News stories for Episode 252, March 5, 2022

News stories for Episode 252, March 5, 2022

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

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1) Retrorewind.ca not only has a promo code for CocoTalk viewers for 10%, but also a special notice on Twitter that 10% of all sales between March 2 and 18th will be donated to the Red Cross and UNHRC to help refugees from Ukraine:

 https://twitter.com/retrorewindca/status/1499211652633448449

2) Canadian Retro Things (Ken Waters) has put up part 2 of his video series "You've got a CocoSDC, Now What?" on YouTube. Here he talks about the AGD collections, and does a demonstration of Mire Mare that we talked about last week:

 https://youtu.be/TSJh82x-Ivk

3) Mike Rayburn on Facebook posted a picture of the new PS/2 Joystick/Mouse adaptor that he is making. It also works with the high res joystick interface. He will be selling some pre-manufactured and says that once he recoups his costs he will make the source code and gerbers available on Github, and the case files on thingiverse.

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159779458452641/

4) Richard Kelly uploaded an updated version (v0.9) of his Memory Mirror memory dump utility to the Coco Facebook group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159779240322641/

5) The Coco Crew released Episode 81 of their podcast. Neil reviews Rick Adam's Cocodle, the tech segment is about errors in schematics, and they had a rather controversial discussion on whether they think membership in the Glenside Color Computer Club:

 http://cococrew.org

6) Computer Hobbyists channel on YouTube has a rather interesting project, which is meant to be completed by the viewer: Porting Dale Lear's Doubleback to a modern machine (using Monogame, on a Mac in this case. Monogame is an open source C# framework to make games for multiple modern platforms) Some gameplay type demo near the end:

 https://youtu.be/KMjePmjiluc

7) Andy Smith-Comic Artist on YouTube did a deep dive into the artwork of two of the Superman / Radio Shack comic books, from a comic artist perspective. The 2nd one (with Supergirl) has a full page, full color ad for the 4K Coco 1 for only $399:

 https://youtu.be/HbW9FtUUcEg?t=1364

MC-10

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1) Greg Hamilton posted a video on the MC-10 Facebook group showing an update to his routine that we showed last week (which did vertical scrolling in assembly), where he has added horizontal scrolling as well:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4795574343902683/  

2) Jim Gerrie posted up a video done on his MC-10 in support of Ukraine (we have a very large Ukrainian population where I live, and I have multiple Ukrainian inlaws, so this hit home with me):

 https://youtu.be/0F6qwQ-gpE0

Dragon 32/64

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1) John Whitworth has posted pictures of the 5 prototype boards he ordered to duplicate the prototype Dragon Beta business system to the Dragon Facebook group (see in comments where he puts the first chips on it to start testing):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3120861861506795/

2) John Whitworth also posted up a picture in the Dragon Facebook group showing the complete Dragon Beta characters set - all 512 characters (colors may not be accurate, but the font is). It includes many more graphics characters, control characters, etc. compared to the standard VDG font. It even has 4 special characters that spell a stylized "Beta" (see upper right corner, and a comment that shows it printing white on black):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3118315255094789/

3) Adrians Digital Basement on YouTube did an unboxing of some stuff he received as donations from Norway - including a Dragon 32. He didn't get a chance to test that particular computer on the video, so expect a follow up video later:

 https://youtu.be/DXOP0uP5P60

4) Retro Tech Repair on YouTube did an episode following up on a Dragon 32 he did an initial repair on earlier, where he got it working, but now he is finishing up the job (including fixing a crack in the case, and upgrading the Dragon 32 to fully use the 64K RAM he installed previously):

 https://youtu.be/dSXigIK3R58

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) Pere Serrat has released a patch for the MireMare AGD game (the one with special, extra machine language routines) that fixes the joystick not working properly (which was reported to him by Steve Bamford, but also noted by Ken Waters of Canadian Retro Things in his latest CocoSDC video). He also added the ability to abort the music at the beginning by hitting the Break key:

 https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11013

2) Pere Serrat & Kees van Oss have also the last of the new 6 pack AGD games for the regular Dragons & Coco's, pack # 53 (this now is over 300 AGD games that run on a Coco or Dragon):

 https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11014

Donkey Kong Reloaded Again Forward to the Past Mabus Mania Mega Manic Mulholland Monty - The Last Strike The Man with the Golden Joystick

3) Paul Shoemaker is working on his Coco 3 Freecell game that we have showed before, but he is simultaneously working on a Coco 1/2 (and Dragon, I presume) version as well, and has put up a video showing the animated title screen on the Coco group on Facebook:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159776330067641/

4) Rick Adams has released yet another bugfix / update to COCOdle (The Wordle port to the Coco 3), which you can get at his Github (link in his Facebook posting):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159771896592641/

5) Erico Patricio Monteiro has posted some more low res animations for his game, including his boss generator (note: some other ones in the comments, which include gameplay with sound):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159770640577641/

6) Both Steve Bamford and Ken Waters provide some gameplay videos of the AGD MireMare game we mentioned last week (with extra features from regular AGD games). Since Ken's video covers other subjects and will be mentioned in the regular news, I thought that I would show some of the gameplay video from Steve here. This is the "regular" Dragon/Coco version... I would still love to see a video of it playing with the SuperSprite FM+ board.

Also, Steve Bamford gave some history and background on the game, and the long road it's taken to coming to existence:

 "I heard Mire Mare mentioned on last week's show and imagined not much is known about the game outside of Europe.
 During the mid 80's Ultimate Play the Game released a slew of hits for the ZX Spectrum. Among them was a collection of titles known as the Sabreman series.
 Underwurlde, the second in the series has three separate exits, each naming another game. The first exit names Knight Lore, which was released at the same time as Underwurlde. The second names Pentagram, which surfaced in 1986. The third exit names Mire Mare, which was expected, but never saw the light of day. 
 Also, upon completion of Knight Lore and Pentagram the player is shown poems which conclude "go forth to Mire Mare" and "Your adventure continues in Mire Mare." respectively.
 Various theories circulate regarding Mire Mare's existence. The official line is that it was unfinished (still in the design stage) and subsequently canceled by US Gold who had bought a stake in Ultimate at this point. A more popular theory is that the game was finished but hidden away after US Gold appeared less interested in publishing new Ultimate material.
 An interview conducted on the Ultimate World website states clearly that the game was completed, and that even the artwork was prepared. An ex-employee even claims to have played it however, to this day Mire Mare remains a mystery.
 Land of Mire Mare, the AGD game converted by Pere, is described as a tribute inspired by Mire Mare and characters from Ultimate's golden era."

(show local MireMare.mp4 video)