News stories for Episode 195, January 16, 2021 show

News stories for Episode #195, January 16, 2021 show:

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1) Jim McClellan has released a large update to his McDraw program for the MC-10, version 2.0, and it now includes the ability to add block text & saving the screen as either a BASIC program or binary file. It can be downloaded in the MC-10 Facebook group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3536993296427467/

2) Simon Jonassen showed some further screenshots and a video showing mixing graphics and text modes together using SAM and VDG tricks - including writing graphics into the normally inaccessible border area:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158886362752641/

3) Guillaume Major has released SDX 1.20, adding a configuration program that allows one to change some defaults, like restoring the last session, disabling the splash screen, whether you want directories sorted, and whether you are running on composite or RGB color. It is available for download at the Color computer archive:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158886327007641/

Direct download link:

 https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Disks/Utilities/Coco%20SDC%20Explorer%201.20%20(SDCX)%20(Guillaume%20Major).zip

4) Allen Huffman put up part 6 of "Benchmarking the Coco keyboard series", which is where Allen gets some strange results... but then figures out it was a typo. He challenges the reader to find the type themselves... check the comments to see who has found it at the time this airs.

 https://subethasoftware.com/2021/01/11/benchmarking-the-coco-keyboard-part-6/

5) Trey Tomes put up a screenshot (and github link) to his start at reproducing the "Virtual Machine" screensaver to the Coco 3:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158891283912641/

Github source:

 https://github.com/treytomes/VirtualMachineSimulator

He later put up a video showing it in action in it's current state:

 https://www.facebook.com/treytomes/videos/10159239089442853/

6) Mr. Lurch's Things (in Australia) has released a new Dragon 32 video - Part 1, The Power Supply. Since he didn't get one with his... he decides to make one:

 https://youtu.be/gfNVqIyP-fA

7) I don't normally mention items for sale in the news, but it's not too often a Tano Dragon 64 goes on sale in the USA... with software, accessories, etc. The seller says that he couldn't get video out of it:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2823481137911537/

8) Ken @ Canadian Retro Things put up a video showing how his video capture system works, using the Coco 3 as the sample computer:

 https://youtu.be/0a3i04BJvOY

9) A quick update on EOU Beta 6.0.1 - we expect to have it out by the end of next weekend. This contains mostly bug fixes found by users over the past month.

10) hjalfi on YouTube posted a couple of videos about fixing his CGP-115 printer: The last stage of fixing it (replacing some bearings):

 https://youtu.be/5hRaawxGuGQ

And, printing a sample page of a wizard, where you get to see the pen mechanics,etc.:

 https://youtu.be/Mezy3hranNg

11) And, ending the news on a more disappointing note: [REDACTED] filed a formal copyright claim on YouTube against CocoTalk! for showing some of his videos in past few weeks. This confuses me, as they are public videos that anyone can see, and we usually only play snippets of them and then refer people to go watch the video on his channel (the only times we play his videos in their entirety are when they are extremely short; say less than a minute long). But these claims cause problems with YouTube temporarily suspending the video (and the channel). In the interest of us getting our show out to viewers in a timely manner, therefore, I will respect his wishes and not show or discuss his videos any more.

Game On news:

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1) Allen Huffman has part 4 of exploring the Atari 2600 Adventure cartridge programming, and is using his Coco to draw out the ROM graphics data to the screen. In this article, he describes how the graphics were stored (some are scaled), and has BASIC source on the Coco to display them - originally in SG4, then in PMODE 1 (so he can fit the secret message from the original game):

 https://subethasoftware.com/2021/01/13/exploring-atari-vcs-2600-adventure-part-4/

2) Robert Sieg put up a graphic from his MC-10 showing a Minecraft character conversion. Turns out the Minecraft characters are 32x64, and since the MC-10 (and Coco) Semigraphics-4 is 64x32, it can be converted pixel for pixel, except sideways:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3547065002086963/

3) Guillaume Major has put up a test of Kings Quest IV on the Color Computer Archive, that lets you play the music, but be able to abort it by pressing the spacebar. This version should work on 512k Coco 3's, and the newest 2 MB RAM cards (Boysontech with updated firmware, Cloud-9 and Zippster Zone). It will also be included in EOU Beta 6.0.1, and work with all the Sierra games.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158887245757641/

4) Nick Marentes posted up the first blog for his upcoming Coco 3 game project, Zero Hour:

 https://nickmarentes.com/ZeroHour/01.html

5) Sheldon MacDonald posted a video showing "Zelda 1 style scrolling" that he did in semigraphics-8:

 https://www.facebook.com/sheldon.macdonald.733/videos/10164771586355361/