Commander X16

40 minutes ago, Snickers11001001 said:

Sheesh.   So on the X8, we would lose the ability to put ML code BASIC helpers/wedges at $0400 to $04FF, $0500 to $05ff, and part of page at $700. 



Additionally, since there's no longer banked ram, the 8K at $A000 to $BFFF that on the X16 is 'page 0' of the banked ram and reserved 'for KERNAL/CBDOS variables and buffers" is the only RAM in that range.  

Indeed - you are right, thanks for pointing this out. It would also mean we actually have much less memory available as there seems to be no way to access the other 8k (bank 1)?

That makes me even less enthusiastic for the X8 now. I'd really prefer it to have the same memory layout and banking mechanism as the X16 and also it's same access mechanism to VERA.

Unsurprising that hardware assembly and distribution takes a bit more resources and effort than software distribution (stick label on diskette, fold box, add instruction manual, print label, tape box, run to meet mailman).

Some of us are disappointed with the reality of this teenage-fantasy gone awry.  Expectations of a $99 'computer' was a non-starter.  Add the irresistible desire to build a rocket-ship, injected feature-creep, adding a set of spiral-bound manuals, branded/fancy-logo Pantone matched cuff links, tie clip, divot fixer, and an unforeseen time element and here we are.

I just received a pile of circuit boards from PCBway for < $2 a piece, Z34 cases from Poland, and a pile of resistors, switches, displays and misc. components and now I will solder them together and give them away to friends.  But it's a labor of love and one that is philanthropic intended for educational purposes, not for commercial gain or even to try to break-even.  Adding up the time/shipping, real estate on my dining room table (my wife isn't happy with the last part) equates to a fair amount of effort and coordination;  All I'm doing is building a bunch of Kim Uno units which is about 1/1,000th of what this project is trying to achieve.

Of course (!!!) you need a place to house a thousand of anything or worse, supply chain management and coordination of 100,000 parts.  ("oh crap, we ran out of #6 washers to attach the power supply IEC connector")

If X16 was never a thing, and somebody did a kickstarter for something called the X8 which appeared Commodore'ish with more video and sound capabilities, they'd probably be able to sell 500-1000 units for $99 assuming it included a power supply, some amount of printed material and a simple case (add your own keyboard).  But this is not that and there is too much distance between.

If we could just take the 'blue pill' and wait for release, maybe the outcome would be satisfying but too many of us took the 'red pill' and it's hard to go back.

Maybe I'll be wrong after all and this is an #APRILFOOLS gag but 6 months late.  I'm still onboard to buy whatever they put in front of us and really don't think that there is a major difference between spending $400 and $500 (assuming a 25% uplift on some components).  As always, "the technology is 'easy', delivering it is the difficulty".

 

1 hour ago, AndyMt said:

as there seems to be no way to access the other 8k (bank 1)

I don't think there would 'be' any other 8K. 

As I understand it  (and I should emphasize that as Bruce mentioned, its all unofficially as a result of surmises and speculations given we don't have formal docs of X8 functionality),  there's no "ram under rom" under the BASIC and KERNAL on X8, so I don't see how there'd be an alternative 'page 1' of RAM at $A000 to $BFFF.     There's only 128K of RAM for the entire FPGA, 64K of it is VERA vid mem and the other 64K is mapped to the 65c02 address space.    If the stuff at $A000 to $BFFF is 'kernal buffers and cbdos' stuff then that is what exists at that location.   There's no where else that could hold 8K of what the X16 maps in as 'bank 1' ram for that range.

Its really only a headache for those who utilize BASIC and want to use helpers / wedges etc.   I would presume if you don't need kernal or basic, you can use their address space as ram (and absent kernal's need for $A000 to $BFFF you could use that too) ... but I must be clear  that's just a presumption on my part.   The X8 FPGA could be set up so its logic simply does not permit writes to those ranges.   I have no idea how to read verilog and the sources are 6 months old anyhow. 

 And don't forget that even though VERA is reduced to 64K video ram on the X8, if you're not using all of it for display, some of it can be a convenient place to park 'pure data' -- sounds, gfx, music data, etc., especially with what should be fairly easy access through that 256 byte window.   

In the end, I'll buy the X8 if its all that comes out,  but I'm personally cheering for and wanting to hold out for the X16 as it was spec'd -- whether in through-hole or FPGA only -- for many reasons.   

58 minutes ago, AndyMt said:

Indeed - you are right, thanks for pointing this out. It would also mean we actually have much less memory available as there seems to be no way to access the other 8k (bank 1)?



That makes me even less enthusiastic for the X8 now. I'd really prefer it to have the same memory layout and banking mechanism as the X16 and also it's same access mechanism to VERA.

I didn't see that as well, right now I'd largely prefer to buy a X16e over a X8.

13 minutes ago, Snickers11001001 said:

I don't think there would 'be' any other 8K. 



As I understand it  (and I should emphasize that as Bruce mentioned, its all unofficially as a result of surmises and speculations given we don't have formal docs of X8 functionality),  there's no "ram under rom" under the BASIC and KERNAL on X8, so I don't see how there'd be an alternative 'page 1' of RAM at $A000 to $BFFF.     There's only 128K of RAM for the entire FPGA, 64K of it is VERA vid mem and the other 64K is mapped to the 65c02 address space.    If the stuff at $A000 to $BFFF is 'kernal buffers and cbdos' stuff then that is what exists at that location.   There's no where else that could hold 8K of what the X16 maps in as 'bank 1' ram for that range.



Its really only a headache for those who utilize BASIC and want to use helpers / wedges etc.   I would presume if you don't need kernal or basic, you can use their address space as ram... but that's just a presumption.   The X8 FPGA could be set up so its logic simply does not permit writes to those ranges.   I have no idea how to read verilog and the sources are 6 months old anyhow.  ...

That last wouldn't seem the most direct approach, since the boot up seems to be two pages at $FE00-$FFFF, so it seems likely it just reads a chunk of data from the serial flashRAM and writes it straight to where it goes. There might be a write protect bit, but it seems more likely that Basic just happens to be the default code sitting in RAM that happens to lie below the Kernel and if you don't need Basic, you can just take over all of the space it normally uses.

Except for routines writing to VRam, the obvious places to put little widget routines is in VRam, so it can be executed by switching $0400 to the page holding the widget routine and executing it.

Which, similar to the use of VRam for data buffers, would discourage heavy use of higher color depth and resolution bitmap modes.

IF it was possible to make an IO hat for it, it could be a fun little board, but it would be very much its own thing when programmed in Assembly.

 

6 minutes ago, BruceMcF said:

the obvious places to put little widget routines is in VRam, so it can be executed by switching $0400 to the page holding the widget routine and executing it

As long as it fits in 256 bytes! 

Now you're triggering the dark underbelly of nostalgia, LOL!    I remember a buddy gnashing his teeth for days trying to fit a sprite animator thing he was making/adapting into the tape buffer on his C64.    I think he wound up throwing away the custom character set for his game and using the C64 ram at $C000 since it was 4K of space.  

 

 

16 minutes ago, Snickers11001001 said:

As long as it fits in 256 bytes! 



Now you're triggering the dark underbelly of nostalgia, LOL!    I remember a buddy gnashing his teeth for days trying to fit a sprite animator thing he was making/adapting into the tape buffer on his C64.    I think he wound up throwing away the custom character set for his game and using the C64 ram at $C000 since it was 4K of space.  

Someone needs to cut the fat out of SWEET16 so it can be wedged into a page. ?

19 hours ago, Scott Robison said:

Someone needs to cut the fat out of SWEET16 so it can be wedged into a page. ?

Just need the last six  bytes of each page to be "STY VRBANK : JMP ($0400,X) and to call to a " far page",

LDY #hibyte : LDX #lobyte : JMP $04FA

Release the Commander X8 now, and the Commander X16 when possible.

The two projects are wellcome.

I don't care about case, I can do one myself using pizza case like as Dr. Cockroach Ph.D. from Monster Vs Aliens if I want. Joke, I know how to do things with plastic.

I'm owner of a Ultimate 64 motherboard, I like FPGA implementations.

2 hours ago, BruceMcF said:

Just need the last six  bytes of each page to be "STY VRBANK : JMP ($0400,X) and to call to a " far page",



LDY #hibyte : LDX #lobyte : JMP $04FA

I've actually never used or looked at SWEET16, I just knew that it over a page (though not by much; I had to look it up to confirm that much). But elegant solution. Now I want to write a DOS text mode emulator entirely in VRAM. ?