[Coco] CoCoTALK Live! News stories for Episode 285, October 29, 2022

Sat Oct 29 20:00:08 EDT 2022

CoCoTALK Live! News stories for Episode 285, October 29, 2022
================================================
(October 22-October 28)
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
Alan over at AC's 8 bit zone did a CocoDV update - he is now selling
them, and this new video shows the basics of the upgrade and also how
he makes them:
  https://youtu.be/gc_3TPBjFf4

James Diffendaffer continues to post some mathematically based graphics
demos that are nice and short to type in BASIC. This week he added:
Maurer Rose Pattern (and lets you make your own):

https://jdiffendaffer.blogspot.com/2022/10/make-your-own-maurer-rose-patterns.html
Archimedean Spiral:
  https://jdiffendaffer.blogspot.com/2022/10/archimedean-spiral.html
"Another 3D Plot" - converted from an Atari:
  https://jdiffendaffer.blogspot.com/2022/10/another-3d-plot.html

Ken of Canadian Retro Things has posted part 2 of his "The Cursed Coco
3" video:
  https://youtu.be/_VUZz_WbQis

Fabio Didoné release a quick video showing how he used his Coco 3 to
program a lathe, shown at "Science Fair in Technique 3" (spanish
description):
  https://youtu.be/c_2zAnLdn1Q

Garrett Reynolds posted a 2 minute video on Facebook showing that he
got his TRS-80 FP-215 Flatbed plotter working (I presume running from
his Coco?). This was an early and expensive pen based flatbed printer
with multi colored pens, that cost $2000 dollars when it came out in
late 1981... so I imagine not too many Coco owners had this back in the
day:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160200945082641/

Although not strictly Coco related, Mikey Furman released a new VLOG
showing how to test & troubleshoot RS-232 ports:
  https://youtu.be/hcghtgguL5s

Retro Tech Repair on YouTube showed his "repair" to a Coco 2 that he
acquired. NOTE: He does mention that his videos are of "... an amateur
attempting repairs. [...] This is NOT a how-to video". It was also
meant to be for SepTandy... but is a bit late. He solves one problem -
but more will need fixing in a future episode:
  https://youtu.be/_jn4gcnPnI8

MC-10
-----
Robert Sieg did a post in the MC-10 group on Facebook about some ideas
he has for the MCX-128 upgrade for the MC-10 (and the MCX-32SD, 4K &
20K "plain" machines as well), as well as for his sprite editor and
other things that he has worked on in the past:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/5476026492524128/

Dragon 32/64
------------
John Whitworth of DragonPlus Electronics posted in the Dragon Facebook
group about a new hobbyist's experimenter board that will allow easy
access to the cartridge port & contain an CPLD that will allow native
use & simulating a multipak interface to help hardware developers
prototype and test new cartridge hardware designs:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3300801306846182/

Julian Brown posted a picture of the latest boards he received that are
to duplicate the original Dragon 32 motherboard:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3305766526349660/

Richard Harding posted a group pic from the 40th anniversary Dragon
meetup, that was held in Port Talbot, Wales last weekend:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3302525596673753/
And Tony Jewell posted some other pics from the event (there are more
in the comments):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3301612703431709/

Robert Stokes posted some photos from his Dragon 32 that his dad had -
which includes a DragonPlus expansion board AND an extended keyboard
with a numeric keypad built in (picture of keyboard in comments):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3301274796798833/

Ginger Hippy Gaming did a show on retro toys and games covering many
systems - including a Dragon 32:
  https://youtu.be/laS-PCaIwLs?t=1747

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
Jim Gerrie has ported an SG6 version of Jeff Vavasour's (of the
original Coco emulator fame) version of Backgammon. This actually uses
the vertical green bars (that take place of the text characters in this
mode) to help draw the backgammon board in what almost looks higher
resolution.

Emulator based video:
  https://youtu.be/mURVJCXLkQA

He also posted another SG6 game port, "Mosquito" by Mr. Slump from
MICOM BASIC magazine, January 1985, originally for the NEC PC-6001:
  https://youtu.be/Zvm36KBINEk

And his blog post about Mosquito:
  https://jimgerrie.blogspot.com/2022/10/mosquito-by-mr-slump-1985.html

Jim also posted video game play of S.U.K.S. by Ron Davis, since he
hasn't made a video of it before:
  https://youtu.be/UTW689LXqm4

Alderson Retro Computing uploaded an updated video short of his playing
Color Baseball on his Coco 3 - this time with using composite so it
gets the right colors:
  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9JP6J1-VqTM

Boat and Aaron host the next Coco Show episode - on the ahead of it's
time graphical adventure game, The Interbank Incident:
  https://youtu.be/IC2RF808sLg

Dave Veary (MrDave6309) put up a video showing his modified Devil
Assault game, which now supports color on an RGB monitor on a Coco 3.
This is more than the quick patches to convert it to PMODE 3 and then
set the palettes for the game; Dave actually does palette changes
during game play to enhance the effects (for example changing opponent
colors each time a new one forms on screen):
  https://youtu.be/5FWyFI09fXI

David Ladd for the 2nd week in a row, has recorded his own game play
footage of this weeks Game On Challenge, Devil Assault. He plays the
just released Coco 3 enhanced version by Dave Veary, where the colors
of your opponents changes each time a new one forms:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-Gdp9gXdZs

He did another shorter video on his other (Drencor) channel as well,
but this one includes a small 6309 enhancement to hopefully help smooth
the game out.:
  https://youtu.be/WJLLWxry6G4

Pere Serrat has posted AGD games pack #58, adding 7 more games
converted from the Spectrum engine of the same name. Both Dragon and
Coco versions are available for download from the world of dragon
forums.
Games this pack are:
Atlantis
Combat Wombat
GhoSte's Grunge
Sec on 1st Date
Stickman Olympic Challenge
The Training of the the Warrior
Wizzard
  http://archive.worldofdragon.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11045

Lee Perkins posted a few updates about his effort to port the PC game
Paganitzu to the Coco 3 on the Coco Facebook group. It includes some
screenshots of the 16 color shapes from the original EGA version
converted to the Coco 3 (make sure to expand comments - updated
screenshots, including comparing with the original EGA version, are in
there):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160188458667641/

CPRG Addict did an update blog entry for The Power Stones of Ard - he
won the game and thus can do a full summary and rating:

http://crpgaddict.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-power-stones-of-ard-won-with.html

-- 
Robert "Exile In Paradise" Murphey <exile at weylan-yutani.com>
Weylan-Yutani Corporation