[Index]
The CoCo Nation News stories for Episode 292, December 10, 2022
================================================
(December 3-December 9)
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle
Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
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Allen Huffman posted a cool picture, courtesy of Henry Reitveld. It's a
picture of his Invaders09 game (running in the just released
NitrOS9/EOU Version 1.0.0) running in Henry's Rampage arcade cabinet:
https://subethasoftware.com/2022/12/03/my-old-space-invaders-game-running-on-an-arcade-cabinet/
He also put up parts 1&2 of his Coco version of the Logiker Vintage
Computing Christmas Challenge - which is to crunch code as small as
possible to create the screen output specified in the challenge:
https://subethasoftware.com/2022/12/06/tackling-the-logiker-vintage-computing-christmas-challenge-2021-part-1/
https://subethasoftware.com/2022/12/09/tackling-the-logiker-2022-vintage-computing-christmas-challenge-part-2/
And, he also decided to delve into CMOC (C like language) development
for the first time, getting his very first CMOC program generated for
DECB (using the XRoar emulator):
https://subethasoftware.com/2022/12/07/my-first-c-program-for-coco-disk-basic/
And a follow up to that is his blog post titled "I will never write a
shell script again" (using the Chat AI he has been using a lot the past
couple of weeks):
https://subethasoftware.com/2022/12/07/i-will-never-write-a-shell-script-again/
Konrad Pietrzykwoski shared a video showing his loading a game via a PC
that is part of his Museum collection in Poland - with a Coco 3 that
was originally sold in Canada:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160334463372641/
Medium.com did an interesting piece on Christmas demos for early
computers, with the Coco being an early one with a BASIC one written in
1982. I seem to recall our interview with Glen Sogge that he had done
one early - either for Christmas 1980 or 1981, that he has
unfortunately lost (but was demoed at multiple Radio Shack stores in
the Chicago area):
https://medium.com/geekculture/when-the-first-christmas-computer-demo-was-created-bfb043279d9b
This one is a catch-up story that I missed back at the beginning of
November. Glen Hewlett (of transcode fame) took on the challenge of one
of the "Code Golf" challenges. This is a website that has people
issuing challenges of making code as small as possible (in the language
of their choice) to accomplish a specific task. Glen had taken on a
challenge of drawing a Mona Lisa on a graphics screen using a technique
originally by programmer Jakub "Ilmenit" Debski. It's a procedural
graphics demo originally for ab Atari XL, and took 250 bytes of
assembly code and data (calling some ROM routines to draw & set up the
graphics screen). Glen took 283 bytes in his final result, but that
include the screen setup and drawing routines as well. He supplies the
source code on the blog post, and a video of it in action:
https://nowhereman999.wordpress.com/2022/11/02/code-golf-on-the-coco/
Sheldon MacDonald posted the first of several planned videos on his new
dual IDE environment (which lets you develop programs for both the Coco
and the Sega Genesis):
https://youtu.be/GUjfwEiqUM4
Jim Brain, president of the Glenside Color Computer Club, posted that
Glenside is planning to have a celebration Tandy computers (or
workalikes, clones like the Alice, Dragon, CP-400, etc), sharing
stories, etc. on December 30. It will be a Zoom call starting at 6:30
pm Central time and last as long as people are around. There may be
some demos as well. Full details can be found on Facebook (pictured) as
well as the Coco mailing list:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160340953372641/
Adrian at Adrian's Digital Basement on YouTube went through what
appeared to be a very dirty TRS-80 Model III... but the insides show
that it was once a Coco repacked into a Model III, with working
keyboard, drives, etc. The machine was donated to Adrian by Tim
Lindner:
https://youtu.be/_0XGFz67DIc
MC-10
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Jim Gerrie announced this morning a little contest - he has his DDOOM
game port pretty well finished, so he has a challenge: The first person
to complete the 5 dungeon levels that Jim created (this is a game we
showed a video of recently, where one can create their own maps) and
get the "Idol" on level 5, and documents it with either video or
screenshot evidence, will one one of his semigraphic man cups (I have
no idea if he has an official name):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/5599437420183034/
Dragon 32/64
------------
Julian Brown posted in the Dragon Facebook group that he has finally
received what he hopes to be the final prototype Dragon replacement
motherboards:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3339260283000284/
And an update has solders more and more parts to the board:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3341177252808587/
Richard Harding has been doing research and scanning in documents
related to the Dragon and it's history from the National Archives in
the UK (see comments section for some examples, including buyouts,
unreleased products, etc.):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3339947459598233/
Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
Paul Shoemaker, mere days after releasing Ghost Rush:Winter Edition...
has also released the Camel game he was converting from an old text
version from Creative Computing. You can get it on the Coco group on
Facebook now, and the Color Computer Archive soon (if not already):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160331007192641/
MrDave6309 posted a video played from a ROM cartridge image he has made
2 old Coco 1/2 Challenge Software games on the same cartridge (Color
Blast & Creature Feature) that also contain palette enhancements for
the Coco 3:
https://youtu.be/GpzilHAmrT4
The Video Game Magazines channel on YouTube has put up Electronic Games
Issue 2, which again includes multiple Coco mentions (3:23 shows Space
Assault & Polaris, as an example, and near the beginning showed Quasar
Commander. Also Meteoroids by Spectral Associates, which became
Microbes from Tandy later) is reviewed @ 6:46):
https://youtu.be/QhvMr8x7CB4
Brian Joyce shared an interesting story on the Coco Facebook group -
Airball (originally for the Dragon and Coco) has been ported to the
Nintendo NES and the Game Boy Advance:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160337196457641/
YouTube channel "Chronologically Gaming" has hit 1980, and goes through
games on various platforms (including arcade) that were copyrighted
1980 (this one starts alphabetically going through 1980 releases that
don't have a firm release date during that year that the host could
find) - including some of the earliest Coco 1 games, across multiple
videos:
"Rumble in the 80's" - Backgammon brief showing (39:28)
https://youtu.be/gwFngkNDzY4
"We Go Berzerk!"- First appearance of Dino Wars (30:53)
https://youtu.be/1dXaOPDEUJM
"Is Scott Adams Bob Rossi?" (Dino Wars is the first game - re-rating it
from it's previous appearance):
https://youtu.be/latL4-p1Jg8
He streams live on Twitch each weekday at 9 pm Central:
https://www.twitch.tv/chronologicallygaming/