A plea to the dev team

[encw]

Several of us have suggested just that. I suggest popping in to the Discord and making your thoughts known to David in the hardware channel.

I might have to do the same. Which is a pain because I’ve been diligently avoiding discord.

Honestly I’d tell him to nix the console version as planned and just have a cheap FPGA with a cartridge slot as the console version. Have it made in China as a complete boxed system and get the price down as low as possible. IMO that’s where this thing is going, and where it needs to go to get the kind of install base we need for reasonably profitable game releases. So let’s just do it now.

[Wavicle]

Several of us have suggested just that. I suggest popping in to the Discord and making your thoughts known to David in the hardware channel.

I might have to do the same. Which is a pain because I’ve been diligently avoiding discord.

Honestly I’d tell him to nix the console version as planned and just have a cheap FPGA with a cartridge slot as the console version. Have it made in China as a complete boxed system and get the price down as low as possible. IMO that’s where this thing is going, and where it needs to go to get the kind of install base we need for reasonably profitable game releases. So let’s just do it now.

This is not as easy as it sounds.

The X16 is built around VERA and VERA benefits from a fast, cheap 1Mbit synchronous SRAM built into the iCE40UP5K. That feature makes VERA's FPGA something of an oddity in its weight class. The cheapest easily available option I can find that has a reasonable chance of implementing an X16 less than ROM and RAM is the LFE5U-45F-6BG256C which runs $25. So:

FPGA: $25
Low RAM (512kbit): $2
Banked RAM (4Mbit): $2
EEPROM (4Mbit): $2.50
RTC: $1
Other support components (oscillators, configuration flash, voltage regulation): ~$5

The silicon alone is ~$37.50/device. My silicon-only BOM for a console system is $49. The other costs (PCB, ports, power adapter, switches, LEDs, headers) are the same between the two. At the end of the day the cost differential between the two is 25% but the FPGA-based system requires dealing with a large BGA which may not be routable on a 6 layer PCB and is a pain regardless which means a significantly increased R&D effort. The console system is all SOIC/TSOP which is substantially easier for the sort of human resources the project currently has.

[mortarm]

Honestly I’d tell him to nix the console version as planned and just have a cheap FPGA with a cartridge slot as the console version. Have it made in China as a complete boxed system and get the price down as low as possible. IMO that’s where this thing is going, and where it needs to go to get the kind of install base we need for reasonably profitable game releases. So let’s just do it now.

I think your forgetting something. This is Dave's dream machine, his vision, not yours. This is a hobbyist product, not a mass market one. You're never gonna see it in a store or even on Amazon. It is what it is. If that's not good enough, there are other retro systems that might benefit from your...suggestions.

[BruceRMcF]

If we're only using the 6502 commands then there is no point in using the 65816 at all. It isn't just the 32 Rockwell commands we can't use because they won't work on a 65816. We can't use 57 commands that are unique to the 65816 either, because they won't work on a machine with a 65c02. We wouldn't be using the full power of either processor. So why bother?

First, it's not just 6502 opcodes ... it's all 65C02 opcodes except for the Rockwell extensions to the 65C02 opcodes. JMP (a,X), PHX/PLX/PHY/PLY, BIT #n, etc.

Second, if you are doing something with a VM, you can just "do both". A p-code Pascal could have a 65C02 and a 65816 p-code interpreter. A Forth could have an "original" 65C02 ["o65C02"] kernel and a 65816 kernel. A Sweet16 interpreter could have an o65C02 version and a 65816 version. etc.

________________

Don't worry if it doesn't run on other people's machines?? The problem is that we were promised more than just a hobby machine. ...

But if it is more than just a hobby machine, that means that it continues to also be a hobby machine, and if you wish, you are perfectly free to use it that way. The fact that software that works within the development guidelines may have a bigger prospective install base available to someone only matters for a project if it matters to the project developer. If the project is a hobby project, they don't have to worry about the various pulls that are felt from different parts of the prospective audience, they can just develop for themselves "and anybody else who is interested in something like this".