News stories for Episode 275, August 20, 2022

News stories for Episode 275, August 20, 2022

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(August 13-August 19)

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Nick and I have not heard from Michael Duncan, whom we were supposed to do a pre-record interview with sometime this weekend, in almost 2 weeks. I have to assume he either got really busy, or decided against an interview, which is too bad. Xenion was a really good game (we just had it as the Game on Challenge a few weeks ago), and he had an unreleased game that was going to come out for the Coco 3 after that that Nick still had an early copy of. Hopefully he is still interested, and we just have to delay it.

September 3 we will interview Dave Dies of Diecom fame (as well as earlier game titles for the Coco from several other companies).

September 17 will see a full interview with Frank Linhares of retrorewind.ca. Previously we had touched on his first computer being a Coco 2, and then into his retro repairs and hardware creating, but this time we will be covering his full computer career, including being on TV with the Lab with Leo Laporte, meeting and being friends with early internet personalities like Amber MacArthur, Kevin Rose, etc.

Still trying to line up some other interviews; but trying to schedule these is still very much like herding cats (even if it is only one cat).

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

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1) Allen Huffman has put up part 2 of his "Doing spiral effects" blog series, continuing from where he left off last week, this time doing some assembly language routine effects:

 https://subethasoftware.com/2022/08/16/spiraling-in-color-basic-and-6809-assembly-part-2/

2) The Taylor and Amy show revisit the MC-10, upgrading it with the Composite AV mode from Zippster Zone (Ed Snider):

 https://youtu.be/9Pn-L6bQLDY

3) I don't know who uploaded them (Fedor Steeman, maybe?), but the Color Computer Archive now has January 1986 to Sept/Oct 1987 (plus a lone May-June 1989) issues of Info CocoNut, a Coco club newsletter published in Rotterdam, Netherlands in Dutch:

 https://colorcomputerarchive.com/repo/Documents/Magazines/Info%20CoCoNut%20(Dutch)/

4) John Laury pointed out an ad on YouTube for an "80's themed Air B&B" (Bed & Breakfast) - which even shows a Coco 2. It combines furniture, decor, posters, arcade cabinets, home consoles and home computers into a themed Bed & Breakfast:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160067911087641/

Video (Coco around 2:10)

 https://youtu.be/c24jOT0icNY

5) Cathe Cita on the Coco Facebook group posted photos of the various Color BASIC and Extended BASIC manuals in English, French, Dutch and German (In the comments are also shown multi-language boxes for Multipaks, Coco's & MC-10's):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160063581387641/

6) Carl England posted the BASIC source code for his utility to copy a 40 track double sided "real" OS-9 floppy to an 80 track single sided DSK image for emulators and the CocoSDC:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160062416922641/
 

7) Dick DeBartolo (of MAD magazine fame) and OMGChad, on episode 1896 of The Giz Wiz (I guested on a side show to it called Giz Fiz a couple of times some years ago) featured an unexpected surprise guest on their Dick's Gadget Warehouse segment, courtesy of user Max W.:

 https://youtu.be/44vXibxdiPg?t=2503

8) Color Computer Programing on YouTube has been working on both a BASIC Defender style game, and a graphical adventure called Tales of Suburbia, and has put up multiple videos showing his progress and learning as he goes along:

 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq8e7rmnX95GZuou36i0t5Q/videos

MC-10

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1) Simon Jonassen posted in both the Coco & MC-10 groups on Facebook that he has Doug Masten's zx0 decompressor converted from the 6809/Coco to 6803/MC-10, which he is going to be using in his MC-10 Timber Man port. The sample Timber Man background takes 3K normally - the compressed version is only 355 bytes:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160067027977641/

2) James Host uploaded a couple of copies of Mico magazine (numbers 3,5&6 for December 1983 & February/March 1984) to the MC-10 Facebook group. This was a magazine exclusively for the MC-10 from Australia (March 1984 here):

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/5264882676971845/

(Show PDF from my desktop)

Dragon 32/64

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1) Another Dragon 32 demo was released at NOVA 2022. The music is streaming from tape while the graphics are running (ie AUDIO ON), but the graphics are cool:

 https://youtu.be/e-xLSwyAlJ4

Live capture version from NOVA itself:

 https://youtu.be/PaO5YF9Px5Q

2) The Laird's Lair channel on YouTube does a look at issue 1 of the Retro Gamer Hardware Handbook (by Future Publishing). It features over 20 years of classic computers and game consoles from 1977-1999, and includes the Dragon 32: Quick show of the index:

 https://youtu.be/JIoMhbshl40?t=193

Dragon 32 including it's "Perfect 10" games briefly appears at 4:37

3) Russian speaking YouTuber Dmitrii Simlianskii did an unboxing of some computer peripherals and software that he received in the mail, including a ALTA1 joystick for his Dragon 32 (at 20:32): (turn CC on with auto-translate to english)

 https://youtu.be/sSJ1sWqQNek?t=1380

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):

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1) A little off topic - but AJ from the "My Drunk Sibling" retro gaming show has uploaded episode one of her side branch project, "Drunkoligy", showing how to make the watermelon martinis that she uses to enhance her game playing skills:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa2AD1RIHeo

They also have their T-shirts now available, including ones with Coco Joysticks (Intellivision shown on the commercial):

 https://youtu.be/wExmcUXAo6w

Available here:

 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfbkDLMVhHtuGGyQUkR8HNBAhsfP1x01Kq4zWhO_IQ0JUouog/viewform

Tim & AJ also released episode 43 of Sibling Rivalry, featuring the Diecom game Wrestle Maniac (written by Kevin Hoare in 1986):

 https://youtu.be/tP2HKr1wFRY

They also now have a set of Bingo cards that you can download, and try to fill in depending on what phrases and terms they say during a show (I had *no* idea that my name would be on one of them!)

 https://www.macmess.org/downloads/SR-Bingo-Card.pdf

2) James Diffendaffer posted a blog-style update about his AGD game engine port to the MC-10 on the Coco Facebook page. Still more work to do, but he also managed to get some speedups to the original 6809 code version as well, which means it is possible to speed up some of the existing games for the Coco thanks to his efforts:

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160062001122641/

3) The latest episode of ARG Presents with Amigo Aaron and The Brent featured submarine based games. One of the ones chosen was Sea Dragon by Adventure International. While they mainly played the TRS-80 Model 1/3 and Atari 400/800 versions, the Coco version gets mentioned multiple times, since it is one they both played growing up:

 https://youtu.be/zqM0BhsA7-A?t=460

4) Coco Forest did a bunch more of Dragon 32 game videos (with original cassette art and manual): https://www.youtube.com/user/MaryWinstead32/videos New this week are: Manic Miner/Screaming Abdabs Toppler/Jet Boot Colin Frogger/Crazy Painter Speed Racer/Grand Prix Mr. Dig/Galactic Ambush Bean Stalker/Cuthbert Goes Digging