News stories for Episode 198, February 6, 2021 show

News stories for Episode #198, February 6, 2021 show:

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Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)

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1) Joel Rees has parts 2-4 of his C language tutorial blog entries up now, which includes handling command line parameters in the compiled program. And again, he has notes for the OS-9 C compiler as well:

 https://joels-programming-fun.blogspot.com/2021/01/personalizing-hello-world-a-greet-command.html

Part 3 (char arrays and a simple menu for a user to choose an option from):

 https://joels-programming-fun.blogspot.com/2021/01/personalizing-hello-world-char-arrays-giving-user-menu.html

Part 4 (Char arrays and Char Pointer arrays):

 https://joels-programming-fun.blogspot.com/2021/02/ascii-table-in-c-char-arrays-and-char-pointer-arrays.html

2) Robert Allen Murphy let us know that a new bugfix release (0.1.69) for the CMOC C compiler came out on January 24:

 http://perso.b2b2c.ca/~sarrazip/dev/cmoc.html

3) Retro Logic Lab added a YouTube video showing his assembling of the RS-232 pak clone (in kit form) manufactured by Ian Maveric in Australia:

 https://youtu.be/iIsdBGWa1kI

4) Robert Sieg showed a neat trick that is possible on the CocoVGA, due to the speed of the chip it uses - you can almost get two colors+black into a semigraphics cell with some precise timing (I think this is different than simply combining two overtop each to get a different shade, as Nick Marentes did on the radar map in Rally-SG):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3592678460858950/

5) Guillaume Major has released version 1.25 of SDC Explorer, which adds customizable colors for the directory/file borders, and also to switch the text color set to the yellowish orange/dark red vs. the light/dark green. It is available on the Color Computer Archive:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158952728162641/

6) Terry Trapp put has put up a video demoing his Propellor P2 project - where he has a BASIC09 program sending a SID dumpfile to the P2, which then plays it as a full SID file (SID is the soundchip from the Commodore 64, and is emulated by the program SIDCOG on the P2):

 https://www.facebook.com/terrytrapp/videos/10226437833679106/

He added a second song demo as well:

 https://www.facebook.com/terrytrapp/videos/10226438633099091/

He then added a longer video showing his playing the theme song for The Last Ninja game, where he also goes into more technical details on how the SID file format works, and how he converted them to play on the Coco 3.

 https://www.facebook.com/terrytrapp/videos/10226446635819154/

It looks like he was one little glitch left to solve - it might be leaving the very last batch of notes playing instead of turning them off at the end of a song.

7) John Linville posted on Facebook that the 2021 edition of the BASIC 10 Liner contest (for 8 bit systems only, including the Coco and Dragon) is now open for entries. Rules are posted on the host website:

 https://gkanold.wixsite.com/homeputerium

8) Ken @ Canadian Retro Things put up a video about his TP-10 thermal printer, and also officially announced his new co-host!:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvyIP5Y-oRs

9) Rob Inman found an interesting article on pcgamer.com about Greg Zumwalt, who authored a lot of programs for Tandy (and for companies like American Small Business Computers before that). It talks about his "retirement", where he is learning (and loving) 3D printing, including a really cool 3D printed animated heart he did for his wife for Valentines day:

 https://www.pcgamer.com/greg-zumwalt-3d-printed-mechanical-devices/

10) Sheldon MacDonald has an update to his RS-DOS Tool program for Windows - and adds some beta function libraries, the ability to modify 2 disk images at once, edit programs & the raw disk data, assemble / tokenize your ML & BASIC source, etc. Link is in his Facebook post:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158965737792641/

He also uploaded multiple tutorial videos for it:

1. 1: Show how it works with disk files and images:

 https://youtu.be/wDLjVjc_tlM

1. 2: Show how to use the raw disk editing features:

 https://youtu.be/mh-X7Gph_B0

1. 3: Introduction to function library usage:

 https://youtu.be/wVJ95wq0bLs

11) DEVSWZ on YouTube put up a video showing how to load programs on a Coco 2 using WAV files on a modern PC, including volume tweaking, etc.:

 https://youtu.be/qxS731EXw8Y

12) Eli on YouTube shows his Coco 2 hooked up to a portable Casio TV - one of the smallest color screens I have seen on a Coco. :-)

 https://youtu.be/rurb5s7BtsE

13) Our own Sloopy Malibu put up a video showing how to install, configure and setup his upcoming DriveWirelessly board (which he can talk about on the show!):

 https://youtu.be/6Xsnwb6YQuI

MC-10

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1) Jamie Cho put up a post showing how he is using GitHub Actions to automatically generate versioned releases for MC-10 programs using Greg Dionne's MCBASIC compiler (the same compiler Jim Gerrie used in our early story in the Game On news):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10158947056677641/

2) Jamie Cho also posted on the MC-10 group in Facebook a link to GitHub with his utility that will take a standard .C10 cassette file, and if it contains a BASIC program, will convert to a text .BAS file so that you can edit them, or even run them through the new MCBASIC compiler:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3591684757624987/

13) Jim Gerrie put up a note in the Facebook MC-10 group about a disassembler for the 4K MC-10/Alice that I didn't know existed (download link in the comments). It originally came out in November of 2004 from P. Lapierre, but could be very useful for MC-10 programmers looking into getting to 6809 assembly language for the machine:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3600575703402559/

Dragon 32/64

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1) DragonPlus Electronics on YouTube put up a video demoing the Dragon MSX2+, Dragon RGB, and 6809 adapter boards installed (and the new power supply board replacement), and running Pere Serrat's VGM player (it's 1/2 an hour of sample music form just a couple of the games listed), from a CocoSDC. It also is running Pere's Drivewire 4&SDC Extender for Dragon DOSPlus 5:

 https://youtu.be/aHXvM2tr4EI

Game On news:

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1) Jim Gerrie and Greg Dionne have gotten most issues with the MC-10 BASIC cross-compiler working now, so Jim has set up a Google Drive folder to contain all cassette image files that feature compiled versions of his programs. An he is rapidly filling it up:

 https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/149N0WpWSZWLIC5zyl8n4V7kSFGCaCasz

He also posted some more videos of the newly compiled games: Pinball (originally a port from the Dragon game by Colin Carter):

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7QjsV0kNxs

QBert:

 https://youtu.be/bnhEI2WRJCE

2) Robert Allen Murphy has an update blog entry for his upcoming Nostromo game, which includes how he is using modern tools to make his 200+ pages of handwritten notes/ideas for the game much easier to work through and reference, and how he converts the original NEC BASIC/assembly code to the Coco:

 https://exileinparadise.com/nostromo:dispatching

3) Pixel Gaiden on Twitch (a partner channel with the Amigos) did their first ever live Coco game stream, a precursor to their planned "Six Good Games" segment for the Coco. This is host Tim's first ever experience with the Coco, and he is just learning about it: Twitch original live link:

 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/895700340

There general page:

 https://www.twitch.tv/pixelgaiden/

It is also now available on the Amigos YouTube channel:

 https://youtu.be/0F0I6SN7Xyc

4) Sheldon MacDonald put up a video demoing his GMC player (using a music macro language) that supports two voices in sync on the Game Master Cartridge hardware - I am guessing that this may be incorporated into the new semigraphics game he is working on?

 https://www.facebook.com/sheldon.macdonald.733/videos/10164860068795361/

He also did a video update about some changes he did (unfortunately not as compatible with BASIC anymore), to speed up the player with some changes to syntax, and adding H1/H2 to allow percussion, which he then demos with a 2 note/1 percussion instrument track:

 https://youtu.be/VbN1kWcsskY

5) Mark Schoenberger found a cool video on YouTube (he posted the link on Facebook) showing Christopher Cantrell hooking up a Raspberry Pi to a multi-panel (6) to mhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RPAqVOSHu0ake a large 3 foot display. From it, he plays a custom hybrid of Dung Beetles (Apple II)/Mega-Bug (Coco) on this huge 128x96 display (using the Coco's music routines). He also demos some enhancements he added to this version (which is written in Python):

 https://youtu.be/5VSp-PirvBE

6) The Amigos have officially released the next The Coco Show episode: Pegasus and the Phantom Riders:

 https://youtu.be/q8c8U92OrPE

7) Cuthbert Dragon continues revamping his Dragon 32 gameplay videos in the new 3 minute/2 games per video format:

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

(highlight the Shock Troopers/Chambers one - he has gotten further into Shock Trooper than I have, and shows blowing up the middle chamber in the first round of Chambers to progress to the 2nd)

8) A channel that I have not seen before ("retro techtive" did a gameplay of Donkey King on his Coco 2 (modified for composite output). He notices near the end of his game that something might be wrong with his joystick port; he couldn't move down, although the same joystick works fine with his Tandy 1000. Going through his previous videos, he has done a couple of othe Coco vidos before: Androne and Air Attack, but 8 months ago:

 https://youtu.be/RWbbRrqKgBk

9) Mikes Tech Rescue on YouTube showed off his Coco 2 as well, including multiple game cartridges. I think he is in Canada, and he is planning on selling some of the cartridges:

 https://youtu.be/kDFpPDedgp0

10) Another new channel (to me) on YouTube with a Coco game play video is "Marla Plays Retro Games", and they play Phantom Slayer, one of my all time favourites. They play a wide variety of retro consoles, home computers and arcade games, and I believe this is the first Coco video:

 https://youtu.be/UpmKtV_63UI