News stories for Episode 245, January 15, 2022

News stories for Episode 245, January 15, 2022

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

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1) For me, the most anticipated episode of Boisy Pitre's "The Coco Collector" series on YouTube was going to be his rundown on the "Coco 4" case (that appeared in the book he co-wrote with Bill Loguidice) - and it's finally out. Some never before revealed details in this one, including showing the slightly damaged sticker on the back that seems to indicate that at least the bottom part of the case is from November of 1984:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRT124IwVYI

2) John Linville posted on Facebook about Tandy 1000/Coco Joystick tester hardware he has been working on, including a photo of the first prototype board:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1606095809633762/posts/3078071332436195/

3) Brian Wieseler posted some photos of Coco joysticks from CH Products that he has gotten - a Flight Stick and a Mach II. I can't say that I am familiar with the company?

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159690489017641/

4) Alfredo Santos posted a picture that he got from the book "The MC6809 Cookbook", written in 1980 by Carl D. Warren. It shows a TRS-80 Model 1 style case with a Coco chiclet style keyboard on it, with a note that seems to indicate it was an earlier prototype of the Coco 1? Has anybody seen this before?

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159688426852641/

5) James Jones posted a video showing the program listing and speed differences for the "Eight Queens Problem", programmed in both Coco3 BASIC and in BASIC09:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/posts/3035222353407355/

Video direct link:

 https://youtu.be/KhxR9jkBPCQ

6) Our own Steve Strowbridge will be a guest on another retro podcast tomorrow at 8:00 PM eastern, called Retro Repair Roundup (episode #4). I believe that they will be going through current hardware support for the Coco line; is that correct, Stevie? (pass on to Steve)

 https://youtu.be/Ss9EOPXO_qk

MC-10

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1) Robert Sieg posted a video to the Facebook MC-10 group (and YouTube) about some tips for using the MC-10 assembler, and with the MCX-128. He updates his graphical font program during the video as well:

 https://www.facebook.com/robert.sieg.94/videos/1139783863460811/

Video:

 https://youtu.be/X7nWkeCMtfk

Earlier, before this patch, he posted some photos of the graphical font he making (which even includes upper/lowercase & Coco style graphics blocks) (show the last one in the comments for the most up to date version):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4626095120850607/

The cassette image of the font program (Full Screen Project) is also available for download from the Facebook group in C10 format.

Dragon 32/64

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1) Mike Miller posted that Tony Jewell published an article in a new print magazine called "PIXEL ADDICT" about the Dragon:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3084265131833135/

The Magazine's website:

 https://www.pixel.addict.media

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) Jim Gerrie released 2 longer play videos of his MC-19 implementation of Simple-5 Heuristic Chess (originally by Mark Watson for the Apple II's original Integer BASIC (by Woz)). There is no wrong move detection at this point, so it depends on the players honesty in that respect:

 https://youtu.be/m7vrVTq1WFk

He also recoded a text adventure game (originally for the Compukit UK1010 computer) for the MC-10, called "Galactic Hitchhiker", which he also wrote a blog post about:

 https://jimgerrie.blogspot.com/2022/01/galactic-hitchhiker-by-knight-1980.html

2) After a long break (around a year), Marlin Lee has returned with some Coco Game play videos over the last 2 weeks. He has been "sneaking in" these videos, as his job has potentially been having him working 7 days a week. The games include: Android Attack by Spectral Associates:

 https://youtu.be/7zCoKwtGgpU

Rommel-3D:

 https://youtu.be/iVLrJHB0GHA

Time Patrol:

 https://youtu.be/-UZT6e7X85c

Fury:

 https://youtu.be/995Z7kFODUc

3) Trey Tomes uploaded a video (and GitHub link) to the Coco Facebook group showing VDG text mode "Rogue Lite" game, a work in progress:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159690916702641/

GitHub BASIC listing:

 https://gist.github.com/treytomes/4e23306684c8edc99b4df236b54fe18d

4) Paul Shoemaker, currently working on the Dragon version of his game Poker Squares, got a mousepad made as well:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159688930187641/

5) Cuthbert Dragon rebooted his Dragon gameplay videos on his YouTube channel (starting about a month ago), making each video 1 minute long, showing gameplay on real hardware and with the original cassette box and artwork as well (if possible):

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

6) Pere Serrat & Kees van Oss announced that AGD Games Pak #46 is available now for the Coco and Dragon. This pack features: Le llamaban Trinidad Lost Cavern Magic Able Moritz the Striker Mr Hair & the Fly Sprouty

 http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10997