News stories for Episode 194, January 9, 2021 show

News stories for Episode #194, January 9, 2021 show:

==========================================

1) Terry Trapp (Terry's Workbench on YouTube) did a video showing how to upgrade a Coco 3 to 512k using the Boysontech Boomerang board:

 https://youtu.be/7sSeRPJ16Sc

2) Allen Huffman has put up part 5 of his blog series "Benchmarking the Coco Keyboard". This goes through a small, optimized BASIC routine that Jim Gerrie came up with, and, combined with Allen's usage of hex constants, ends up twice as fast as Allen's original routine.

 https://subethasoftware.com/2021/01/04/benchmarking-the-coco-keyboard-part-5/

3) Ken @ Canadian Retro Things got a big box of Coco stuff that he unboxes:

 https://youtu.be/3flUmdg_s6c

4) Alan @ AC's 8-Bit Zone has put up the long form video of his 64 in 1 Super ROM pack, from user requests for details the soldering and build steps:

 https://youtu.be/CWr9VHXs_gA

5) David Ladd has posted some comparison videos of the various cassette loading speeds (regular, 2x, 4x - all capable on real hardware/cassettes, and loading using the FASTLOAD utility, which adds a special loader header and then reads in digital cassette files from a host PC or phone). On the Coco 3 in particular, very impressive speeds can be done: Marble Maze load (comments from the author of FASTLOAD too, I believe?):

 https://youtu.be/A30qi-7WNps

Star Spores load:

 https://youtu.be/offwBh5QXoU

6) Bill Pierce has released a small update to VCC 2.1.0c to fix some small bugs with the cut/paste feature. He has this update as either a complete standalone install, or an update install from the previous 2.1.0c:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/permalink/2773284856267774/

7) Simon Jonassen released a video on Facebook oh his updated spinning Torus demo for the Coco 1/2, showing a split screen with two different high res modes at the same time:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158877165097641/

8) Carlos Camacho posted an old ad for the A/BASIC compiler (for OS-9 & Flex), and is wondering if anyone has this (for either OS) to try. I haven't seen it; has anyone else?

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158875941982641/

9) Terry Trapp posted a video on Facebook showing the start of his interfacing a P2 to his Coco 3 (it shows the P2 reading and displaying the Coco bus):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158873618002641/

10) Jim McClellan's McDraw is now up to version 1.2 (downloadable from the MC-10 Facebook group), adding a "plot rectangle with fill" option:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3525936717533125/

11) Joël Barbé from France posted a cool picture in the MC-10 Facebook group - he has a french MC-10 SECAM output with Azerty keyboard layout, plus both a 4K and 32K Alice):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3525173174276146/

12) Allen Huffman posted an article on his blog about programming the VDG text mode screen, and some quirks (like CLS clears the screen with a different, but visually identical, code value). And how CLS 1 allows RESET(x,y) to work properly, where it doesn't with CLS:

 https://subethasoftware.com/2021/01/08/coco-mc6847-vdg-chip-draw-black-challenge-responses/

13) 8bitsinthebasement has a new video out about plugging a light sensor into a Coco 2, originally inspired by a book. But he takes it to new places:

 https://youtu.be/_TBxrdCSt1o

14) A new channel (to me) ballyalley has a part 1 video on his newly acquired Coco 3 system, including manuals, a 2 button deluxe joystick, and the Springster cartridge:

 https://youtu.be/EQ6KrhOh4C4

Game On news:

=

1) Cutherbert Dragon continues his gameplay videos on real Dragon hardware, and sometimes with the actual cassette label artwork this week: El Diablero Star Spores in B&W mode - with an impressive score Mission XK1 Wizards Quest Cuber Dungeon Raid (which he does quite well at)

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

2) Rich N in our Discord released a video of his Space War game he did in assembly, involving gravity physics, etc., and he thanks Steve Bjork for his video assembly series. (local file spacewar_by_RichN.mov)

3) [REDACTED] has been posting game play videos and [REDACTED APP] engine tests to his YouTube page: Brew Master (with Coco 3 RGB patches and fixed bonus level) where he explains what changes he made and why (if it's not on the Archive by the time of the show, it will be shortly): Part 1:

 https://youtu.be/lkHI2saVLGY

Part 2:

 https://youtu.be/0WIOMZeJAbY

He also put up a short sprite test video for a *possible* port of the game "Alter Ego" from the NES:

 https://youtu.be/0EA9jNusaag

And finally, he played a quick round of Whirlybird run (color patched for Coco 3 RGB):

https://youtu.be/t4qC0gI9_ZQ

4) Stevie did a live play of the Pyramid 2000 text adventure game, one of the earliest text computer games for the Coco that were sold by Tandy:

 https://youtu.be/qK1lk17MNVw

5) Trey Tomes put up a screenshot of a 256 width hi res screen "borrowing" a screen from Final Fantasy 2 for the Game Boy:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158876051967641/