News stories for Episode 258, April 16, 2022

News stories for Episode 258, April 16, 2022

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

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1) Jim Brain, president of Glenside, announced that their online club meetings will be switching to lower cost Zoom rather than Blue Jeans that they have used over the past few years:

 https://www.glensideccc.com/virtual-meeting-updates/

2) Sheldon MacDonald has uploaded a new version of his Sega Genesis diagnostics disk (this lets you read Atari, Sega Master System, & Sega Genesis 3 button & 6 button joysticks if you have the Zippsterzone.com PSG cartridge) to the Coco Facebook group. He also uploaded a video showing it:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159849351932641/

The video demonstrating it:

 https://youtu.be/AQbifh_PM24

3) Mike Rayburn has announce that his Coco PS/2 Mouse & PC 15 pin joystick adaptor is now available for sale through ebay. He is offering it both with a 3D printed case, or $10 cheaper without one. This allows the use of the PC mice and joysticks on a Coco that is fully compatible with Coco software, and even works if you plug it into the Tandy High res interface. He also put up a video showing what it does: Video:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159846809677641/

Ebay link with case:

 https://www.ebay.com/itm/CoCoPS-2-Mouse-And-Joystick-Adapter-w-case-/194980241047?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m2548.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0they

Ebay link for one without a case:

 https://www.ebay.com/itm/CoCoPS-2-Mouse-And-Joystick-Adapter-Without-Case-/194980243525?mkcid=16&mkevt=1&_trksid=p2349624.m2548.l6249&mkrid=711-127632-2357-0

And just today he posted an update, where he talks about getting a second order in over the next few weeks:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10159850617937641/

4) Jeff Hilb posted a photo of himself on his Coco 1 from February 1983 - from not long before he went to the very first Rainbowfest in Chicago April 22-24th:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159848223022641/

5) Allen Huffman posted a still from an episode of The Hardy Boys TV show from the 1980's, that includes several home computers of the time, including a Coco 1 (2nd from right):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159844970072641/

6) Grant Leighty posted an update on CocoFest coming up in a month. This includes updates on the Saturday night dinner options, the seminar speakers and more:

 https://www.glensideccc.com/cocofest-2022-update-time-is-running-out/


7) Foose Baller on YouTube showed his Coco 2 with both a composite video mod & CocoSDC (both from Zippsterzone) on his YouTube channel. I am not sure who this is... does anyone else? His videos so far cover a lot of retro systems from the 1970's and 1980's:

 https://youtu.be/dh0X3NHJygY

8) Scott Cooper (Tazman on our Discord) has been learning to use Semigraphics-24 in assembly language, and posted a couple of videos of his results on Discord (including source code). Here is his 2nd one, where he made it a bit slower but smoother:

 (show local file tazman_sg24_graphicstest.MOV)

MC-10

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1) Jim Gerrie posted a screenshot of his low res graphical tribute to Easter, courtesy of his MC-10, in the MC-10 Facebook group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4920142591445857/

He also posted a video of his port of Terry Smith's BASIC program for solving the Eight Queens Problem, originally published in the October 1978 issue of BYTE magazine (NOTE: This video is running at 8X normal speed):

 https://youtu.be/y1Gmz1Vg8eY

He also put up a port of "Digital Display Unit", originally by Frank Rees in 1987:

 https://youtu.be/6BfLRdB7mFo

And a port of Mark Bramhall's 1978 Plotting program (using SG6 for a bit higher resolution: 64x48). I *think* this video is accelerated:

 https://youtu.be/LhB_paOXk20

2) An update from Fabrizio Caruso on his port of his cross platform engine to use the MC-10's 128x96x4 color graphics mode, rather than just text. The problem he was having is now solved, which involved the CC68 compiler by Alan Cox putting code into where the high res screen RAM was. So we can expect his cross platform games to soon run on the MC-10 in high res graphics):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/4912948402165276/

Dragon 32/64

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1) Steven Goodwin, whom we interviewed awhile back about his retro home computing book "20 GOTO 10", has added a Dragon character set posted as part of the rewards for supporting this crowd funded project. He also has an update on the funding - the project is now fully funded, and is getting to pre-order phase:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3152024248390556/

2) Sean Billings uploaded a blank Dragon disk image in HFE format (created with Superdos E6) in the Dragon Facebook group, useful for projects using that format:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3148360292090285/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) Joshua Jaeger of the Gamehuggers YouTube channel put up a video gameplay video of Download (which was part of a longer game livestream) - with a little "The King" & Space Assault thrown in at the end):

 https://youtu.be/WpgEYsXLxCY

2) It looks like our friend 8-Bits in the Basement has a new sub-channel: 8bit's basement gaming base. This video features Nightmare Highway:

 https://youtu.be/18nWfM_sUCE

3) ZeroPage Homebrew posted their stream of the current complete set of the Inufuto cross-platform games. They play on the Atari 8 bit's, but it it shows the games more fully than the quick 1 minute videos that Inufuto has done:

 https://youtu.be/YhTNEkUCOAA