News stories for Episode 222, July 24, 2021 show

News stories for Episode 222, July 24, 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):

 (use local file mrdave6309_update_scrollvideo.mp4, copied from Discord)

4) Sheldon MacDonald, our guest from last week, has some sample images from his GUI that he is adding to his PSG program selection menu:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159358770397641/

5) Antonio Carlos Jimenez Ely posted some promotional material from a computer desk system his father created 35 years ago. He had created his own promotional material for it - which clearly shows a Coco system with disk drives, monitor, and a printer:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159363479227641/

6) Andrew Ayers posted a file to the Coco Facebook group that is a conversion of an original GWBASIC (for the IBM PC) program that draws a 3D Space Shuttle (screenshot in the comments):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159363131722641/

7) Guillaume Major posted an update about the Color Computer Archive supporting online XRoar (to run Coco 1/2/Dragon emulation online in a browser) in the Safari browser in OSX now (previously it did not work in Safari):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159362494197641/ 

8) Ken over at Canadian Retro Things has posted a 2nd video of his trying out NitrOS-9/EOU, showing some of it's multi-tasking capabilities, some keyboard shortcuts in GShell, and more:

 https://youtu.be/9VsqQgFOeJA

9) Richard Kelly has released version 4.00 of his Maze Making program in the Coco Facebook group. It now runs a bit faster, better displays for PMODE 3, and a new PMODE 2 option that will even run in a 16K machine (screenshots in the comments)

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159364653837641/

10) Pedro Pena has released a video showing the 37th beta update for the RGB to HDMI color matching code that brings it a *lot* closer to matching a real Coco 1/2 RF out. It handles the normal 8 colors, plus the extra red and oranges in the text color set 1, much better, and also improves the artifact colors. It's getting pretty close:

 https://youtu.be/uaO6_TCbIe8

11) Also on the RGB to HDMI boards - Aaron Newcomb, who was our guest recently and has made YouTube videos showing the board in action, now has 15 of the boards for sale, and in a variety of configurations. Tim Lindner notes that an additional chip needs to be soldered on the analog board to use on a Coco 3):

 https://retrohackshack.com/product/rgbtohdmi/

MC-10

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1) Brendan Donahe posted that the CocoVGA video hardware upgrade, thanks to some pioneering work by John Linville, Simon Jonassen and Darren Atkinson, now works on the MC-10 *including* the enhanced graphics modes (he did have it working previously, but only as a VGA output adapter, due to there being no software access to VSYNC in the MC-10, unlike the Coco or Dragon). From my understanding, it uses the hardware timer interrupt in the 6803, combined with the user helping select when VSYNC happens, to time it properly. He posted some screenshots including mixed color set 32x16, and the full 64x32 screen in all of it's glory:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4079269558866502/

He has also released a video showing it:

 https://youtu.be/6dPfEhJ-f4w

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 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/

3) Mat Recardo posted some pictures of his 3D-modeling the Dragon 32:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/2955426794716970/

4) Tom Erik Gundersen posted some photos of original Dragon equipment that he had stored at his summer place in Sweden. Including the rarer 2nd gen. Dragon joysticks, and a dust cover: (note, in the comments, is a picture from Mike Miller showing the very 1st gen, which apparently was poorly made and very rare nowadays)

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/2954437421482574/

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

The also released this months Coco Show to YouTube, reviewing Color Baseball:

 https://youtu.be/x5v_5ndfouk

And lastly, their Amigathon (a fundraiser for the Children's Miracle Network Hospitals) runs for 24 hours starting today, including Stevie and me doing an hour of Coco gaming at 10 PM EST tonight. Promo and current fundraising:

 http://amigathon.com

Channel that the 24 hour live show will be streamed on:

 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), Tetris (with cool semi-graphics tricks), Wild West Destiny (graphical adventure), Yumping Yosser, Strip Poker (I think in German?).

 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

6) Steve Bamford (Who will be on our Dragon Talk Special on August 14), release a blog style post and video update to his upcoming Circe's Island game: (load video off of my desktop that came from Discord, Circes Island channel has the text description)

7) Glen Hewlett has now made further progress on his Joust transcode to the Coco 3, and posted a blog explaining how he is using Einar Saukas' ZXO compression (And Doug Masten's (of The Contras fame) Coco decompression routine to help load larger programs and data that still fit on a single disk. The blitter engine isn't quite done yet, so there are some graphics glitches, and it's a little slow (no compiled sprites yet), but it does run 3 of the attract demo screens:

 https://nowhereman999.wordpress.com/2021/07/18/joust-on-the-coco-3-update-now-plays-demo-screen/

Video demo:

 https://youtu.be/oS53gbehQGk

8) Speaking of Joust... Erico Patricio Monteiro shared some screenshots and animations of a Windows based cross of Buzzard Bait and Pegasus and the Phantom Riders that he is doing... but he has specifically designed the graphics and palette to work on a Coco 3 as well, targeted for a 160x120 screen. He is wondering if any programmers would like to tackle a native Coco 3 version of it, with graphics assets supplied:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159354807312641/

(Make sure to click the character GIF - it animates)

9) Carlos Camacho posted a photo of the Deluxe Competition Joystick (Archer brand, which was one of Radio Shack's), which is pistol grip type joystick advertised as working on many older game consoles (Atari 2600 & Sears Video Arcade) and home computers (Atari 400/800, Vic20, C64, NEC PC-6001). The odd thing is is that the Coco is not mentioned as being compatible... yet the photo on the box clearly shows the Coco game MegaBug:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159359412177641/ 

10) Nick Marentes has a new video showing graphics, sound and level design advancements for his upcoming Coco 3 Zero Hour game. This will the base for his upcoming blog post, but you get to see (and hear!) a sneak peek here:

 https://youtu.be/Kam22vC-g6A