News stories for Episode 191, December 19, 2020 show

News stories for Episode #191, December 19, 2020 show:

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1) Sheldon MacDonald posted a 2nd update to his editing tool with functions, adding error trapping, and some help on function libraries; how to see what is available, etc.:

 https://youtu.be/plv97L9YErA

2) The Amigos had their ICC (International Computer Club) meeting at the end of CocoTalk last week, and both Nick Marentes and I did presentations (as did many others, covering Amiga, C64, Atari 8 Bit, general hardware, etc.). You can catch the whole 4+ hour show at:

 https://youtu.be/y9accdPejAE

(1:38:54 for Nick's presentation, 2:31:40 for Curtis').

3) Ciaran Anscomb has put up a first draft of his VDHL implementation of the glue logic for use the VDG (6847) chip in a Dragon 64, although he would like some people to test it:

 https://gitlab.com/sixxie/dragon64-pal/

4) Paul Fiscarelli put up a demo of his new utility (Work in Progress) for the Grease Weasel, to allow backing up copy protected Coco disks, and then exporting the raw flux copies of those the DMK files to run in emulators, and eventually to SDF to work on the Coco SDC as well. He demonstrates on the Diecom game disk for Medieval Madness. This will people to still use their Coco software that is copy protected, without running the risk of the disk deteriorating and possibly stop working from continuous use.

 https://youtu.be/RrRjFh-u3M8

5) Paul Simon is porting part of his last Coco 3 demo (The spinning/bouncing donut... errr, I mean, torus) to the Coco 1/2, and has the spinning part done:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158821607727641/

6) Aaron Newcomb has a new video on adding HDMI output to a Coco 1 (or other machines like an Apple II, etc.):

 https://youtu.be/Wm2eo4BEna4

And an update in the stardot.org.uk forms - he now has it generating artifacting colors as well:

 https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14430&p=301046&fbclid=IwAR2W0S9C7GkjkGDoAfbn4DwwiDOWSWvJyM9d5ilhK_0N4BxHuvvkAgL4OzM#p301046

7) Allen Huffman posted part 2 of his blog article about "Benchmarking the Coco Keyboard". And William Astle has a great explanation comment already posted to it as well:

 https://subethasoftware.com/2020/12/15/benchmarking-the-coco-keyboard-part-2/

8) Robert Sieg has posted directory viewer and launcher to use with the MCX-32 upgrade for the MC-10, and is looking for some feedback on it. Currently, it is posted in the Facebook MC-10 group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3478293952297402/

9) Antonio Carlos Jimenez Ely of www.sdpak.com game has put up many more pictures of SD card game labels into the Coco group the fast few weeks, including a few shown here:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158828353612641/
 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158826418837641/

and others throughout the week.

10) In the spirit of the holiday, Jerry Stratton posted a picture of a snowman on Coco 1/2, drawn by a program by Aaron W. Branigan from the December 1986 issue of Rainbow:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158828494497641/

and Seasons Greetings from December 1984 Rainbow:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158826145197641/

11) Terry Steege posted a pic of a rare, early Coco disk controller that was made in Australia, called "Rainbow Bits". Nick Marentes had one back in the day, and can talk about it:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158827749937641/

12) Greg Ferguson managed to reink his old DMP-105 line printer... and actually got it printing properly from his Coco 3 (in the comments, he shows the ink he used):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158827494167641/

13) Guillaume Major has release a major update to SDCX (the file browser/launcher for the CocoSDC), which includes updates like key repeat, saving/restoring last session, splash and loading screens, quicker launching of disk images that only have one file on them, a quick way to get back to the root dir of the SD card, and more! Available on colorcomputerarchive.com:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158828193102641/

14) Todd Gilbert posted a video from 1983 talking about the home computer revolution in the Dragon group on Facebook - and the Dragon 32 (with Lunar-Rover Patrol) makes an appearance at 5:10 in:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2802999653293019/

15) Andy Fox posted photos of some of his original Dragon Data Dragon 32 game advertisement posters in the Dragon Facebook group as well (including Coco game ports by Aardvark-80, Spectral Associates, Mark Data Products & Computerware):

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2802831189976532/

16) Jerry Young posted a Christmas program for the MC-10, with a low res picture of Santa and a Christmas song, which you can download from the MC-10 Facebook group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3475598935900237/

He has a video of it running as well:

 https://youtu.be/QeXfICepOr8

17) YouTuber Conn_Traveler put up a short video of an animated oil lamp done on a Coco 2:

 https://youtu.be/7jHbTnpmL9Y

18) Henry Reitveld mentioned on the Cocolist about the Maxduino Ultimate that allows loading of CAS files for both the Coco and Dragon:

 https://www.youmakerobots.com/retro-microsd-tape-device/62-47-maxduino-ultimate.html

Game On news:

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1) Paul Shoemaker showed an update to his Semigraphics-12 3D maze game, which now includes overlay windows, arrows showing your direction of movement, and many other awesome graphical bits:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158815065577641/

He also put a new video up showing his new turning animation near the bottom of the comments:

 https://www.facebook.com/100012520339402/videos/1096024577491543/

2) Cuthbert Dragon added more Dragon game videos this week: Bumpers Starfighter Monsters (Similar to, but not quite, Space Panic) Cuthbert and the Golden Chalice Bandito (not to be confused with El Bandito) Basil Goes Ballooning Sea Quest (You get to see the Mark Data Products graphics in PAL glory - lots of light purple) The Vortex Factor Trekboer

3) Jim Gerrie posted an MC-10 port of Conway's Life, originally from 1970:

 https://youtu.be/CsTge2uGPNs

4) Jim's game Decoy also got the runner up prize in the Trash Talkers programming contest - Color category (Alison DeNu won that category with her game Xenocide, which she will hopefully talk about and demo on the show, and you can see the complete results starting on page 4 of their huge newsletter here):

 http://www.fabsitesuk.com/tandy/trs8bit1404.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1NK91-Zu7X75NIpmcH9paYwfRwyDr4Fu2uJ6HiaIxRbM3z3wniVQApBHU

There is also a video by Vintage is the New Old of all of the winners of this years competition, including the TRS-80 Model 1/2/3 category (2 games for the B&W TRS-80's, and 2 for the Color computers category-Coco games start at 8:51):

 https://youtu.be/Aq4zg__9wTw

5) FrodoNL did a stream including a play of this weeks Game On Challenge, Spidercide:

 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/837140420