Commander X16 Changes are coming!

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Kevin Williams
Posts: 15
Joined: Sun May 17, 2020 10:08 pm

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by Kevin Williams »


Hello Everyone! I know it's been awhile since there has been an update, so here goes:


Earlier this year I had mostly completed the "Proto #2" motherboard. It was a mad dash to get the PCB made before we met in New Jersey at VCF. Right at the end, @Frank van den Hoef made a pretty substantial change to the VERA, which required a bit of reworking. April came, the trip was cancelled and life went sideways for a bit for the world. As such, I decided I needed to focus on a few things for TexElec, and took a bit of time off from the project.



Last month I picked up where I left off and planned to make minor changes for the VERA and get the PCB made. However, the team had some time to think and oversights and optimizations became apparent. One change led to another, and let's just say, we're gonna break some code. Sorry. 1f642.png?



I do believe the changes made will not disappoint. I'm not going to reveal them just yet. I am still laying out the PCB and would like to do some testing to make sure it's going to work as designed. I am trying not to release too much of the schematic until the end, as anything is subject to change at this point.



The pic below is how I have the expansion bus pinned out. I may well move some the pins around to simplify layout, so again, not in stone yet, but I do think this is pretty close to what pins will be present. This post is majorly TLDR already, so I'll add a comment below with more info on the pins, and the idea behind some of it.



Take care!


x16 bus.png

TomXP411
Posts: 1781
Joined: Tue May 19, 2020 8:49 pm

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by TomXP411 »


That looks exciting! I can't wait to see what comes out of this.

 

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StephenHorn
Posts: 565
Joined: Tue Apr 28, 2020 12:00 am
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Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by StephenHorn »


I couldn't help wondering if something major was in the works, given how slow the x16-emulator repo has been recently to discuss, approve, or deny pull requests. I'll be excited to learn more about the changes to the system!

Developer for Box16, the other X16 emulator. (Box16 on GitHub)
I also accept pull requests for x16emu, the official X16 emulator. (x16-emulator on GitHub)
Perifractic
Posts: 511
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 4:53 pm

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by Perifractic »



On 6/4/2020 at 9:43 PM, StephenHorn said:




I couldn't help wondering if something major was in the works, given how slow the x16-emulator repo has been recently to discuss, approve, or deny pull requests. I'll be excited to learn more about the changes to the system!



Rest assured even if things seem to slightly pause "publicly" in certain departments, there's always a ton going on behind the scenes. Our Slack channels are buzzing every day and emails flying back and forth between China and here, as we work towards releasing the best incarnation of that retro dream computer possible.

BruceMcF
Posts: 1336
Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2020 4:27 am

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by BruceMcF »


That's a relief to see the +/-12V lines outside the VCC and +3.3v lines, rather than next to signal lines.

-N2
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:02 am

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by -N2 »



5 hours ago, BruceMcF said:




That's a relief to see the +/-12V lines outside the VCC and +3.3v lines, rather than next to signal lines.



it's almost as if it was daring you to plug the cards in backwards. 

-N2
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:02 am

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by -N2 »



On 6/4/2020 at 6:05 PM, Kevin Williams said:




Hello Everyone! I know it's been awhile since there has been an update, so here goes:



Earlier this year I had mostly completed the "Proto #2" motherboard. It was a mad dash to get the PCB made before we met in New Jersey at VCF. Right at the end, @Frank van den Hoef made a pretty substantial change to the VERA, which required a bit of reworking. April came, the trip was cancelled and life went sideways for a bit for the world. As such, I decided I needed to focus on a few things for TexElec, and took a bit of time off from the project.




Last month I picked up where I left off and planned to make minor changes for the VERA and get the PCB made. However, the team had some time to think and oversights and optimizations became apparent. One change led to another, and let's just say, we're gonna break some code. Sorry. 1f642.png?



I do believe the changes made will not disappoint. I'm not going to reveal them just yet. I am still laying out the PCB and would like to do some testing to make sure it's going to work as designed. I am trying not to release too much of the schematic until the end, as anything is subject to change at this point.



The pic below is how I have the expansion bus pinned out. I may well move some the pins around to simplify layout, so again, not in stone yet, but I do think this is pretty close to what pins will be present. This post is majorly TLDR already, so I'll add a comment below with more info on the pins, and the idea behind some of it.



Take care!




x16 bus.png



Kevin, may I be so bold as to request a memory mapped 16 bit ISA slot on the ATX board. seems like a nice option for adding vintage sound cards. 

Perifractic
Posts: 511
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 4:53 pm

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by Perifractic »

Kevin, may I be so bold as to request a memory mapped 16 bit ISA slot on the ATX board. seems like a nice option for adding vintage sound cards. 
Please post this in the feature requests forum, thank you.
-N2
Posts: 13
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2020 5:02 am

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by -N2 »



7 minutes ago, Perifractic said:





38 minutes ago, -N2 said:




Kevin, may I be so bold as to request a memory mapped 16 bit ISA slot on the ATX board. seems like a nice option for adding vintage sound cards. 





Please post this in the feature requests forum, thank you.



sure, where might I find the correct place to post the request? 

Perifractic
Posts: 511
Joined: Sat Apr 25, 2020 4:53 pm

Commander X16 Changes are coming!

Post by Perifractic »

We have a dedicated feature requests forum: https://www.commanderx16.com/forum/index.php?/forum/14-x16-feature-requests/ (or find it under the Support menu)
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