Commander X8 Disussion

[BruceMcF]

On 11/23/2021 at 5:06 PM, TomXP411 said:

No, and there never will be. 



While the Pi can run a bare 6502 emulation at a respectable pace, it can't cope with VERA at anything more than about 4MHz effective. So without some serious improvements to the code, the Pi will never be an effective emulation platform for the Commander.

Though as the Pi has gone, maybe the "Pi5" will be able to ... only time will tell.

[Scott Robison]

I guess my question would be "how exact does an emulator have to be in order to be useful?" Compatibility with a platform covers a number of levels.

[martinot]

On 10/15/2021 at 1:40 AM, EMwhite said:

I see you just got here from FaceBook.  Welcome, but have a look around.



I think a few hundred people have by now said “no” to X8 in the Mega-thread in the official announcements forum.

I would have loved to see the X8 released. I think it was a miss not to do so.

 

[Scott Robison]

On 12/26/2021 at 2:36 PM, martinot said:

I would have loved to see the X8 released. I think it was a miss not to do so.



 

I can't point you to the exact source any longer, but David posted at one time on FB about the X8 that it wound up being too different from X16. The original thought had been that it would be really close, but the constraints on the FPGA (which originally only did video and a couple other "small" tasks with 128 K of RAM) were very severe when building a 65C02 CPU, other virtual support chips, and video and etc into the single FPGA. His original estimate of how long it would take to adapt X16 robots was way off base upon further reflection when more info came to light.

Edit to add: The original thought was that X8 vs X16 would be a C64 vs a memory expanded C64 type of comparison. It wound up being more like VIC-20 to C64 (my words, not anyone else's). It would have been much more likely to fragment the ecosystem / community.

[Wavicle]

On 12/26/2021 at 1:36 PM, martinot said:

I would have loved to see the X8 released. I think it was a miss not to do so.



 

I think it was a mistake to even offer it up as a possibility. It has already created fragments in the community.

The early visions of how the X16 would get implemented should have been kept: start with expansions to a working 6502 design (C64 or the WDC reference design boards), get those working, then replace the C64. If they give up now and open the hardware design, thousands of dollars in R&D (I assume mostly in the cost of prototype PCBs) may never get recovered. That's a bitter sunk cost pill to swallow. As it stands now, the only thing protecting that investment is VERA. It's the only component whose design is closed and cannot be easily sourced.

[martinot]

On 12/27/2021 at 11:24 PM, Wavicle said:

I think it was a mistake to even offer it up as a possibility. It has already created fragments in the community.



The early visions of how the X16 would get implemented should have been kept: start with expansions to a working 6502 design (C64 or the WDC reference design boards), get those working, then replace the C64. If they give up now and open the hardware design, thousands of dollars in R&D (I assume mostly in the cost of prototype PCBs) may never get recovered. That's a bitter sunk cost pill to swallow. As it stands now, the only thing protecting that investment is VERA. It's the only component whose design is closed and cannot be easily sourced.

I think a small computer board like the X8 would have been very cool to play with!  ?

That said I love the concept with X16 and its expansion buses.

I think the X8 also could have helped fund both the VERA development, and the developmen of the X16. Win-win.

Talking about that, I think VERA should be sold just as a pure stand alone graphics chip. It is gold for us rero nerds to be able to build our own 8-bit computers with a 2D graphics chip like the VERA.

[Wavicle]

On 12/28/2021 at 3:20 PM, martinot said:

I think the X8 also could have helped fund both the VERA development, and the developmen of the X16. Win-win.



Talking about that, I think VERA should be sold just as a pure stand alone graphics chip. It is gold for us rero nerds to be able to build our own 8-bit computers with a 2D graphics chip like the VERA.

According to Frank, VERA has been more or less complete since 2020.

The suggestion to sell VERA as a standalone component has been floated a few times, but never garnered a response from the appropriate devs. The X8 design was opened at one point; clones of the board and FPGA design are still available on GitHub. Don't get too excited about assembling your own though; sourcing the FPGA and STM32 microcontroller (necessary unless you have another way to program the SPI flash) are not so easy these days.

[TomXP411]

On 12/28/2021 at 10:28 PM, Wavicle said:

According to Frank, VERA has been more or less complete since 2020.



The suggestion to sell VERA as a standalone component has been floated a few times, but never garnered a response from the appropriate devs. The X8 design was opened at one point; clones of the board and FPGA design are still available on GitHub. Don't get too excited about assembling your own though; sourcing the FPGA and STM32 microcontroller (necessary unless you have another way to program the SPI flash) are not so easy these days.

I’ve been saying for a while it would be nice to have a MiSTer core for the X16 or X8… that should be doable, since everything needed has already been done as part of another core, and it doesn’t require any new hardware. 

[martinot]

On 12/29/2021 at 7:28 AM, Wavicle said:

According to Frank, VERA has been more or less complete since 2020.



The suggestion to sell VERA as a standalone component has been floated a few times, but never garnered a response from the appropriate devs. The X8 design was opened at one point; clones of the board and FPGA design are still available on GitHub. Don't get too excited about assembling your own though; sourcing the FPGA and STM32 microcontroller (necessary unless you have another way to program the SPI flash) are not so easy these days.

Is the VERA and X8 code open source and available for usage?

[martinot]

On 12/29/2021 at 7:57 AM, TomXP411 said:

I’ve been saying for a while it would be nice to have a MiSTer core for the X16 or X8… that should be doable, since everything needed has already been done as part of another core, and it doesn’t require any new hardware. 

I love that idea! I think it actually could be the best way to ever get the product in our hands as real hardware, and not just as emulation software.