News stories for Episode 256, April 2, 2022

News stories for Episode 256, April 2, 2022

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

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1) Ken @ Canadian Retro Things has put up his 3rd BASIC09 tutorial video, this time covering variables and loops:

 https://youtu.be/R7n2a63hJE8

2) Ron Klein announced a MAME update to version 0.242 for the Coco-Pi project. This features a test patch that is not part of the current mainstream MAME build that was done by Tim Lindner, and he would like some feedback on it. His patch is to improve MAME's handling emulation of the high res joystick interface by Tandy:

 https://coco-pi.com/new-mame-0-242-package-available-for-coco-pi/

3) Related is that Tim answered a question by John Murpny on the Coco Facebook group about an update to the IMGTOOL utility that comes with MAME as of 0.242. It will now let you create a DECB or OS9 formatted disk image with just command line options; no need to create the image and then manually format it from the emulator:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159826810277641/

4) Glenside has posted the schedule for this year's CocoFest on it's website:

 https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest-schedule/

They are also starting to update the list of speakers as they are finalized:

 https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest-speakers/

5) Michael Furman posted a video showing how to run NitrOS-9/EOU on the Glenside IDE controller hard drive system in MAME:

 https://youtu.be/I30nTjilZfA

Not completely Coco related, but of interest, Mikey also posted a video about emulation the SWTPC 6800 system, including running FLEX 2.0 on it (this is a 6800 based system that predated the Coco 1 itself, from the late 1970's).

 https://youtu.be/1HHp4ovQaAI

6) Robert Sieg has continued working on Coco 3 artifact colors, but I won't show any screenshots as he mentions in his latest post that "vertical artifacts can destroy a picture", and that "I already have a new method coming". So I will save showing screenshots until the new method version is out. :-)

7) Robert Gault released a little graphics drawing demo using high res symmetrical patterns, which he put up for download in the Coco Facebook group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159824712832641/

He also posted some videos on Facebook to show what they look like running:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159824629317641/

8) Episode 82 of the Coco Crew is out, featuring a review of Zero Hour, a discussion on whether the Coco 3 is actually rare, and a tech discussion on MIDI & MIDI cabling:

 http://cococrew.org

9) Erico Patricio Monteiro posted on the Coco Facebook group that he is back working on his game project - and mentions something that hits me quite often as well - getting back into a project after a length of time, and having to "re-learn" what you have done and what direction you are going. I totally agree with his line: "A reminder to never pause a project in the middle of a hard logic stage":

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159820146122641/

10) Sheldon MacDonald posted on the Coco Facebook group that He has gotten his Sega Genesis gamepads working with the CocoPSG (from Ed Snider). It even supports *all* the buttons on the controller (up to 8!), and will detect which port you plug one into, even if you hot swap on the fly. He uploaded the test program in the Coco Discord:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159818267612641/

11) Barry Nelson posted on Facebook the link to his Github MAME fork that fixes sound for some Coco 3 games like Rampage & Arkanoid (he also fixed the TRS-80 Model 4 to boot Model 4 disks). The base MAME version will be a bit older than the current one, but will for sure be stable with these changes, even over multiple platforms:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159817681877641/

12) Evie's Revue channel on YouTube put up a video showing that she has gotten full disk support working for the Tandy Color Computer 2&3 in her cross-platform cassette/disk mounting hardware (the BackBit Pro Cartridge we showed a month or so ago). She had previously showed it working for cassette loading, but had not realized how much disk software the Coco series has. This now works with DSK format files, for both reading and writing. She does a quick demo running numerous games:

 https://youtu.be/ZTTrGgJpYAg

13) Martian Tech on YouTube released the follow up video to finish fixing up the Coco 2 he received and showed in a previous video that wasn't working, using his HP 1631D Logic Analyzer. Turned out to be bad RAM (bit stuck on), that was not caught in his earlier testing:

 https://youtu.be/UE-0JlApisI

14) Tech Tangents II posted a video on YouTube (from his original live Twitch stream) where had picked up a CRT TV at Goodwill - for free - and then tests it with a Coco 1 - the 64K melted keyboard version:

 https://youtu.be/rlBCaqtExcs

MC-10

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1) Fabrizio Caruso, who we have mentioned a few times on the show over the last few years, for his cross-platform engine he uses for making games on over 30 different kinds of systems including the MC-10, posted at first a question, and then the resulting answer he wanted, for producing simple short sound effects on the MC-10. He also posted a link to his github that covers the whole project:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4870766203050163/

2) Greg Hamilton posted a link to an Atari Age post about the Inufto engine (that is used to make all the cross platform games we have seen on about 30 different machines, including the Coco and MC-10). This gives a lot of technical details that we didn't know about this engine before, including the fact that is a C style language (but not quite C, so something like CMOC?):

 https://atariage.com/forums/topic/327224-japanese-computer-games-by-inufuto/page/2/?tab=comments&

Dragon 32/64

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1) Julian Brown posted a photo of some of his Dragon 32 revised RAM upgrade boards for the Dragon 32. This version supports a variety of RAM chip variations. Sounds like he might still have a little more revising before it becomes a final design:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3140635899529391/

2) John Whitworth posted an update on his duplicating the Dragon Beta (dual CPU / MMU / OS-9 based Dragon that never got past the prototype stage at Dragon Data). He goes through some of the things he had to track down to fix, and how Phil Harvey-Smith has been working on additional boards (PS/2 to Dragon Beta keyboard interface, SRAM replacement board, 26W to 34W floppy interface board, and 512K expansion card). He has a short video, showing it booting up to the date prompt for OS-9 Level 2 Version 1.2 (the Dragon 128 version) (at this point he didn't have a keyboard hooked up yet). He did add some screenshots of it running in 80 column mode after he hacked a keyboard to work on it:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3140018639591117/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) The latest Japanese cross platform game released from Inufuto is called Ascend, and is now out for the Coco & MC-10 for download (32K RAM required on the Coco, and 20K on the MC-10), including demo videos. Download links:

 http://inufuto.web.fc2.com/8bit/ascend/#coco

Video (direct link): Coco:

 https://youtu.be/UlntVypw1eQ

MC-10:

 https://youtu.be/0sDQsCXgWTU