample "Mario" tune using dipole, playing at 7.8Khz at about 1/3 CPU time (Coco 3, I believe, at 1.78 Mhz):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158646758347641/

3) Aaron & Brent resurrected The Coco Show for a special SepTandy episode, this time featuring The Temple of ROM:

 https://youtu.be/SoH17XrrmrA

4) Asif Alli did not only his first SepTandy video (a history of himself and the Coco, and a play of the Coco 3 version of Kings Quest III), but also his very first YouTube video, period:

 https://youtu.be/kNqbhpTUSBQ

5) Paul Thayer released a new Video Blog for his upcoming CocoBan game after modifying the AI algorithm again, and goes through the assembly code as well:

 https://youtu.be/ijsVIUKTQM0

6) As part of SepTandy, Boat from the Amigos also did a Coco stream last week, which has now been posted to YouTube:

 https://youtu.be/18jOx5suTTs

7) Paul Fiscarelli has an updated video from his sprite compiler, now working on sync with horizontal hardware scrolling enabled:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158642870052641/

8) Jay Searle put up another update video for the Coco 3 network game that he and Brett Gordon are working on, Legends of Alcarron:

 https://youtu.be/ERzRh5PJjVQ

9) Dave Shadoff has released the assembly source code for his Coco 1/2 game Star Spores (sold by Spectral Associates) on GitHub (Thanks to Ciaran Anscomb for providing the link). It even includes scans of hand written notes from back in it's time of development:

 https://github.com/dshadoff/Star-Spores_CoCo