Is making a good sid chip clone something within reach of hobbyists today?
With a FPGA: http://www.fpgasid.de/
The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
31–40 of 68 posts
Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#32Page is unreadable on a tablet.
Getting quite tired of comments like these. The web was made for computers, not for tablets. If tablets are dumbed down and handicapped to the point that they can no longer partake in the web your beef is with the tablet manufacturer or the browser vendor. Either one or both has all the tools at their disposal to fix these issues. All the webserver does is serve up a bunch of data, the interpretation of that data is…
Sorry (and apologies for a tangent completely unrelated to the OP), but this is a terribly reactionary way to view web technology. Moreover, it ignores what was an endemic problem in web design up until the proliferation of responsive layout.
If CSS had never become a layout language, sure. We could all be browsing on opinionated clients that render everything arbitrarily. But that's not what happened, and front-end people for much of the past 20 years instead wrote opinionated layout. These layouts generally assumed quite a few things, such as a landscape-oriented display and a certain resolution or point density.
So yes, these sites were, as you say, made for computers, not for tablets – quite in opposition to the original, client-agnostic vision of the web.
Modern, responsive web design attempts to bring the layout-oriented web closer to the client-agnostic place it started by assuming fewer things about the client. You're advocating for more assumptions.
Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#33Its been really interesting for me to observe this re-focus on older technology, having been involved in the retro computing scene for the last few decades .. it has grown and grown, to the point where there are now titles being released for machines in the 80's that are nowhere like what our expectations were, back in the day. We have titles on some systems that are simply mind-blowing these days, in comparison. My…
Speaking of people making new games for old platforms I just came across an Atari 2600 demake of Unreal Tournament on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/8q238x/about_to_re...
Unlike the ones you mentioned it’s not mind blowing but it’s still neat and I figured you might be interested in knowing about it since you are interested in these things.
Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#34An actual Commodore 256 was designed, but never built, thank goodness: https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-256-the-8-bit-that-never-... But they did release the CBM 256, with an optional 8088 or Z80 daughterboard: http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cb3s.html Oh, to be a fly on the wall at all of those meetings of computer manufacturers where they asked the engineers "why can't we run PC software too?"
The C128 came standard with a Z80 as a secondary processor. (Would have been more useful for me if they'd also had an 8" floppy drive so I could have easily gotten stuff to my parents' CP/M machine at work.)
Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#35I appreciate the 80's hardware ethic, as well as the 'art by constraint' philosophy. But I do see a place for devices where those constraints are just programmed into into a modernish FPGA - no silly scouring old warehouses for obsolete parts - way less routing, fraction of the size pcb etc, all the 80's angst. The words of a Philistine perhaps, but I do think we can get the constraint and creativity benefits without…
I am glad you appreciate the discipline I am trying to put on the design. However, I do have to take into account these facts. This is 2018 and there just so much I can do to emulate this philosophy.
So, I will do as much as I can without destroying the practical aspect of things.
Also, the idea is to create it in a way, someone could actually build it (solder it) by hand... So I need to take that into account as well...
Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#36is this guy aware of the Mega65 Project ( http://mega65.org/ ) which actually already has working machines, a case and is on the brink to begin mass production?
Yes, I am actually a girl! ;o)
Yes, I am aware of the Mega65.
Like I wrote before. 2 different computer with 2 different approaches...
I don't know why people come back with this comment... Like one 8bit music creator will stop creating music because someone else is doing it too? What's up with that?
Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#37Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#38After reading http://blog.snapeda.com/2018/06/06/building-the-commodore-co... I doubt pretty much about this. Besides, we had the C-one which IS a successor and more...
I love your enthusiasm!
C'mon! let's stay positive! The worst that can happen is that I will fail miserably and I will be forgotten immediately and then people will rejoice around their Mega65! cheers! Stefany
Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#39Its been really interesting for me to observe this re-focus on older technology, having been involved in the retro computing scene for the last few decades .. it has grown and grown, to the point where there are now titles being released for machines in the 80's that are nowhere like what our expectations were, back in the day. We have titles on some systems that are simply mind-blowing these days, in comparison. My…
I wonder if there are two reasons: 1. there is a generation coming to age now that never got to know these computers first hand. 2. More and more "computers" are getting locked down, supposedly for our own good. Even FOSS is bitten by this bug.
Worse, my read is that most people in computing these days fetishize complexity. Why do solve problems the simple way when we can keep adding layers of abstraction?
Re: The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> this guy girl, actually.
Always bothers me how common it is for people to gender everything male.
English doesn't have a third-person gender-neutral pronoun and traditionally uses "he" when the gender is unknown, so it isn't really surprising that people, at least English speaking people, assume "male" until they know otherwise.