News stories for Episode 236, October 30, 2021 show

News stories for Episode 236, October 30, 2021 show

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From the "Brothers interviewing Brothers" (Doug & Kevin Leany / Paul & Tim Thayer) - mention that Kevin can't make due to family medical issues, and ask for prayers from those inclined.Tentatively rescheduled for January 15.

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

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1) John Whitworth and Pere Serrat have uploaded more test software (and source code routines) for the Supersprite FM+ board, for both the Dragons and the Coco's, that are available on the DragonPlus Electronics site:

 https://www.dragonplus-electronics.co.uk/supersprite-fm-downloads/

2) Antonio Carlos Jimenez Ely Posted up pictures of his Pi400 in John Strong's new 3D printed case for it, including the two optional back plates (there were numerous other people who got them as well, this is just one photo that I first saw):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159521395717641/

3) Dale Francum posted a video showing the sharing of files between a Coco 3 and a Linux machine (using a Raspberry Pi 4 as the Drivewire host, I believe):

 https://youtu.be/h45mraKRLCU

4) I did some 6309 patches to Remi's 3D Texture map demo, which a few people tested. It seems to be working (and is somewhat noticeably faster when running side by side with the original 6809 version), and has been sent to Color Computer Archive, where it should show up over the next few days (if it hasn't already). Danni O'Connor also put up a video showing both versions side by side, with background music from her upcoming Pulse Eternal album:

 https://youtu.be/Tqa2e8UIATA

5) Ken @ Canadian Retro Things put up his fourth NitrOS-9/EOU tutorial video - "Customizing the Look". Ken and I will also be hosting a remote seminar for the upcoming CocoFest, entitled "NitrOS-9/EOU For Beginners", to help people new to the operating system, or getting re-aquainted with it and the changes done over the past 2 decades. This is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, November 6 at 10 AM Chicago time.

 https://youtu.be/UpkQRhDnhQE

6) Allen Huffman has posted his latest YouTube videos on Extended BASIC's Get/Put buffer deep dive series. In this episode, he gets into figuring the minimum DIM size required for different PMODE's Part 2:

 https://youtu.be/Hd8V6kgaL0g

Part 3:

 https://youtu.be/6XOmc5NjtMY

And a bit on VARPTR with GET/PUT:

 https://youtu.be/fnT2OQ-YTR4

7) Color Computer Programming put up a fair number of new videos about BASIC programming for the Coco:

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq8e7rmnX95GZuou36i0t5Q/videos

8) Michael Pittsley has uploaded the remaining Tandy multi-media programs (with real audio from tape mixed with graphics on the Coco 1/2) that he has had access to, with "Principles of Accounting" parts 1 to 16

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzSHCNWCsSDVsZEUDvDgE0g/videos

9) Tim Lindner is starting a new YouTube assembly language tutorial video series, called "Salient Assembly" and which will cover a specific assembly language topic each episode. The first episode covers subroutines:

 https://youtu.be/dxwmPFIUpLY

10) Pedro Pana put up a video of him testing Chris's (sloopy in our chat, and new host of our live Game On Challenge streams every Wednesday night) Drive Wirelessly board:

 https://youtu.be/DZklcaosHmc

He also posted 2 videos showing him testing his Pepper board revision 1, testing various aspects of the chip. There is still some issues with sound, but it's close:

 https://youtu.be/-PZM2CGa1yw
 https://youtu.be/1Up1ANTkjJg

11) Sonicstate.com (a site for musicians and audiophiles) released a video reviewing Audio Spectrum Analyzer (the original 1981 version), and they were very impressed of how accurate it is for being completely software:

 https://sonicstate.com/news/2021/10/19/a-1981-computer-spectrum-analyser/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+SonicstatecomNews+%28Sonicstate.com+News%29

12) Shane MacDonald has been working on some graphics rotations in assembly (with skewing) and put up some demos that will work on both a Coco 3 and a CocoVGA in a Coco 1/2. He still has optimizations to do:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159540845462641/

13) Alison Denu has posted 3 posts detailing her history with the Coco from 1980 until now, which is quite interesting reading: Part 1:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159536161672641/

Part 2:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159536305992641/

Part 3:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159536437067641/

14) Allen Huffman posted on Facebook that an update to the Cocopedia Wiki has been done to allow more full searching of the site:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159530115372641/

15) The later 1983 version of Audio Spectrum Analyzer has finally been dumped, so you can try it yourself form the Color Computer Archive (big thanks to Shawn Clayton!):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159528844482641/

MC-10

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1) In the Halloween spirit, Jim Gerrie released his little "Drac" Halloween demo:

 https://youtu.be/yFB3YOgsaH4

2) Ron Klein posted that the first version of XRoar (by Ciaran) with added MC-10 support is now available for testing on the CocoPi:

 https://coco-pi.com/new-xroar-package-is-available-0-37-1696-now-with-mc-10-support/

3) You can also try the MC-10 support in the online version of XRoar straight from Ciaran's website:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159529782507641/

Dragon 32/64

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1) John Whitworth posted on the Dragon Facebook group that the last batch of 15 Dragon Power Supply Unit boards are mostly finished. He also states that these are the last power supply boards he is planning to make; if you need one, order quickly!

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3023010377958611/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) The Coco Show by the Amigos has released episode 25 (Photon) on YouTube this week. They are also pre-taping the next show featuring Donut Dilemma on Sunday, October 24 around 4 PM Eastern, I believe, which you can watch live on Twitch (show up an hour earlier and you can also watch the pre-taping of their Our Sinclair and 1200XL shows as well). The game for the next show after that will be announced at the end of the taping:

 https://youtu.be/Q_GCuNWmIWk

2) vghchannel on YouTube put up reviewing Shamus on the Coco (using VCC). He gives it a 6/10, noting how slow it goes if the screen is busy, and the sound not being as good as some of the other platform versions. On the other hand, he does complete the game:

 https://youtu.be/5eA7PMYPOBI

3) Aaron Newcomb of Retro Hack Shack got his SepTandy video for Dungeons of Daggorath out (a little late, but it's worth it) - almost a full hour - as a celebration of his 1st year of being on YouTube:

 https://youtu.be/JZcI-3ELs4g

4) Glen Hewlett put up a new blog post about an interesting trick he found in the Robotron source code, to jump to a routine by using the stack:

https://nowhereman999.wordpress.com/2021/10/18/6809-assembly-neat-trick-to-jump-to-a-routine/

5) Paul Daniels posted up some photos of original "Baggie" games from the very early 1980's from major companies like Mark Data Products, Spectral Associates and Computerware:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159517215592641/

6) Brian Palmer found a typed in version of one of Craig Stewart's first ML games, which was from a 1987 Australian Coco magazine, called Dogfight, and uploaded it to the Facebook Coco group (and the archive). It's a two player/2 joystick game where two planes fly around and try to shoot each other, in PMODE 4.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159516868062641/

7) Robert Gault uploaded a patched version of DragonFire that is both patched to run on an NTSC Coco 3, and with a 6309:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159517641932641/

8) Frikkie Botha posted photos of the Dragon release of Mark Data Product's Cave Hunter that he rescued from a neighbor that was planning on just throwing out (feature artwork I haven't seen before):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3024493371143645/

9) Chris Poacher posted some photos of "Worlds of Flight" in the MicroDeal Facebook group, noting some differences on even the title between the cover/manual and the tape. It was also sold through Microdeal, but said Tom Mix Software on the tape (the original publisher in the U.S.). In the comments is some later versions of the tapes with the spelling corrected, Microdeal instead of Tom Mix, and both Dragon 32 and Tandy Colour versions of the tape:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/204334613785733/posts/865277377691450/

10) Dale Francum posted a video of Lunar Rover Patrol on the Coco 3 with the palette modifications to look more like an evening on the moon:

 https://youtu.be/MI8XqwcbSqA

11) Rob's Retro Rambles has done a video game play/review of Grid Runner for the Dragon 32. It did crash on him, though:

 https://youtu.be/6dzcsoaOfkU

12) AC's 8-bit Zone put up a video comparing sprites made on the Coco, Atari 800XL, TI-99/4A and C64, and comparing hardware sprites vs. software generated ones, and then getting into sprites in general on the Coco, using GET/PUT in BASIC, as part 1 of his sprite video series:

 https://youtu.be/cT_FB_8f3ps

13) David Mitchell (on his Davy's Retro Corner YouTube page) put up a video of gameplay for a game called Caterpiller typed in from the August 1984 Dragon User magazine (show both gameplay types in video):

  https://youtu.be/8Kb0LZ-J-TE

14) Joseph Quinn posted a video on Facebook showing his Launchbox front end (for MAME) of Coco art, screenshots and descriptions for a variety of Coco cartridges

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159536236772641/

15) Michael Strickland put up a video of a BASIC game that found on an old cassette from the 1980's. He suspects it's a type in from a magazine. Does anyone recognize it? (It reminds of "The Track" from Rainbow, but I don't think that is exactly the same).

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159534887052641/

16) John Kowalski (Sock Master) posted on Facebook about a port of Dungeons of Daggorath to the Vectrex home game system (which had vector graphics and a 1.5 MHz 6809)... a caveat is that it requires a VecFever cartridge - which is an ARM chip+RAM+Flash - to run:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159529613862641/