CoCo3.org -- The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 315, June 3, 2023

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 315, June 3, 2023
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Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
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1) TRS-80 Retro Programing on YouTube did a video update on his Tales of
Suburbia game, including a new color set for the title screen and some
other changes both now done and yet to implement:
  https://youtu.be/SpON6NErwBg
He also released a video exploring the LINE INPUT command:
  https://youtu.be/pwLp138iKvg

2) Coco Town on YouTube put up a video about setting up for programming
in assembly language (using modern tools), and "time travel debugging"
(the MAME debugger Rewind feature, which lets you go backwards within
limits, and also into using trace files):
  https://youtu.be/z2nQHxmFLzw
He also put up a video about using the updated Drivewire 4 for newer Java
distributions... on a real Coco.:
  https://youtu.be/PJJDkQkN0t4
He is also starting a series on working with the floating point calls in
BASIC from assembly language programs:
  https://youtu.be/i2GeqxQqzc4

3) Elizabeth Hayes (PrincessLizzy on the Coco Discord, and has been to
CocoFest at Neil Blanchards (of the Coco Crew) booth in the past, released
a video of her adventure in upgrading her yellowed Coco 2 to pink:
  https://youtu.be/Jh1mGh9Lluo

4) Allen Huffman's latest blog post is a trip down memory lane for Allen,
to his very first commercial program (The Huffman K1 Librarian, originally
sold in 1989 via Rulaford Research):
 
https://subethasoftware.com/2023/05/30/huffman-k1-librarian-my-first-commercial-product/

5) The latest episode (#96) of the Coco Crew podcast is out, featuring a
discussion of whether non-factory upgrades should be documented or marked
to avoid historical fraud, and Neil reviews the PiKey-10 for the MC-10:
  cococrew.org

6) Mike Hall uploaded the Radio Shack Service Manual for the CCR-81 cassette
recorder to the Coco Facebook group, and is uploading it to the Internet
Archive as well. I hope he eventually also uploads it to the Color Computer
Archive (which has a far more complete archive of Coco related material,
and the Internet Archive has lately been under threat of getting shut down:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160689605192641/

7) Ron Klein posted that a major upgrade for the CocoPi project is coming -
a 64 bit version. From reading Ron's post, not sure how well this will work
on the Pi3, but it should actually improve performance on the Pi4 and Pi400:
  https://coco-pi.com/64bit-coco-pi-in-the-works/

8) Michael Furman has release part 4 of his FLEX video blog series on
YouTube. This one features a reconstruction that Michael did to show the
original 5.0 version of Flex by Frank Hogg (with no high res screen driver),
and also the much rarer Spectral Associates FLEX+ 2.0:
  https://youtu.be/E30y-yEvGDE

9) Brian Walsh posted his part 1 video of building a Coco 2 from scratch,
using Pedro Pena's (Rocky Hill on YouTube) Coco 2 board and parts ordered
from Jameco and Digikey:
  https://youtu.be/HQBP0aA8OAM

10) Emerson Costa has created a playlist on his YouTube channel of various
programs (mostly games, some demos, etc.) to show a variety of the graphics
done using the VDG chip (6847) that is in the Coco's, Dragons & MC-10 -
and also the Acorn Atom, VTech Laser 200/300, APF MP-1000 video game
console and others (see complete on the left):
  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCPtCsCWJTPp5LKJJu8TRAt5Zs1oZ-s4o


MC-10
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1) Brendan Donahe put up the instructions for upgrading the MC-10's internal
RAM to 8KB of RAM, without causing noise on the display. (This mod allows
the MC-10's VDG to properly use the 2 highest resolutions - 128x192x4 and
256x192x2 - PMODE 3 and PMODE 4 for those familiar with Coco's). This
article is an accumulation of previous articles and corrections from
Dennis Bathory-Kitz (from his original Color Computer Magazine article),
Darren Atkinson and Geronimus Vanden and Brendan himself:
  http://cocovga.com/documentation/mc-10-internal-memory-upgrade/

2) Robert Sieg posted a screen shot of a tall, very thin "font" he has
made using the "unfinished external character set" on the MC-10. Not sure
he means by that, but the same characters have been used by Jim Gerrie at
times when makes SG6 (64x48) games:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/6140521019408002/

3) Carlos Camacho posted scans from PCW magazine (Personal Computer
World magazine; a UK publication) reviewing the MC-10 to the MC-10 group
on Facebook:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/6142542745872496/


Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Julian Brown posted another update on his reproduction Dragon motherboard,
where he is currently doing a fairly major change - moving the video
circuitry to a separate plug-in daughterboard (which could be NTSC or PAL)
and thus freeing up a fair bit of the main motherboard for other things
(there are lots of suggestions in the comments):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3471260276466950/
He is also trying to compress the PAL video daughterboard, but thinks he
has it as shrunk down as he can:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3471961256396852/

2) David Mitchell posted another type in graphics demo, this time from
March 1984 Dragon User Magazine:
  https://youtu.be/XLeCcV5remc


Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) Chris Schneider on the Atari Age forum Tandy computers posted screenshots
and a download link for an Infocom style adventure game called "Locked Room":
  https://forums.atariage.com/topic/351774-new-infocom-style-adventure-game/

2) Davy Mitchell posted another type in Dragon game - this time "Shoot",
originally by Duncan Rowland in Dragon User Magazine September 1984. As
he has done lately, David has tweaked the coee a bit.:
  https://youtu.be/S134YqZvJeA

3) Vintage Geek (who graciously hosted and interviewed Ken and Curtis just
after CocoFest) did a video about Disney related games (called "Disney
Day"). Aaron starts with 2 of the early Sierra Disney educational games -
Mickey's Space Adventure & Donald Duck's Playground - which he uses the
Coco 1/2 versions to demonstrate. He also plays the CGA PC version of
Matterhorn Screamer by HiTech Expressions, and also their version of Chip
'n Dales Rescue Rangers:
  https://youtu.be/dOT_xr2WegY

4) "A Gaming Channel (By L.R.)" on YouTube has released some new Dragon
32/64 long play game videos, featuring Jet Boot Colin (2 videos - level
1 and level 4 gameplay) and Speed Racer
  https://www.youtube.com/@agamingchannelbyLR/videos