News stories for Episode 188, November 28, 2020 show

News stories for Episode #188, November 28, 2020 show:

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1) Sheldon MacDonald, after asking if people would like an assembly language programming series done by somebody just learning it themselves, has had so much positive feedback that his first three episodes of his "Exploring assembly" series are already out this week. He also redid a couple of his earliest efforst with larger fonts & higher resolution to make them easier to read and follow along with:

 https://youtu.be/cyAMkehYl7Y (Setting up the work environment)
 https://youtu.be/tAnM7vjLt_s (processor loads/stores; memory variables)
 https://youtu.be/wKQsIKTKsp8 (compares, subroutines and creating a mouse cursor on a semigraphics screen)

He also has DSK images available with source code, etc. so that you can follow along:

 http://www.smotion3d.net/downloads/asm%20tutorials/

2) Chris Burke has finished getting his USB keyboard adaptor working, and has now done his first test of getting a USB mouse to work (still needs some work, including button support):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158775774117641/

Also, as part of this project, Chris is having a batch of very thin, small PCB's made to allow plugging different things into the keyboard flex connector. He expects to have them by early December.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158772063152641/

3) Clay Wilson linked up a YouTube video (released at the beginning of November on the Djamal.uk's page) about using the Parallax Propeller chip to create a "1980's Microcomputer". It shows simulating a VDG, and even a familiar ROM image (with modifications) around the 3:50 mark.

 https://youtu.be/afM_AVus3y4

4) Robert Sieg has put up a color mixing chart for using the composite mode up on Facebook, along with a DSK image to accompany it: Chart:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158773312107641/ 

DSK image link:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158773282302641/

5) Dave Shadoff just announced that the Coco 2/Dragon 32 cores for the MiSTer (no disk yet, but supports 64K RAM, 2 analog joysticks, cassette, sound, and cartridge support) is available for free download:

 https://github.com/MiSTer-devel/CoCo2_MiSTer

6) Ciaran Anscomb is working on making a full KiCad file to make the entire Dragon 64 motherboard. Current status here on the World of Dragon forums:

 https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10893

7) Bill Pierce announced that Version 2.1.0B of VCC has been released, which has a number of new features:

 - Copy/Paste from the PC side to/from VCC
 - Persistent file paths for ROM, DLL, etc directories
 - Custom configuration settings save & load
 - Use custom configuration from command line
 - Flip artifact colors without restarting the emulator
 - slightly improved composite palettes
 - Improved manual, including a new Quick Start Guide
 This is Windows only, although I believe that Barry Nelson has been able to make OSX/WINE wrappers around it before.

Announcement on Facebook:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/permalink/2742289042700689/

Download link:

 https://github.com/VCCE/VCC/releases/tag/v2.1.0b

8) Simon Jonassen put up a video on Facebook demonstrating his 4 voice music player with added compression, playing a song where the player and music data only takes 2697 bytes on the disk:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158778816077641/

9) Boisy Pitre has a new Coco Collector - but it's not a normal episode about one of his Coco's. It's about a protocol, special cable and special ROM's (in a cartidge) that he has been working on this year (called "Ghidorah"), and he shows it hooking 5 Coco's up together, with a Mac as an arbiter. At it's simplest, it looks like the functionality of the old Tandy Network II controller, but it actually has much more power, including loading programs to specific computers, or to multiple ones, and automatically running them:

 https://youtu.be/oOvTy0aJffw

10) AC's 8 Bit Zone (Alan, one of our guests from last week) has a video on building a low profile 28 to 24 pin ROM adaptor - and this applies to a C64 as well - that lets you adapt different ROM's to even fit within a cartridge:

 https://youtu.be/NTbW1SEcX0A

11) NML32 on YouTube released a video showing the MiSTer using both the Coco 2 and Dragon 32 cores. This was started by Pierre Cornier, and finished by Dave Shadoff (who was one of our guests last week as well) and Alanswx:

 https://youtu.be/z8AjtybilYM

12) YouTube user juncachran put up a video of a Coco 3 (running in VCC at 89 Mhz overclocked rate) running a BASIC program to generate a Mandelbrot fractal set graphic:

 https://youtu.be/R8-s76CIYnM

13) David Moak is in the Christmas spirit early, putting a video up on Facebook of a Coco playing Christmas music on the Orchestra-90, under a christmas tree:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158777627797641/

14) Jason Downs mentioned in the Facebook Dragon group that the Dragon 64 gets a call out in the new Ready Player Two book:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2786311598295158/

15) Brian Joyce has updated his Coco 3 color chart to reflect updates/corrections to composite colors in the latest version of VCC:

 https://exstructus.com/tags/coco/australia-colour-palette/

Game On news:

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1) Jim Gerrie has another Coco to MC-10 port: Conflict, by M.Shanto & S. Loy (a BASIC game sold by Soft Sector Marketing as one of their first Coco efforst) in 1981:

 https://youtu.be/lLifcHDyXAk

Even more interesting is Jim is helping to test an upcoming MC-10 BASIC Compiler being done by Greg Dionne. He tried it on his DefCon1 game:

 https://youtu.be/o9hI46Kg5Ss

(A precompiled version, although it included some BASIC speedups by James Diffendaffer:

 https://youtu.be/PZ4fK4FPx7s

He also has a new game video up: Cattle Baron from Australian Coco, May 1985 (based on a board game by John Day):

 https://youtu.be/iWEUbnXvDg4

2) Buford McGillicutty posted a new machine language arcade game for the MC-10 (requires 16K RAM expansion or higher) called S.U.K.S (Shoot Upward Kill Stuff) version 1.01 (which fixed some bugs with the newest MC-10 upgrades), written by Ron Davis: Download link:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3412435955549869/

Gameplay with sound - but playing one handed:

 https://youtu.be/M2FcW3uuEUw

And, just this morning, he uploaded the source code as well:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3428873130572818/

3) Glen Hewlett (who did the PacMan arcade transcode to the Coco 3) is working on a Joust transcode, and shows his progress so far: Blog:

 https://nowhereman999.wordpress.com/2020/11/22/joust-on-a-coco-3/

Video:

 https://youtu.be/CDJeO-rLtqQ

4) hlabrand on Atari Age is making a new text adventure game based on the infocom engine, for a multiple of platforms, including the Coco:

 https://atariage.com/forums/topic/310169-new-text-adventure-for-the-ti-994a-using-infocoms-tools

5) MrDave6309 uploaded 2 game update videos for his first even assembly language game project, which includes demos of two of the mini games he will be including (a slot machine game & a horse race game):

 (Load MrDave6309_update.mp4 & MrDave6309_update2.mp4 from my desktop)

6) Noriko Miyagami has her next Infocom game full walkthrough for the Coco - Zork II:

 https://youtu.be/t14DsgfvIPw

7) Cuthbert Dragon on YouTube has put up more videos showing live gameplay on his Dragon 32, along with the original UK cassette artwork, although he appears to be running out of those now. This week he has added: Manic Miner Racer Ball The King Syzygy Golf Bloc Head Nerble Force Crash Creepies Bombs Away Basil Boris the Bold North Sea Action Crazy Painter Cuthbert Goes Walkabout Escape Invaders Revenge Demolition Derby Pinball Flagon Bird Back Track Pogo Jo Star Swoop Cecil Plays 21 Dickie Spaceman Copter Patrol (this is basically Choplifter on other platforms)

 https://www.youtube.com/user/MaryWinstead32/videos

8) The Amigos did their 8 hour marathon "Thanks for Giving" recording on Friday morning, and they snuck in a Coco Show episode at the beginning, reviewing Mega-Bug. It will be released on YouTube in December, but is on Twitch as part of their 8 hour show now:

 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/817357265