News stories for Episode 221, July 17, 2021 show

News stories for Episode 221, July 17, 2021 show:

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

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1) Nik Brisevac has posted some photos of his progress on his custom Coco 1 system - including upgrading to Extended BASIC, his custom tiny keypad with joystick mods, etc. A RAM upgrade is next, and then the MiniMPI and SDC:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159347708962641/

2) Steve Batson shows off his Retro Lab, prominently featuring his Coco 3, MC-10 and Tano Dragon (amongst others). Beautifully done:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159344943407641/

3) MrDavey6309 has a couple of Coco 3 hardware scrolling demo videos: One in BASIC:

 https://youtu.be/bxv5OJKNgcc

And ML (not totally finished yet):

 https://youtu.be/nC-wsVaQluM

MC-10

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1)

Dragon 32/64

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1) Tony Vincent posted about a prototype board for the Dragon that he is working on, and what he is thinking of using it for, in the Dragon Facebook group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/2952399875019662/

2) Tony Jewell (who will be one of our many guests on August 14th's DragonTalk) posted on the Dragon Facebook group about some documentation for some Dragon/Coco hardware sold in the early 1980's by a company called Andtek, that I have not seen before. A 6 slot multipak style device (I have seen these from other companies at the time), and a special disk controller for FLEX that included on board RAM are both shown:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/2954103704849279/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) Jim Gerrie released I Ching for the MC-10, based on William Mari & Denis Duhr's 1980 BASIC version on the ZX-81's original French version:

 https://youtu.be/G4vEN0UJpL0

He also posted something a bit different - a Chevrolet splash screen for the MC-10?

 https://youtu.be/sDMF_anpW6c

And also Space Taxi - a port of a Neil Dewhurst authored game for the Sinclair ZX81 from Sync Magazine, October 1982 (and not related to the more modern game of the same name):

 https://youtu.be/s_dHaal_Ns4

Jim also announced that one of his 10 line games came in second the "ASCII 10 Liner Basic Jam". It's a Missile Command style game called Defender: Announcement:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4058899604236831/

His game entry on itch.io:

 https://jgerrie.itch.io/defender-10-liner-game-for-itchiio-game-jam-2021

2) Allen Huffman posted a link to a YouTube video that goes through the history of Star Trek based games from 1971 on, leading up to the Atari 2600 version. During the course of the video, the author shows a lot of different derivatives on mini computers, older home game consoles, and older home computers. Two versions for the Coco are shown - Tom Mix's version, and Star Trek III from Adventure International (There are many, many other versions on the Coco than these two):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159347257767641/

Coco Tom Mix version shown starting at 12:56:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wOzdSevfio

Adventure International version is shown at 18:24

3) The Amigos have released FrodoNL's "First Years of the Tandy Color Computer" video on YouTube (it was previously only available on Twitch), which (for the most part) covers games from 1980-1981:

 https://youtu.be/gePQJez8qJw

Of special note is that the live taping of The Coco Show for next month's episode (covering PitStop II) will be recorded tomorrow on their Twitch channel, around 4 pm. They are also recording their other monthly shows (Our Sinclair, 1200XL and Ask the Amigos that day as well, so they are broadcasting live from 3 PM until at least 5:30 PM.

 https://www.twitch.tv/amigosretrogaming

4) Cuthbert Dragon release some more Dragon gameplay videos, including: Crusader, Alien Blitz (a BASIC game loosely based on City Bomber?), Maurice Minor (racing game) and Utopia (Xevious style, with some multi-voice music at the end), Droids, Bug Diver (which has gameplay somewhat similar to Shark Treasure).

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

5) Ben Manuel on YouTube is working on a simple dungeon game for the Coco 1/2, and he has put up a short video showing how he taught his game to "see" his randomly generated walls. As he moves his white square around, walls that he is in contact with light up:

 https://youtu.be/UWjvOFo8UMg