Commander X16

5 minutes ago, Chris Grillo said:

Is nobody talking abut pricing? Will the X16 price itself out of what is a hobby market with limited sales?

I've talked about it twice above, as it is an important consideration. That being said, the product has to pay for itself (which includes reimbursing those who've invested in its development so far if at all possible). Certainly David et al should not be expected to further subsidize development with zero expectation of being made whole. So if the actual price of hardware (be it a kit or whatever) does not cover its cost (which is more than just the hardware you receive, as there are other expenses that have to be considered and factored into the price), then it is not a viable product. If that means that the X16 has to price itself out of the market, then that's just the sad reality. No one will pay $1,000,000 for this computer (number made up just for an extreme example, not to suggest an actual considered price point).

Could the X8 be bundled with PETSCII ROBOTS?

1 minute ago, Davish47 said:

May I suggest the name



"LIEUTENANT" X8?



Thoughts?

I think that's a great nickname for the X8 (Lieutenant Commander). I don't think branding it that way is necessary or desirable.

I'm keen to get the Phase 1 DIY option, I want to make the hardware. That way it will I'll have more personally invested in my small bit of the project. It'll be have more sentimental value in that respect. 

Someone already noted about the X16 being the first computer for their kid. I'm of the same mind for building it with my boys... They won't get that experience from an i-pad. 

As of reading your comment, @Scott Robison, I'm thinking a bit more objectively on the problem of X8 vs X16 ?

So, we have two platforms with some differences in hardware. It would be effectively ideal to have those two having the same interface so the work to convert software is not that complicated.

Everybody's talking about having the X8 but with the X16's VERA interface, but why not doing the inverse of that, making the X16 actually using the X8's VERA interface ? Or a mix of the two, to lift a bit of constraints on the final hardware.

As of splitting the community, I would finally say "It depends". Looking at Raspberry Pis, today a majority of devs have moved away to the Pi 4 for example, there isn't much anyone left using the first version of the Pi.

The "magic" behind this is in my honest opinion due to three main factors :

• 
  The releases are years apart from each other
  


• 
  It's really cheap to upgrade (with less than 50$ a board)
  


• 
  There are no major breakings between each release, the newer versions can run software from the older ones
  

Getting back to the X8 vs X16 problem, I think if we can at least have the X16 being able to run X8 software flawlessly and push the X16's release one or two years later, the idea can start to be viable.

I may be wrong but I just want to move things forward and give ideas.

 

1 minute ago, VincentF said:

So, we have two platforms with some differences in hardware. It would be effectively ideal to have those two having the same interface so the work to convert software is not that complicated.

Everybody's talking about having the X8 but with the X16's VERA interface, but why not doing the inverse of that, making the X16 actually using the X8's VERA interface ? Or a mix of the two, to lift a bit of constraints on the final hardware.

I am not an HDL expert (and David's post touched on this), but: Everything in an FPGA can be configured to have tighter coupling. Thus it is "easy" to have the 65c02 soft core share a 256 byte window with the VERA when they are both built into the FPGA. When the two chips are separate (as they are in phase 1 & phase 2), you can't magically gain access to a window of bytes between the chips. There probably aren't enough IO pins available to do it.

What I suspect would be more doable from a compatibility perspective is to have the X8 use the same addressing & IO (just with a smaller amount of RAM) as the X16. But I don't think it is essential. Desirable, yes. But it should not be hard to bridge that gap if they remain separate and distinct. Certainly easier than porting code between Windows and Linux.

In the end, I think David needs to revisit his former self: the one that imagined the "Dream Computer".

Is the X8 that computer?  I think he's indicated that it isn't; not quite. It's pretty neat, but is it the Dream?

I think the X16 full version, was, and still is, that dream computer.  If so, that should be the focus, everything else is distraction, and when you don't have unlimited time and money, distractions are killers.  And it seems they can be even if you do.

David will have to decide if I'm wrong, but focus is needed.  What would "Dream Computer" David have wanted at this moment?

For me this project alway was about the full retro experience with a modern twist. I want to understand how it works by just looking at the board.

I'd order a kit version any time. Also offer it pre-assembled for those who don't want or can assemble it themselves. As for the case: just point to places where we can get them on our own. I will 3d print my own wedge style case anyway.

Skip phase 2. I don't think its needed.

Then the X8. While it has its appeal, I would not release it. Maybe I would support it, if it had the same interface to VERA. I then could just trim down the programs and games I did for the X16. But different access to Vera would probably drive me away from both.

And here is the next problem: few software would use the full potential of the X16. You would end up with mostly X8 only software.

Was doing an edit to my post, but I think that deserves more attention :

Another thing that is problematic between the X8 and X16 in a compatibility standpoint is the clock speed : Either we limit the X8 at 8 MHz or the X16 will require at least a 12 MHz clock.

Because why people will want to "upgrade" from 8 to 16 if the 16 part is slower that the old machine ?

21 minutes ago, Scott Robison said:

I am not an HDL expert (and David's post touched on this), but: Everything in an FPGA can be configured to have tighter coupling. Thus it is "easy" to have the 65c02 soft core share a 256 byte window with the VERA when they are both built into the FPGA. When the two chips are separate (as they are in phase 1 & phase 2), you can't magically gain access to a window of bytes between the chips. There probably aren't enough IO pins available to do it.

You are right, it's maybe too hard to make the X16 work this way, it's easier to map FPGAs  internally but real wires are like, real, and they surely cost money if you put them everywhere

This is frustrating news, and must be more so for the team that has invested so much in getting it to this point. 



I’ve been developing a game for this system since the emulator was first available. With this news, I think I will be pausing development until a real system becomes available. I don’t want to develop for a moving target or a fragmented system, and to me that’s what the X8 seems to represent.

I have always been excited by the prospect of a singular new system, packaged up and ready to explore. I am not excited by the prospect of spending some hundreds of dollars on an electronics kit that I need to solder together with a high possibility of failure. 

It reads to me like the possibility of the original plan at a reasonable price is unlikely. I’m unsure why there has always been an apparent resistance to running a Kickstarter campaign. I know they take a significant cut, but isn’t the scenario you describe exactly what Kickstarter is for?

If you offer the option of paying a premium for a preassembled kit, then to be honest that just sounds like a ticket for a place on a lengthy waiting list. A launch that manifests as a slow trickle of new machines would surely be death for any new platform. I won’t invest in a system that has no user base, or prospect of gaining one. 

 

I hope this hasn’t come across as overly negative. I really hope to buy an X16 one day - the work so far has been amazing -  but I will now be sitting watching, waiting to find out what that actually means.