Some news stories for October 19, 2019 show

Some news stories for October 19, 2019 show:

1) Petsasjim1 has put up more Dragon gameplay videos (Copta Snatch & Cosmic Crusader are quite good): Chuckie Egg+ https://youtu.be/M5tUCIujuM0 Chateau of Gold (interesting interface for a text adventure game): https://youtu.be/1ZPXujEkKuA Championship Darts: https://youtu.be/avMxWV-ctAA Clowns: https://youtu.be/y8LkGXLuByM And Clowns part 2? https://youtu.be/n5GBfL24EUU Tom Mix Colour Golf: https://youtu.be/lv77A9n1Lx4 Convoy: https://youtu.be/-OmZ--aWfZs Cuthbert in Space: https://youtu.be/2LWsEs8VrH0 Cuthbert Goes Digging: https://youtu.be/IZO9ccNYHhE Cuthbert and the Golden Chalice (jump to 2 minutes in to show multiple screens): https://youtu.be/8wJLMhkuAlU The Cricklewood Incident (another cool "GUI" for an adventure game): https://youtu.be/-uuHvdS2uDQ?t=45 Cruising (actual gameplay starts around 2:20) https://youtu.be/MPNM77DepAs Crusader: https://youtu.be/t0EfMpM9FGw

Copta Snatch (A hi-res semi-graphics game similar to Chopper Strike/Scramble): https://youtu.be/EysJf_Xap74 Cosmic Crusader: https://youtu.be/CBCTVlo-PH8

2) Ed Snider (Zippsterzone.com) has his shrunken footprint Orchestra-90 cards for sale (called CocoDAC-16). It has a few enhancements to the original (besides the small size): dual Coco & Dragon ROM's built in (with a hardware switch to swap between the two), up to 32K ROM total, and a single stereo output jack, rather than the dual RCA jack the original used (so you can plug PC speakers straight into it). https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157559098787641/

3) Paul Shoemaker has an update on his porting Oregeon Trail from the Apple II to the Coco: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157560611492641/

4) John Linville has made a video demonstrating his first version of replacing the standard Extended BASIC PLAY command with one that directly plays through the Game Master Cartridge. Definitely sounds smoother, not sure if he has multi-voice implemented yet. https://youtu.be/uj-WKwgIGy8

5) ShareSquid put up another "Tips and Tricks" video, this time for Dungeons of Daggorath: https://youtu.be/WGofc41TV6k

6) Frédériic Griignon Posted a video on Facebook about a video game tournament from Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1983. The price as a 16K Coco 1, and the competition was playing Mega Bug. All in French. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157566416852641/

Rough translation, courtesy of Dave Philipsen on Discord: "Fans of electronic games now have their championship. It took place this afternoon at the olympic velodrome in montreal as part of the youth fair. More than two thousand participants prepared for the playoffs and gave the winner, a young man of sixteen, a computer. Our reporter, Real D'Amours, attended the grand finale.

The youth fair will close its doors in just a few hours and there will be another great commercial success. The final was the electronic games contest. Last year it was all the rage and they had a championship. There were more than 2000 qualifying participants but it was surprising that only five girls succeeded in making it to the semifinals. But none of them made it to the grand finale this afternoon.

It was the speed of their hand movements, the lightning fast decision-making, and making the right moves at the right time which ensured their success against the challenge of the computer. Our sixteen-year-old winner today, Daniel Lacombe, who with a lot of luck earned the first prize of a 16K computer was successful in devouring 4635 dots in record time.

Daniel, how did you prepare for this championship?

“I have played games in arcades and then I practiced when I visited Radio Shack. “

Is this the highest score you've ever achieved?

“No. I had a high score of almost 6,000.”

The video game contest this year was a little less popular than the contest last year but, who knows? Maybe next year there will be a new game...

Real D'Amours....in Montreal"

7) Matchy released a video showing a Coco generating a QR code (and using the Axel F MOD file playing using Sock Master's MOD player as background music), and showing that is scannable. https://youtu.be/DyAYuW-hG9o

8) GigerPunk on YouTube started to do long play Dragon game reviews about a year ago - on the real hardware, but I just found out about his page with his latest video, released this week.. He also reads out the original instructions, too. When he got his Dragon: https://youtu.be/gUJ3u--7V-I Transylvanian Tower: https://youtu.be/BLi4B7_6r7I Phantom Slayer: https://youtu.be/KUenov72GQ0 Backtrack: https://youtu.be/Dqjb717REmw

9) Secretly helped by our own host Steve Strowbridge, Manny Wolfe II got an awesome anniversary present from his wife & Cloud 9 - a 2 MB RAM, 6309 Coco 3 (including 2048K replacement sticker): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157570045997641/

10) Rick Adams put up some details and background story behind his first game cartridge, Temple of Rom, that he has discovered while going through the sourcecode, with an eye on making an updated version of the game: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157578172622641/

11) Neil Blanchard put up a photo of some Game Master Cartridge boards being manufactered, as the unstoppable onslaught of winter starts approaching us that live in the Great White North: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157577927592641/

12) Simon Jonassen put up some graphic images showing a technique that he is working on of (I think) just using the primary RGB (& black & white) colors with dithering, and alternating lines vertically with red, blue and green based palettes to make it appear as if more colors are being display (kind of like a zoomed up version of the RGB phospher dots that appear in a triangle on a TV): https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157577945362641/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/permalink/10157578152282641/

13) Glenside has released the latest Coco~123 newsletter, with some tweaks by brand new newsletter editor, Stevie Strowbridge: https://glensideccc.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=ede30d58ff87ad93d480d6401&id=10507e4a80&e=d6af30851b

13) Stevie has gotten Steve Bjork's assembly series in a separate playlist on his Youtube account: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDfh7JjQaSYAs92js43dJ05ytKqswUV4r He also has a download page for the slides and sample files from the tutorial: http://cocotalk.live/6809asm/