News stories for Episode 243, January 1, 2022

News stories for Episode 243, January 1, 2022

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

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1) Inspired by a dot plot demo that Simon Jonassen put up a few weeks ago, Glen Hewlett (of transcoding fame) did an even further optimized one, showing a dot plotted Death Star animated over a static 16 color background. He wrote a blog post about the technique, and put a video up showing it in action:

 https://nowhereman999.wordpress.com/2021/12/18/coco-3-3d-pixel-animation-and-how-to-see-how-much-cpu-usage-is-being-used-per-frame/
 https://youtu.be/Oyn_jbAeZzc

2) Retro Tech Time (Terry Steege) has put up a commercial for the upcoming May 2022 Chicago area CocoFest, including that announcement that this year, admission is free:

 https://youtu.be/4Em16qJ3Wx0

3) Kevin Phillipson & Michael Rywalt (and now Boisy Pitre, who recently joined the development) have released a video update on their pipelined 6809 ISA implementation "Turbo9" that we covered some months ago when it was at a much earlier stage, with benchmarks vs. regular 6809's as well as PicoRV32 RISC-V (which is a competitor for smaller microcontrollers):

 https://youtu.be/8ScT86RKopQ

4) Allen Huffman posted a blog about his tackling of the Logicker Vintage Computing Challenge (that we showed last week, with entries from Jim Gerrie and others:

 https://subethasoftware.com/2021/12/20/tackling-the-logiker-vintage-computing-christmas-challenge-2021/

He also put up a couple of videos about doing bit manipulation in BASIC, following up on his method of figuring out values for setting and clearing multiple bits in previous episodes.

 https://youtu.be/gK_dgUqL6Ps

The 2nd is about doing bit shifting in BASIC:

 https://youtu.be/5UA61xKYO9s

5) 48KRAM on Twitch did a 3 hour live Twitch stream demonstrating some Christmas programs (demos, music, games, etc.) for a variety of retro 8 bit computers, including his Coco 3 (at 51:00)

 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1239959490

6) AC's 8-bit Zone has the next installment of his Sprite series - this time covering his new FPGA sprite board, and including a PacMan demo written for it:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVyaIvrRV0A

7) The Coco Crew released their December episode (#79), which includes Neil's announcement (and review) of Ciaran's new GMC cartridge version Blockdown (a modern Tetris clone), that Ciaran was kind enough to preview on our last show a couple of weeks ago, and you can now order (We will provide details in the Game segment). Boisy Pitre, in his history segment, covers Elite Calc, an advanced spreadsheet for the Coco back in the day (and one of the few that supported the 80 column cards sold by Tandy and PBJ), and the host discussion was about getting projects funded via Patreon, Gofundme, etc.). The highlight for me was John Linville's tech segment on VLSI (based on Roger's GIME deconstruction project), as he has a far better understanding of it than I do. Well worth a listen. cococrew.org

8) Alfred Santos posted some pictures of his old Coco's that he dug out of his attic, including older 4K Coco 1's:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159665189292641/

(on this one, expand the comments for further pictures):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159665080947641/

9) Brian Schubring released both a video and the Ultimuse file for playing "Carol of the Bells" via MIDI from the Coco 3:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159660570872641/

Download:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159660652512641/

10) Rick Adams & D. Bruce Moore released a re-mixed version of Nightmare Highway (hopefully one or both or on to talk about it):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159659039137641/

11) Simon Jonassen released the sourcecode for his "infinite bobs" demo on the Coco Facebook page:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159658499617641/

and the video showing it off:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159658270427641/

12) John Linville posted a short video playing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" performed on the GMC cartridge (sorry it's a little late):

 https://youtu.be/ol70RP_ktOo

13) The Taylor and Amy Show (This is brand new to me!) did a video of upgrading a Coco 2 from 16K to 64K RAM, and then play a "riveting game" of Math Bingo. Definitely a video they had fun making!:

 https://youtu.be/YIoH6cON8DQ

14) NML32 on YouTube posted a video using the the first alpha release of the free Coco 3 core for the MiSTer (based on Gary Becker's workO, and show it running Ultimaterm - and actually calls a BBS and send a tweet as part of the test:

 https://youtu.be/QIJqLXn0QLQ

15) Color Computer Programming on YouTube has released a couple more BASIC programming videos over the holidays, including moving a spider using GET/PUT, and a 2021 Christmas graphic demo:

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

MC-10

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1) For those looking for a replacement MC-10 power supply (for North American NTSC MC-10's), John Linville posted about a Jameco one that works and can still be bought:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4562279577232162/

Dragon 32/64

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1) One of our regular viewers, Tom Erik Gundersen, managed to procure an early Dragon 32 (serial #388) from Ebay:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3074878216105160/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) Sheldon MacDonald released a new video showing his progress on his Ice Brawlers game, which now includes things like scoring and carrying the puck around

 https://youtu.be/t82EtjgeNQE

2) Jim Gerrie posted video of Demon Attack by Charles Pelosi... but compiled with Greg Dionne's BASIC compiler on the MC-10:

 https://youtu.be/DyLyn78DScg

He also release Tank (Search and Capture) which was originally from a book called "Advanced Graphics for the TRS-80". The video even includes game play between Jim and his son Charlie:

 https://youtu.be/e0tPuDvdnnw

Jim is also working on converting Taz's "Dropship" game to work with only regular Color BASIC, vs. requiring MCX BASIC upgrades. He has a work in progress video of his efforts, as well as current sourcecode on his Github. Video:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4567887526671367/

Source code:

 https://github.com/jggames/trs80mc10/tree/master/quicktype/Arcade/Dropship

3) Speaking of the MC-10, there is apparently an ML Frogger game (with source!) also made in Japan (scroll down for screenshots). If Google Translate is accurate, it's a port from a machine called the "Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy" that is very similar to the MC-10, and is a work in progress, I believe:

 https://tms9918.hatenablog.com/

There is a very brief "progress video" by the same author on YouTube:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DuFrHwOagU

4) Chris Hawkins of Chris's Retro Corner continued his "10 day Christmas Countdown" of Dragon games, this week producing games 3 to 11 (11 being a bonus from his originally planned 10): Leggit:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pc0BWe-O7Y

Devil Assault:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMweI1g240I

Cosmic Crusaders:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OHi-2vkg18

Planet Invasion:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKjcI0gr9sg

Flagon Bird:

 https://youtu.be/LldAevUFaCI

Shock Trooper:

 https://youtu.be/dVorDvuU794

Dungeon Raid:

 https://youtu.be/lcUZJPOOXEU

Airball:

 https://youtu.be/cOaACf71Yic

Bonus episode (not a game): the semi-graphics Dragon Pepper demo:

 https://youtu.be/lcUZJPOOXEU

5) James Jones put up a Google doc showing his conversion of the 1K ZX-81 BASIC game to BASIC09, and the steps he took to convert it:

 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CTIvi9sPrOZRMu4V3Cpu11zxUp7W1POjzYN1qbdv4us/mobilebasic

6) Pere Serrat announced that AGD game pack #43 is available, with 6 new games:Elon M with the Jetpack, and 5 games that are part of the Funky Fungus Reloaded series (Worlds 1-4 and Boss Level):

 http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10990

Also, on schedule, is pack #44 with 6 more new games Get the Vaccine, Gherkin's Christmas Carnage, Gnoni 2020, and a triple pack based on a single character - Jet Pack John, Jet Pack Neo (demo) & Jet Pack Neo (slow):

 http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=24292#p24292

Pere has also started releasing his "monthly updates", where you can get every pack released up since the beginning until the end of the current month, in case you are new and haven't gotten previous releases. December 2021's Big Pack (2.7) has 249 games:

 http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10993

7) Paul Shoemaker put up an update video on his progress with the Dragon version of his Poker Squares game:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159657671487641/

He also has the PMODE 1 version available for download and testing:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159658579922641/

8) Paul Thayer has put up VLOG #5 about his upcoming CocoBan game:

 https://youtu.be/7me1w39DgxY

9) Neil Blanchard officially announced the GMC cartridge version of Ciaran Anscombs's Blockdown (that he previewed for us last episode), and it is on sale now:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159660734472641/

10) Tim Lindner and his sister AJ, have done another episode of Sibling Rivalry, where they play Pitstop II head to head:

 https://youtu.be/FfGTjoKDdIg

11) Spanish YouTube channel LardDeus does a gameplay video/review of Dino Wars:

 https://youtu.be/x7fy4-Gl1JU

12) Retro PC from Japan has released another new ML game for the MC-10 and Coco called LIFT:

 https://youtu.be/gwcox6ePAg4
 http://inufuto.web.fc2.com/8bit/lift/#mc10