News stories for Episode 250, February 19, 2022

News stories for Episode 250, February 19, 2022

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

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1) Sheldon MacDonald has updated RSDOSTOOL to 2.15. It now has a cool new calculator, and fixes an issue with loading too much data using the disk library in assembly; it loaded 1 byte too many.

 https://www.softmotion3d.net/index.php?topic=2.0

2) Danny Rafferty in the Coco Facebook group shared a link to Tim Brannan's blog, where he restores a Coco 2 case given to him by his brother, and then proceeeds to install a Coco Pi into it, including lit up keyboard, many USB ports, etc. (he also installs multiple emulators on it, besides the Coco):

 https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/02/the-other-old-school-gaming.html

3) John Linville posted photos and a video on the Facebook group for a new board he has designed for autofire on joystick buttons, and planning on having Neil Blanchard manufacture them. It lets you turn the feature on or off, and adjust the speed of fire (he speculates that turning it up too high actually causes the Coco game he was testing (Star Blaze) to miss some of the button "presses". Looking at how it is hooked up now for testing, I am wondering how the final product will be installed:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159754735452641/

4) Alexander Sidorenko has completed his Coco 1+2 board, as he described it "after 3 months of work and struggle". He included pictures of the board, and it running Speed Racer:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159743773742641/

5) Evie's Revue on YouTube did a review the BackBit Pro Cartridge - a cartridge solution for twelve 8 bit computers. It comes with multiple plug adaptors to adapt to different machines, which she demonstrates on multiple machines (including a Coco 3 with Super Pitfall (in the wrong monitor setting) and Rampage). NOTE: She responded to my comment on her page, where I made her aware of the Color Computer archive and all of the other software available. Sounds like she is planning to expand the product to simulate disks as well, like it does on the Apple II, etc.:

 https://youtu.be/-V4XmkSOPcM

Order page:

 https://store.backbit.io/product/backbit-pro/

They are backordered currently (chip shortages, like everyone else), but it might be a good solution for people with a lot of retro hardware systems.

MC-10

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1) TJ Ferreira on Youtube, whom we covered unboxing an MC-10, has received his MCX-32SD from Ed Snider/Zippsterzone.com, and put up a a video with his experiences with it:

 https://youtu.be/HfaD1YqM5TA

Dragon 32/64

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1) User retrocant on the World of Dragon forums posted some photos and information on the DragonRGB board he is working on, which will allow RGB output from PAL and SECAM based Dragons, if I understand correctly).

 https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=10921&start=30

2) Jose Carballo posted a photo of a Dragon 200 (the ones made by Eurohard, I believe) he just aquired. Aside from have a bit of a case redesign, I didn't realize that it also added a power on LED that the original Dragon 64 didn't have:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3111404912452490/

3) Julian Brown posted photos and an update on his 64K RAM upgrade board for the Dragon to the Dragon Facebook group (this is for Mark II Dragon 32's):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3111135529146095/

4) John Whitworth of DragonPlus Electronics posted another update to his Dragon Beta duplication project:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3108971422695839/

5) Eyal Abraham on YouTube shows his Dragon 32 emulator running on a Raspberry Pi with some supporting hardware. He shows it running a ROM, and a couple of cassette images (including Ciaran's Blockdown):

 https://youtu.be/myU6uoYshhA

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) Dave Veary has an update on his Space Pirate Kimiko (#3), showing the new cockpit view:

 https://youtu.be/OYOAfzd4Kos

2) Pere Serrat has released the 2nd SuperSprite FM+ board enhanced AGD games pack (requires John Whitworth's SuperSprite FM+ board and a 6309). This one features 4 games; Aeon Parts 1 through 4:

 http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11008

Him and Kees van Oss also released the regular Dragon/Coco AGD Games Pack #51, with 6 more games: Little Dragon 2 Mystery Part II Mystery Part III The Day Before the Day the Earth Stood Still Three Octopuses ZXS Spyctrum Mission

 https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11009

3) Jim Gerrie did a port of Rick Adams Cocodle (a port of the super popular Wordle game) to the MC-10. In the screenshot, you can see Microdle on a standard MC-10 (requires 20K RAM MC-10, and has a 2,769 word list):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159755502937641/

And a video showing it in action:

 https://youtu.be/5l-gim5EYRc

And for those lucky enough to have the Darren Atkinson designed/Ed Snider manufactured MCX32-SD add on with the enhanced MCX BASIC version 3.1 or later installed, Darren himself made a graphics version, which he wrote a blog entry about (including download), which uses the MCX32-SD SD card features to have a full 13,000 word dictionary:

 https://mcxwares.blogspot.com/2022/02/following-herdle.html

Jim also ported Noughts and Crosses (Tic Tac Toe) from the "Dragon 32 Book of Games" by M. James, S.M. Gee and K. Ewbank to the MC-10:

 https://youtu.be/WCvcQXdzkhE

4) TJ Ferreira on YouTube released a followup video to his receiving an MC-10 MCX32-SD card, testing out PacMan and Flagon Bird on it (he also does a followup on his Timex Sinclair TS1000 (ZX-81) with game that uses it's own upgrade that adds SD support and sound). He gave me a shoutout after suggesting those games:

 https://youtu.be/G7uFREF9pVE

5) Darren Ottery released a video (no sound) of his MC-10 RiverRaid game (written in BASIC but them compiled with Greg Dionne's MC-10 BASIC compiler), and has it available for download from his Google drive (link in the Facebook post):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4750072381786213/

6) Ken of Canadian Retro Things (and our current Game On Challenge host) released a video showing both Coco 3 versions of Cocodle - Rick Adams more enhanced DECB version, and my current slightly out of date NitrOS9 version:

 https://youtu.be/7DTRTIf63SA

7) Amigo Aaron did an episode of a new show on their channel called "Magazine Rack" where they take a retro magazine from back in the day, and goes through. He goes through issue #1 of Electronic Fun with Computers & Games from 1982. I remember this particular issue myself - one of the features was going through the various 8 bit computer systems popular at the time, which included the Coco 1. Unfortunately they got the Model I/III mixed up with the Coco multiple times in the article, rendering it pretty well useless. No, I wasn't happy with it back then, either (specific article at 44:44):

 https://youtu.be/tsZ-vhoONHA

8) Alan from AC's 8 bit Zone Youtube channel, who popped onto our show at the end last week to tell us of a way to get very high scores in last week's game "Fighter Pilot", released a video showing it in action (skip to 0:28):

 https://youtu.be/u6fPo3nyvAM

9) Marlin Lee put up his game walkthrough of Mark Data Products Glaxxons game:

 https://youtu.be/URxpqiZQdOo

10) A Japanese YouTube page showed the Coco 1/2 Dragon 32/64 game Pengo's attract mode (including it's little music ditty, and showing the different graphics modes it can run in). For 10 whole minutes. It has some clicking in it I don't remember from the original Coco version.

 https://youtu.be/i5wehMOY2eM