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Commander X16

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Re: Commander X16

#11

Post by detaro »

hvs wrote: post #2

I'm a big retrocomputing enthusiast (in the C64 and Apple // realms) and the people doing this project are well-known in the community, but I just have trouble believing this will be successful. I don't want a computer that's kinda like a C64. I have a C64, and anyone who really likes that platform can either buy one on ebay or emulate it. A new platform that is a shadow of a platform from 40 years ago is such a nich…

I'm also really curious to see. Something about it appears weird to me more than other "retrobrew" projects, and I'm not quite sure what it is. E.g. the RC2014 ecosystem is also a totally new system around old designs, and somehow I see more appeal in that.

Re: Commander X16

#12

Post by LeonM »

For those unaware, this is the 'dream computer' specified (and partly designed by) David Murray, whom you might know as 'The 8-Bit Guy' on Youtube.

David did a couple of episodes where he goes through the desired specs, and later the design. A lot of the design comes from the community.

Re: Commander X16

#13

Post by aniou »

Speaking of "modern retro computing" there is already a player in the town: C256 Foenix [1]. Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - already available and well tested. It definitively deserve for user interest. For curious - there is an emulator available [2] (even one-and-half, because mine [3] is rather limited and created mostly for Forth [6, 7] development).

320x240 (double-pixel), 640x480, 800x600 all with 8 bit colors - 2 to 4MB of RAM, SD-card, IDE, FDD, joysticks, DVI for modern monitors - there are even expansion cards (second monitor(!), Ethernet) already available.

Community is - currently - small and it affects the amount of software available, unfortunately - but it is a matter of time, I hope.

There is a wiki [4], but discussions and deep technical details are available mostly on project Discord [5].

1 - https://c256foenix.com/

2 - https://github.com/Trinity-11/FoenixIDE

3 - https://github.com/aniou/go65c816

4 - https://wiki.c256foenix.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

5 - https://discord.gg/wvM2vABR

6 - https://github.com/aniou/of816/tree/C256/platforms/C256

7 - https://github.com/aniou/retro816

Re: Commander X16

#14

Post by wott »

aniou wrote: post #13

Speaking of "modern retro computing" there is already a player in the town: C256 Foenix [1]. Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - already available and well tested. It definitively deserve for user interest. For curious - there is an emulator available [2] (even one-and-half, because mine [3] is rather limited and created mostly for Forth [6, 7] development). 320x240 (double-pixel), 640x480, 8…

> https://c256foenix.com/ Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - already available and well tested.

I went to the link:

Available: it's all sold out. Admittedly, it exists more than the project of this post, which was announced 2 years ago and still has to deliver.

Affordable: disputable, this is priced $220/$260 for a bare board (no power supply, no case) so you can find cheaper Amiga/ST FPGA boards; but it is not ridiculously expensive either and some of those Amiga/ST boards are unavailable too.

Re: Commander X16

#15

Post by aniou »

wott wrote: post #14
aniou wrote: post #13

Speaking of "modern retro computing" there is already a player in the town: C256 Foenix [1]. Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - already available and well tested. It definitively deserve for user interest. For curious - there is an emulator available [2] (even one-and-half, because mine [3] is rather limited and created mostly for Forth [6, 7] development). 320x240 (double-pixel), 640x480, 8…

> https://c256foenix.com/ Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - already available and well tested. I went to the link: Available: it's all sold out. Admittedly, it exists more than the project of this post, which was announced 2 years ago and still has to deliver. Affordable: disputable, this is priced $220/$260 for a bare board (no power supply, no case) so you can find cheaper Amiga/ST FPGA b…

Re: availability - a victim of own success. ;) And chip shortage too, unfortunately.

Re: affordable: I come rather from 8-bit Atari and - in my opinion - it is not a cheap hobby. Modern extensions like Sophia2 or VBXL aren't cheap, memory extensions also require some bucks. Not mention about SD-card interfaces, although they are cheaper. And re-implementations like already assembled EclaireXL or Atari 1088 XEL are even more expensive.

Re: Commander X16

#16

Post by yc-kraln »

I think the lack of USB, as irritating as it is to implement, relegates this to the "curiousity" bin--not for keyboards, per se, but for storage and other connectivity. Still a cool project, though.

Re: Commander X16

#17

Post by codeflo »

Something I’d buy, and that the Raspberry Pi almost might have been, is a computer running a “retro OS” (instantly boots, BASIC-like commands, direct access to hardware) on a semi-modern ARM chip with a few megs of RAM and HDMI out. That would be fun to tinker with and program for.

The problem with this is that it’s so incredibly hard to do anything in 8-bit, I can’t imagine many people going to all that trouble if they’re not even getting the badge of honor if running on real retro hardware.

Re: Commander X16

#18

Post by chalcolithic »

While I love, love, love retrocomputing I don't understand why 99% of it is "retro-next" computing - instead of designing computer from some era people like to design much beefier next-gen machines. 2MB of RAM? 640x480? Why not use Amiga instead? Designing a machine that would beat c64 is insanely appealing to me. Designing a machine that would beat c64 because it came out a decade later and had larger ram chips and much larger gate count in a video chip? Meh...

Re: Commander X16

#19

Post by user-the-name »

codeflo wrote: post #17

Something I’d buy, and that the Raspberry Pi almost might have been, is a computer running a “retro OS” (instantly boots, BASIC-like commands, direct access to hardware) on a semi-modern ARM chip with a few megs of RAM and HDMI out. That would be fun to tinker with and program for. The problem with this is that it’s so incredibly hard to do anything in 8-bit, I can’t imagine many people going to all that trouble if t…

32-bit, megabyte-order-of-magnitude is a much more interesting place to be than C64-equivalent hardware. You can actually make things that look and feel good, but you still need to be clever about it.

Nintendo GBA and DS are very much in this space, and are great fun to work with.

Re: Commander X16

#20

Post by zozbot234 »

codeflo wrote: post #17

Something I’d buy, and that the Raspberry Pi almost might have been, is a computer running a “retro OS” (instantly boots, BASIC-like commands, direct access to hardware) on a semi-modern ARM chip with a few megs of RAM and HDMI out. That would be fun to tinker with and program for. The problem with this is that it’s so incredibly hard to do anything in 8-bit, I can’t imagine many people going to all that trouble if t…

You can run RISC OS on a Raspberry Pi, that also supports a "Boot to BASIC" mode.
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