Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
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Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
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Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#2Shouldn't it be beige?
Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#3Shouldn't it be beige?
Why? Many of Commodore’s later models weren’t.
Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#4Any tips getting into mechanical design ? I love designing PCBs, creating a schematic, then laying out the component and traces in the most elegant way is very satisfying. However when it comes to 3D stuff I wouldn't know where to begin.
Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#5However, I believe that restriction is the mother of creativity, so I’m trying to restrict myself to keep it limited to what would have been available back then.
I'm going to steal that phrasing.
Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#6I wonder if Ms. Allaire knows about the C65[1]. Her initial sketch of specs[2] is not too far off from that.
IMHO Commodore was right to kill the C65 when they were already making the Amiga 1000. The end of all the 8-bit systems was pretty obvious by '89, when rumors of the c65 started going around - the Mac had been out for five years, the Amiga and Atari ST for four. It would have suffered a fate almost as ignominious as the Sega Saturn.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_65
2: https://www.c256foenix.com/forum/the-specifications/early-sp...
Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#7I would hope it runs something other than BASIC. BASIC is a terrible language, and the only reason it became popular is that there was a book published with a lot of games written in that language. People buying a home computer wanted games, and the commercial game market was initially nonexistent, so people wanted a computer with BASIC, since then they assumed they could play those games. The designers of this new computer might want to restrict themselves to old hardware, but there is no reason for them to restrict themselves to that old accident of history.
Naïvely, I would assume that something like Forth or Occam would be much better for this, and both are also age-appropriate.
Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#8However, I believe that restriction is the mother of creativity, so I’m trying to restrict myself to keep it limited to what would have been available back then. I'm going to steal that phrasing.
"The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of execution."
- Igor Stravinsky
Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#9I wonder if Ms. Allaire knows about the C65[1]. Her initial sketch of specs[2] is not too far off from that. IMHO Commodore was right to kill the C65 when they were already making the Amiga 1000. The end of all the 8-bit systems was pretty obvious by '89, when rumors of the c65 started going around - the Mac had been out for five years, the Amiga and Atari ST for four. It would have suffered a fate almost as ignomini…
Yes, the death of 8-bit systems was obvious by 89, but so was the death of the 68000. Motorola was already pushing the failed 88000 by the late 80s. And the 68000 itself was killed off only a couple years later. So I don't really agree with you here. The 68000 was as big of a dead end, and IMHO was a terrible CPU for home computers and gaming machines. It was fast for 16 and 32 bit integer arithmetic, so basically good for its target market of minicomputer replacements and workstations -- but very slow at memory accesses and interrupt response, two things that slow down gaming/graphics type machines.
The Amiga would have been more responsive and really just as powerful with the same custom chipset tied to something like a 65816 clocked at 8mhz. Would have been able to address just as much RAM but would have higher interrupt responsiveness, and Commodore could have made use of its existing 6502 expertise, thrown in a couple SID chips, and maybe even a VICII for C64 portability. What a machine that would have been!
Likewise, I think Tramiel could have done something similar instead of diving down the 68000 path with the Atari ST. They could have improved on the excellent Jay Miner designed A8 chipset but tied it to something like the 816, which was just coming out in 84 when they started the ST project.
Just some fantasy alternative history :-)
Re: Building the Commodore computer that should have existed
#10I wonder if Ms. Allaire knows about the C65[1]. Her initial sketch of specs[2] is not too far off from that. IMHO Commodore was right to kill the C65 when they were already making the Amiga 1000. The end of all the 8-bit systems was pretty obvious by '89, when rumors of the c65 started going around - the Mac had been out for five years, the Amiga and Atari ST for four. It would have suffered a fate almost as ignomini…
or this: http://mega65.org/