If this happens, we estimate early-December as the "cut off date" of when SD card content should be ready. Whether systems become available that soon or not, that's a good "target date" to get the initial set of media ready.
So to be prepared for that contingency, we'll be looking over the next month at what software is available.
This means that I:
1) Verify it runs on the as-intended-for-release ROMs and hardware
2) Preparing the PRG, folder arrangement, and any necessary support files
3) Ensure no "rights" issues in distributing said software (or examples)
So if you're working on software and close to finishing up, and it's something you're willing to freely distribute with the X16, then now is a great time to dust it off (do final PRG builds w/ R45) and let us know!
Or, if you want to prepare a scaled down demo version of the software - that's an option as well.
Also - while part of the "charm" of learning BASIC is actually typing in the code from a book or magazine, some people appreciate having that content already typed in (remember, on hardware there is no CTRL-V pasting of code!). So if there is a set of examples that you have literature (blog, book, etc.) refering to, this might be a good opportunity to get those included all in one place that people can refer to. Same for any ASM or .s examples as well. That said, the focus here is more "capability demonstration" than "tutorial" - but there may be room for both. I'm not sure about PDFs (tutorial type stuff), but I think we're open to at least talking about it.
So to kick things off: I've gone through the X16 forum and summarized the set of software there as a first cut.
That took a while and I'm sure I missed some things. However, we also can't "include everything." Well, we can, since we have 8GB available. But to explain that:
I'm not trying to maintain a full X16 software catalog. What I mean is, as a kind of "launch title" media, we may make a choice on including some things and not others. In some "retro systems" I've gotten in the past, they have like 50,000 pieces of software, and I just feel overwhelmed and lost - then discouraged when half of it doesn't work or isn't very interesting. I'm not saying we only need "top tier" quality here - but there is some of that: we need content that represents the system well and makes it appealing. That said, PC-DOS 1.0 did include DONKEY.BAS
NOTE: Another reason we might not include a title is just that it's a little exhausting to test each title (emu + H/W). So if another title basically shows the same X16 capability, we may skip to move on to another title to get more coverage variety. In addition to the on-hardware testing, another thing going on is I'm trying to help debug Blitz and I am applying Blitz to the BASIC titles to see/verify if it helps or not.
This has gotten long, so I'll explain "the plan" in the next post.
