News stories for July 13 show

News stories for July 13 show:

NOTE: These are not (per se) discussion topics, but if you want to put some links in here to springboard a discussion (like Bruce Moore's looking for a Coco 1 simple hardware project, like a composite mod (https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157317617022641/), feel free to do so.

1) Nick Marentes has his latest GunStar blog up: http://www.nickmarentes.com/Gunstar/18.html

2) Blair Leduc has another update to his Assembly extension for Visual Code Studio (now up to version 0.3.0): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157315033642641/

3) Speaking of Visual Code Studio extensions, Jason Pittman has uploaded a video of his Coco C/ASM extension, that also includes converting graphics down to the 16 color mode on the Coco 3: He also demo's the source highlighting using Ken Reichart https://youtu.be/IqvOJ6hL6Nc

4) Brian Weiseler has come across a book for the Coco, called "Making the Most of Your TRS-80 Color Computer" by Peter Vernon. This is one that I have never seen before, and was published in Australia. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157314793107641/

5) Sheldon MacDonald is making a cartridge (based on the Game Master Cartridge) that also attaches to the cassette port, so that you can shut the music playing on/off simply with AUDIO ON and AUDIO OFF commands in BASIC. He 3D printed his own case for the project, and is tweaking the software side still. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157146611412641/

6) Pere Serrat & Kees van Oss have released AGD game packs #33 & 34, which are special ones. The games were created by 10-11 year old children at the Bearsden Primary School in Scotland, in a class on programming taught by Dougie Mcg. The children designed their own sprites, levels, etc. and programmed/debugged them themselves. All the games were written this year (2019) in the class. http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6112 http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6115

7) Bart van den Akker has an IndieGogo campaign going to raise money for the Home Computer Museum in the Netherlands (which is interactive and lets visitors try over 200 older home computers). If you are interested in information, or contributing to the museum, see there Indiegogo page: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/homecomputermuseum-streaming-tour

8) Todd Wallace has a demo video showing his 80 column Coco 3 text editing tool. This has sparked some conversation on doing a game using 80x24/25/28 hardware text mode, but using color attributes, blinking and underline, to do "graphics", similar to the Semigraphics stuff being done on the Coco 1/2 side. https://youtu.be/5JsJGPI4e4k

9) The Floppy Days podcast (With Randy Kindig) episode 92 features and inteview with Dave Lagerquist, who worked for CLOAD (for the Model I/III) and then started Chromasette, the first tape based magazine for the Coco back in the early 1980's. Some great stories from when the company was started. http://floppydays.libsyn.com/floppy-days-92-dave-lagerquist-interview-editor-cload-and-chromasette

10) Tony Jewell posted some photos from the Dragon Meetup 2019 that took place during CocoTalk last week (July 7), at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge, England. https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/permalink/2352252818367707/ (There are other videos and photos from this event in the Dragon 32/64 Facebook group).

11) Jason Pittman has an updated video showing his Picture converter/editor - which now has the beginnings of converting to Coco 1/2 modes as well as Coco 3. https://youtu.be/3F03WK6NNZo You can also download the program he has written: http://jasonpittman.com/dist/CoCoPic.zip