[Coco] The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 314, May 27, 2023

Sun May 28 10:42:12 EDT 2023

The Coco Nation News stories for Episode 314, May 27, 2023
===================================================================
Collected by L. Curtis Boyle

NitrOS9 30th Anniversary part 3 - 2012 until now with multiple
guests!

Coco 1/2/3 (and multi-platform)
-------------------------------
1) The Coco-Pi Project has an update for downloading XRoar 1.3.3319
(a Work in Progress package for beta testing) if you wish to try it. It
adds a bunch of controls for video (brightness, saturation, hue, contrast,
etc.), some GUI stuff to the Windows version, bug fixes, and more:
  https://coco-pi.com/new-xroar-1-3-3319-wip-package-available-for-coco-pi/

2) Coco Town put up a video showing how he made a sample library from his
Coco 2, controllable by MIDI, using a variety of modern and free tools:
  https://youtu.be/fMp82CBcoIY
And a sample song:
  https://youtu.be/px5N8v_qQbs

3) TRS-80 Retro Programing has done another "side" video, this time going
into POKE & PEEK, and the meaning of the original words, and then a bit
on calculating percentages:
  https://youtu.be/F52Q7C7hpa0

4) Allen Huffman put up a new blog post about the DATA statement in BASIC,
and in particular and issue that crops up if you try and add statements
after a DATA statement on the same line:
  https://subethasoftware.com/2023/05/23/data-problems-revisited/

5) As Jason "Cocoman.biz" Reighard put it - "Better late than never" has
put up a 20+ minute video from VCF-MW 17 (2022). A fair number of familiar
faces show up...
  https://youtu.be/urIQoQXaSYA

6) The Coco-PI has another update this week - the latest version of ugBASIC
is now available for download as well:
  https://coco-pi.com/latest-ugbasic-available-for-the-coco-pi/

7) Verne's Misadventures put up a YouTube short of an Extended BASIC demo:
  https://youtu.be/YLcQeIBYz3k

8) The CocoPi project now has the latest CMOC 0.1.82 by Pierre Sarrazin
available (this was released at the end of April). This adds some optional
optimization, adds the C functions setjmp() and longjmp(), a new warning
option, and CMOC now defaults to no debugging information.
Ron's CocoPi update:
  https://coco-pi.com/new-cmoc-0-1-82-package-available-for-coco-pi/
Pierre's direct CMOC page:
  http://perso.b2b2c.ca/~sarrazip/dev/cmoc.html

9) Glen Hewlett posted his latest blog, about a new game conversion that
he is working on - Rick Dangerous from the Amiga. The main part of the
blog is his use of the 256x200x16 color mode, which allows some shortcuts
in math to calculate where sprites go on the screen, but he also mentions
at the end that he is going all out, hardware wise - 6309, 2 MB of RAM,
the streaming feature on the CocoSDC:

https://nowhereman999.wordpress.com/2023/05/25/coco-3-256-x-200-x-16-colours-is-a-great-resolution/

10) YaggieBoat on YouTube did a followup about running his BackBit cartridge
on his Coco 2 - this time testing it's ability to load cassette images
(one thing the CocoSDC does not):
  https://youtu.be/w0tFQ31zAcc

11) Michael Furman has a couple of FLEX updates:
Episode 3 of his FLEXing the YouTube series (which explains why the FHL
FLEX on the archive doesn't work out of the box, doing a deep dive into
the disk format for FLEX disks, particularly the fact that track 0 is
single density and the rest of the tracks are double density):
  https://youtu.be/Uj2AK9lkVe0
Michael also has a live FLEX demo that you can try thanks to the online
version of XRoar (by Ciaran Anscomb):
  http://www.ocs.net/~n6il/wasm/xroar-wasm.html

12) Taylor and Amy cover video options (including using Cocoman.biz's
SCART converter) and installing a RAM upgrade on their new-to-them Coco
3 that they received at CocoFest. They also try out a couple of games,
including a Coco 3 specific one made in Australia... but not by Nick:
  https://youtu.be/RabZC2NIq6g

13) Our very own Ken of Canadian Retro Things posted a video where he
upgrades his Coco 2 to composite video (instead of plain 'ol RF) using
the Universal Video Driver, originally by Mark Data Products in the 1980's:
  https://youtu.be/nsIj_-_DDiw

14) David Mitchell has released a BASIC routine library version 0.1 (and
a YouTube video to demo it) for the Coco, Dragon and MC-10. He is asking
for feedback as well:
Video:
  https://youtu.be/l-FnpnxN67c
Github link:
  https://github.com/daftspaniel/RetroCornerRedux/tree/main/Common/BasicLib

MC-10
-----
1) Jim Gerrie converted "15-Puzzle" (originally by Gregg Williams in 1981
in BYTE magazine) to MC-10. This was "simple tree searching AI demonstration)
  https://youtu.be/sObUhjPImx8

2) David Mitchell release "Forest Fire Simulation" version 0.1 for the
MC-10, based on a cell phone game. He does mention that it is slow, and
probably should be ran through Greg Dionne's MC-10 BASIC compiler:
Video:
  https://youtu.be/BAMv_OHlbLA
Download from his github:

https://github.com/daftspaniel/RetroCornerRedux/tree/main/Tandy/MC-10/Originals/ForestFire

Dragon 32/64
------------
1) Phil Harvey-Smith posted some photos on the Dragon Facebook group of a
new DRAM tester he has made using a Pico - that can fully test a DRAM in
about 15 seconds:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3464697403789904/

2) Grant Forrest posted a photo os some original cassette games that he
picked up with a UK Coco 2 - including games written in the UK for the
Coco itself (or the Dragon and Coco):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3464621917130786/

3) Julian Brown posted the latest design for his Dragon reproduction
motherboard. He has sorted out the video issues he was having before,
and is now working on optimizing the layout:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3464526037140374/
And his first shot at optimizing the layout, and making it switchable
between 32K and 64K (still needs an updated ROM of some sort):
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3466476133612031/

4) David Mitchell posted a video to you YouTube (and source to his github)
of a graphics demo from the book "35 Programs for the Dragon 32" by Dr. Tim
Langdell, called "Scateract":
  https://youtu.be/dXvFLich5p4
github:

https://github.com/daftspaniel/RetroCornerRedux/tree/main/Dragon/TypeIns/Scateract

5) John Whitworth of DragonPlus Electronics announced on the Dragon Facebook
group that his miniaturized version of Phil Harvey-Smith's dRGB is basically
working (the screenshot he shows has the colours not quite right, having
used a couple of wrong resistors). This will allow (through the board and
a Sega Megadrive 1 cable) to connect a Dragon to HDMI:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/dragon32/posts/3467904926802485/

Game On news (all Coco related platforms):
==========================================
1) The next Coco Show episode has dropped on YouTube, with Boat and Aaron
reviewing The Wizard's Den, that was our Game On Challenge just a week ago:
  https://youtu.be/YgkdhXtmDkQ

2) Paul Shoemaker posted 3 video updates for his Video Poker game in
the MC-10 Facebook group as the week went on, so I will just show the
latest one. This is Paul's very first ML game for the MC-10 (which uses
the 6803), and it's looking (and sounding) great so far! Will require a
16K RAM expander or higher:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/731424100317748/posts/6121042804689157/

3) Italian Retro gaming & demo YouTube page Pippos34 Be put up a gameplay
video of Mark Data Product's Astro Blast (for the Coco in 1982), although
the video is cropped on all 4 sides for some reason:
  https://youtu.be/z_fN8WSopBg

4) Jeo Papas on YouTube seems to be going through Nick's game catalog,
adding Cosmic Ambush for the Coco 3, and both Gladiator and Escape Zone
for the Model 1/3 the past little while:
  https://youtu.be/Ue1KsibOlQ8

5) Cuthbert,GA's YouTube channel added more Dragon 32 longer play game
videos this week:
  https://www.youtube.com/@MaryWinstead32/videos

6) Richard Kelly has released version 1.1 of Xenocide in the Coco Facebook
group (original by Alison Denu in 2020), which includes some bug fixes,
smaller waiting times and a bit more user friendly:
  https://www.facebook.com/groups/2359462640/posts/10160683796397641/

7) Jim Mullis posted a video update of the arcade style game based on the
DC Comics Super Powers toy line that he is working on for the Coco 3 using
the graphics/sound package GrafEXpress (which is and add-on to BASIC):
  https://youtu.be/XUeXY50wPzU

=======================================
Get connected with more of the CoCo, Dragon and MC-10 community here:
https://thecoconation.com/community/

Please trim any replies to *just* the specific item replied to.

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