News stories for Episode 211, May 8, 2021 show

News stories for Episode 211, May 8, 2021 show:

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

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1) Tim Linder has put up a blog post studying Coco 3 hardware text modes, including "unsupported" modes:

 https://tlindner.macmess.org/?p=716

2) Our own MrDave6309 put up a quick video showing him testing a joystick prototype he is working on:

 https://youtu.be/IkmV2_FtlAo

3) Terry Steege found one of the posters that Rainbow did (and was partially used for both the covers of Rainbow January 1983, and the first Rainbow book of Adventures) with a D&D theme, and framed it. I did have a friend here who had a similar poster, but I can't remember if that was separately ordered or came with either the magazine or the Adventure book:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159190653477641/

4) A quick mention - John Linville has set up a poll on Facebook of what guest speaker(s?) people would like to see at Tandy Assembly this year. If you are planning on attending, please add your vote:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1606095809633762/permalink/2895631417346855/

5) Mike Gideon on the Coco Facebook group posted photos of a rare speech cartridge for the Coco that he required - Real Talker by Colorware. I remember this one featured a "talking head" program, and I believe had a more advanced speech chip than the Tandy Speech/Sound pack:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159184348232641/

Ad from October 1984 Rainbow for Real Talker:

 http://lcurtisboyle.com/Talkhead_Rainbow_Oct1984.jpg

6) John Laury has been learning how the GIME video modes work in assembly language, and has made his first ML program that puts the Coco into 80 column mode, clears the screen (including attribute bytes, new to the Coco 3) and writes some text:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159183136507641/

7) Steve Adolph made a custom FD502 controller clone (much smaller than the original) for himself, but has a couple of spare ones available (well, hopefully still by the time we air this). If interested, you can contact him via his Facebook post:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159182599462641/

8) Sheldon MacDonald, fresh of his release of Treasure Island Defense, is working on flashing the PSG board (which is a sound/joystick/flash ROM card that he has made the game available on). So he is taking suggestions on making a boot menu for the Flash ROM part, and having some other pre-flashed software on it as well as his game (things like Drivewire access, etc. could easily be done). Please comment if you have some ideas to fill the 512K Flash ROM (see comments for a screenshot example of his animated menu prototype):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159175852382641/

9) Don Barber posted a message on Facebook about a manual (from Tandy) for the Coco 3 Diagnostic disk, but has been unable to find a copy of the disk itself. I have never found it either - if anybody has, please let us know where to find it - I would love to see it myself:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159173225457641/

The manual:

 https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Manuals/Hardware/Color%20Computer%203%20Diagnostics%20Manual%20%28Tandy%29.pdf

MC-10

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1) Robert Sieg posted some screenshots of all of the colors available on the MC-10 - including the extra (beyond 9 basic ones) for inverse text (which has a dark green), and the alternate colorset (which features a dark red, and a different orange than the normal orange). Included is some SG6 screenshots, which allow 4 colors at 64x48 resolution:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3860522290741231/

2) Robert has also continued his experiments in producing a graphic screen dump type program for the MC-19 / TP-10 combo - the latter of which does not have a graphics mode:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3846806378779489/

Dragon 32/64

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1) John Whitworth of DragonPlus Electronics has put up a video updating the work on the MSX2+ board. Programmatic switching between the 6847 / RGB board on the MSX2" V9958 RGB is now working properly:

 https://youtu.be/qWHWh46Xn20

And using a game conversion that Pere Serrat has been working on:

 https://youtu.be/-JVqmz9LalU

2) I don't normally include "For sale" items in the news (unless it's a commercial product), but Mark Elliot posted 7 cartridges for the Dragon, still in their original boxes, which includes some 3rd party games that were only available on tape or disk in North America:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2904123173180666/

3) Similar to some people in the Coco community who have made "Darth Vader" versions (making the case black), Tom Alexander did the same for his Dragon 64:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2903478979911752/

4) Atari User on YouTube reviewed the Neoteck NTK022 SCART to HDMI convert/upscalar, using Atari 800XL, Atari 130XE and Dragon 32's for testing:

 https://youtu.be/mBR7ubOrTQw

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) Carlos Camacho put up a screenshot from an old NEC PC6001 (this computer used the same VDG as the Coco/Dragon/MC-10), which allowed mixing color sets more easily than the Coco can. It has an interesting design wit the score/radar area in one color set, and the main gameplay area in the other. This is possible on the Coco (see DragonFire as an example) and might open up some ideas to make a PMODE 3 style game with all 8 colors:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159188464922641/

2) Nick Marentes posted up his 5th blog for his upcoming game Zero Hour, this time showing the title, top 10 score and bomb countdown screens:

 https://nickmarentes.com/ZeroHour/05.html

3) Fabrizio Caruso, who works on "universal" cross-platform games for 8 bit machines (roughly about 200 systems!) has released his 5th such game, including for the Coco/Dragon. This one is called Cross Horde:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159174048462641/

Download links for all 5 of his universal games, and the Cross Lib hardware abstraction layer library:

 https://github.com/Fabrizio-Caruso/CROSS-LIB 

4) Jim Gerrie has made some aesthetic changes to his MC-10 port of the Computing Now! Poker game:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3858163537643773/

In the comments, he also shows an update to his checkers game, changing the colors of the pieces a little, and improving the AI. He also has some alternative color sets for the Poker game.

5) Robert Sieg posted a poll in the MC-10 Facebook group for what games that Jim Gerrie has made or ported should be on a proposed "Jim's Gone Gold" LP (a real 12" LP similar in concept to the flexi-disc that Rainbow did back in their July 1983 issue):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3856655424461251/

Custom LP details:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/permalink/3856634157796711/

6) A new (to me, anyways) YouTube channel, "Old School Games & Stories", where he talks about his first ever video game system - The Coco 2:

 https://youtu.be/0Pgx8xLW4qU

7) Jason Vectrex on YouTube posted a video of TRS-80 pickups he just got, including an assortment of Coco game cartridges:

 https://youtu.be/S02AfGbn4ss

8) Cuthbert Dragon has continued to be active with his Dragon gameplay videos on real hardware, including some we may not have seen before, including Tube Way Army (A Scramble clone), and Trun (a Tron clone I have definitely not seen before):

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

9) Retromantra has done a video comparing some clones (or derivatives) of Donkey Kong from various systems, including Donkey King on the Coco:

 https://youtu.be/kOD-Pic9LdE

10) ROBOS on YouTube did another "Dragon games that start with " video, this time starting with "D" (Decathlon is not Olympic Decathlon, but a collection of 10 mini games). Carrera is another new one to me (near the end):

 https://youtu.be/NUpzXniCV4o