News stories for Episode 268, July 2, 2022

News stories for Episode 268, July 2, 2022

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(June 25-July 1)

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

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1) Allen Huffman has several blog posts up that are Coco related. The first one is his experience & mini-review of Robert Gault's extended/enhanced version of Disk EDTASM+ (originally sold by Tandy) called EDTASM++, that includes Coco 3 screen support (40 and 80 columns and 28 lines), 6309 support (with a couple of odd mnemonics, but other than that it works great, and is a favourite of Nick Marentes), RGB-DOS support for hard drives, Drivewire support, and more. This is a commercial upgrade from Robert ($35). Allen does a thorough run through of it's new features.

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/06/23/robert-gaults-edtasmfor-native-coco-6809-6309-assembling/

2) Allen's second post is game related, but I am including it in the regular news since it is about the release of the source code for the game. This is his direct screen write version of the arcade Space Invaders game that he wrote for OS-9/NitrOS-9 on the Coco 3 back in 1994. (I will note that this game is preinstalled in current versions of NitrOS-9/EOU, if you want to try it from there, as well as the DSK image on Allen's github).

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/06/23/invaders09-source-code-now-on-github/

Github:

 https://github.com/allenhuffman/Invaders09

Video of gameplay:

 https://youtu.be/i_KXSO2GFYM

Video with commentary by Allen on it's development, and about the cheat mode & hyper speed modes he added:

 https://youtu.be/xTzC1qTPbto

3) Allen's 3rd post is a bit more technical - and goes through both how CLS does not need parenthesis for the color number, even though the early manuals showed it, and how device #'s work in the Coco's Microsoft BASIC. This includes device 0 (Screen), -1 (tape), -2 (printer), 1-15 (multiple disk files open), and a -3 option that was meant for DLOAD (and completely stripped from the Coco 3), although he plans on a future article to go through that in more detail.

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/06/28/til-color-basic-device-numbers-and-more/

4) Joel Reese completed his translation of the original Oh FM! magazine (for the Fujitsu FM series computers) that revealed the 6309 and it's extra features to Japan in 1988 (a partial translation finally made it North America 4 years later in 1992). This is the FULL article, and this is the first I have read about the extra indexing modes being addressed back then (I posted an article in 1992 about them on Compuserve myself... I had no idea they already had found them in the Japanese article):

 https://defining-computers.blogspot.com/2022/05/translation-of-article-on-63c09-in-oh-fm-1988-4-72.html.html

5) Ken @ CanadianRetro Things posted a video showing of his new-to-him Tandy 502 disk drive:

 https://youtu.be/CKjN-Hf3XHQ

6) Pedro Pena (Rocky Hill on YouTube) put out a video showing how he tests his Pepper boards (a replacement for the SALT chip on the Coco 2 or 3) on a Coco 3. He is actively selling sending these out now, if you need your SALT chip replaced:

 https://youtu.be/Jao4_YpOZFE

He did a further video showing how he checks connections between his Coco motherboards vs. the originals, in this case the 26-3134A Coco 2:

 https://youtu.be/TTYBf1dwHVs

7) Ron Klein announced that a new version of MAME (0.245) is now available as an update package for the CocoPi. From what Ron could tell, there has been no updates to the Coco, Dragon on MC-10 cores. Although I think David Ladd mentioned that there is some disk controller bugs for more exotic setups. David?

 https://coco-pi.com/new-mame-0-245-package-available-for-coco-pi/

8) Coco Crew episode 85 is out, which includes a review of Paul Shoemaker's new game, Ghost Rush:

 http://cococrew.org

9) Our own Sloopy sent me a video from bitfixer on YouTube, who makes a special set of mini-diagnostic boards called the Romulator. This is an FPGA based solution that plugs into a CPU socket, and through internal setup, can let you override the ROM's and/or RAM to help diagnose problems with retro machines. Originally done for the 6502, this video shows the new Z80 version (running on a TRS-80 Model I), and at the end he announces that the next core he is working on is the 6809, with the Coco specifically in mind:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFlTwaiJ7fE

MC-10

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1) Our own Dave Veary posted a video showing the French Alice 32 (upgraded MC-10 clone) native assembler & using debugging tools in one of the Alice 32 emulators:

 https://youtu.be/eJKr8l4Ebjs

Dragon 32/64

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1) The dates for Dragon Meet 2022 seem to have narrowed down to October, and they are still planning to hold it in Port Talbot (Wales) as opposed to Cambridge - because that is the birthplace of the Dragon, and it's the 40th anniversary. If you are thinking of attending, please leave your preferred dates in response to Richard Harding's post in the Dragon Facebook group:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3208122892780691/

2) Ricky ElQasem posted that the latest version of TZX Tools 1.0.7.6 (for updating Maxduinos, CASduinos, etc.) has been uploaded to his GitHub:

 https://github.com/rickyelqasem/TZX_Tools

3) Tom Erik Gundersen posted pictures of all the joysticks that he now has for use on his Dragon (and MiSTer to emulate a Dragon), including all generations from Dragon Data themselves:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3211431325783181/

4) Coco Forest on YouTube posted some photos of the covers of Dragon 32 magazines that he has (mute, rain sound in background and no dialog anyways):

 https://youtu.be/DQh6N8Oqz3E

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) The MC-10 and Coco versions of another Japanese game (made from their cross platform engine) called Cacorm has now been released, both video of the gameplay and the download for dozens of systems. It's looks kind of like Doubleback but with a maze to maneuver around:

 http://inufuto.web.fc2.com/8bit/cacorm/

Coco video:

 https://youtu.be/zfJh6GBXDqA  

MC-10 video:

 https://youtu.be/NKS9BtcxsJc

2) Pere Serrat did some bug fixes to the Dragon version of Paul Shoemakers Poker Squares. Some of it was because of double speed loading on real floppy drives (that doesn't work on Coco's with real floppies either, but does work on CocoSDC's, etc.). Should be out on the archive and World of Dragon soon.

 (no link yet)

3) Pere also put up a cross platform game for the Dragon called Horror Castle that came out in 1983 to the World of Dragon, including instructions (thanks to Alistair on the Dragon forums):

 https://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11032

4) Joseph Chambers had a rather interesting post in the Coco Facebook group - his 10 year old son accepted a challenge to make a modern clone of Clowns and Balloons using MIT's Scratch (I am not familiar with this - is anybody on the panel familiar with it?) based on the Coco version:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159988632422641/

Actual game (note I was getting some strangeness on my end, so won't demo it):

 https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/682311536/

5) Erico Patricio Monteiro posted an update to his ongoing Lunar Lander arcade/adventure hybrid, talking about the random quest generator part of the game:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159983436202641/

He also did an update just this morning, including a map with missions:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159992178347641/

6) Now that we have Coco, Coco 3, Dragon & MC-10 versions of Paul Shoemaker's Ghost Rush (and CocoVGA 16 color version close to release by Paul)... what is next? Turns out David Maunder on Facebook wants to convert it to the VZ200 (also known as the VTech Lazer 200, Salora Fellow, Seltron 200 and other names, depending on the country), another VDG based machine but using a Z80 CPU. Unfortunately it was hard wired for only 2K video RAM (even the MC-10 had 4K, and the Coco could use multiple pages of 6K), so the resolution will have to drop even a little more than the MC-10 version - down to 128x64 x 4 color (the MC-10 was 128x96 and the Coco/Dragon was 128x192). I imagine this port is going to take longer, since the Z80 is quite different than the 6809 or 6803:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10159982204637641/

7) Johan Koelman has posted a very early BIN file for the MC-10 game he is working on called SHOGUN:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/5130502140409900/

8) Jim Gerrie has ported (and done 1 update already) Jim Menick's Draw Poker from the TRS-80 Model 4 (both a video and a blog post). This game involves up to 4 computer AI players as well as you (the human player), and Jim is impressed by the AI routines (although it sounds like he is still hunting down any final bugs in his translation as well): Video of gameplay:

 https://youtu.be/H294jn9v8KY

Blog:

 http://jimgerrie.blogspot.com/2022/06/jim-menicks-draw-poker.html

Jim also posted a video showing a complete walkthrough of his port of the text adventure Galaxy Trek Adventure #2, originally by Howard F. Batie in a 1983 issue of Hot Coco. This is an updated version to his original and no longer requires a special extra data file to be loaded:

 https://youtu.be/mshAotYjGdY

9) Walt Zydhek has announced that he is finally getting back to his EMUDISK utility for handling Coco disk images of varying types on a PC, including opening two at once, transferring files between them, hex and file viewers, etc. He is also making with add-on modules in mind that others can contribute as well. No public release yet; it's at an Alpha stage at the moment:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1929079184021683/posts/3159242727671983/

10) Last week I was at the very first BoatFest in Hurricane, West Virginia, and I became part of the live taping of The Coco Show. This will get officially released on YouTube in July, but if you are impatient, you can watch all of their monthly live shows on this particular Twitch Stream (Coco Show starts at 6:19:16) where we go through Junior's Revenge and Return of Junior's Revenge:

 https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1513750317

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XX) I thought I would also show some pictures and things I got at BoatFest. I randomly selected some pictures from multiple people who were there: (show keychain, program guide, TRS-80 Computer Reference Handbook) etc. Mention picking up the Switch-a-Roo from Jason on the way back, too)