Commander X16

Hi

My childhood "suffered" a bit from me not owning any 8/16bit computers or consoles. All we had was my fathers work PC (286) and at some point a borrowed CPC with Green/Black monitor.

It was only when I got my first PC (486DX2) in high school I started to really get into gaming and programming.

I ended up studying EE and have worked a lot with C++ and OpenGL.

About 5 years ago I started getting nostalgic and have started a retro PC collection, mostly Late DOS/Win95 era. The most exotic machine I own is an SGI O2.

Besides the C64 Mini I don't have anything 8/16bit, but that will definitely change once the X16 is released ?

Welcome! 

On 12/30/2021 at 9:08 AM, Dacobi said:

My childhood "suffered" a bit from me not owning any 8/16bit computers or consoles. All we had was my fathers work PC (286)

No one knew what would happen to the kids who grew up in the 80's with these "new" home computers. The 90's it was what was going to happen with the Nintendo kids. These days it might be what will happen with the kid who's used an iPad even before they could talk? 



A 286 with a mono monitor and a text MDA video was kind of the standard work PC (I assume that's what it was.) It did Lotus 123 and Wordperfect 5.2 acceptably.  Perhaps not much attraction for youth either then or now. However, it lead you to a career in the field and to here wishing for an x16. A common story.  



 

 

On 12/30/2021 at 8:06 PM, Edmond D said:

Welcome! 

Thanks ?

The part about my childhood and it "suffering" was jokingly meant ? hope that came across.

At the time I wasn't very interested in computers or gaming. Spent most of the time in the Library.

But reading Neuromancer and getting my own PC changed that quite drastically ? 

Velkommen

Nice to see another Dane in the forum.

Seems like you might be a bit younger than me, but that just makes it that much more exciting that you are interested in this project.

On 12/30/2021 at 11:01 PM, JimmyDansbo said:

Velkommen



Nice to see another Dane in the forum.

Tak, og i lige måde ?

I'm only a few years younger than the main (8bit) guy him self. Just was a bit older before getting into computing.

Before I got my own PC at 16 years old in 1994, I've used mostly, at friends houses, c64, Amiga 500, SNES and SEGA MS.

But the first game I remember was Hangman on a Zilog UNIX text terminal. Unfortunately that was before I spoke English ? 

I did play various games on my dads 286 as a kid. Games like Alley Cat, Hard Hat Mack and Digger.

On 12/30/2021 at 1:43 PM, Dacobi said:

On 12/30/2021 at 11:06 AM, Edmond D said:

Welcome! 

Thanks ?



The part about my childhood and it "suffering" was jokingly meant ? hope that came across.



At the time I wasn't very interested in computers or gaming. Spent most of the time in the Library.

The tone came across, but I played with it as a mono 286 with text only seemed painful to me. That being said, I did have one as a spare machine which I loaned to friend in 1st year of tech school. it allowed him to work in his studio apartment (box) rather than having to work in the open labs with all the other students. Compared to my 386SX 16 and 4 megs of memory, 100 MB HD with a VGA card, Sound Blaster and a large CRT it was suffering to me, but better than nothing for him. 



Based on Hard Hat Mack (https://archive.org/details/wozaday_Hard_Hat_Mack) it seems that your fathers 286 had a CGA card in it. 

I had the joy of playing the original Zork on a terminal via a 300 baud modem connected to a mini in the early 80s. 

When the pandemic hit, the local library closed for a while, then gradually opened up again in various stages. It was the first thing I missed when COVID countermeasures started.

 

On 12/31/2021 at 11:02 AM, Dacobi said:

I did play various games on my dads 286 as a kid. Games like Alley Cat, Hard Hat Mack and Digger.

I too missed out on the 8-bit micro and console era, and all I had was my dad's 386 work PC. When I saw Alley Cat (in all its magenta and cyan CGA glory) for the first time though, I was amazed that this 'boring' PC could also animate sprites! Similarly when I saw 16-color EGA graphics for the first time (in games like Space Quest etc.) I was hooked!

On 12/31/2021 at 11:02 AM, Dacobi said:

Before I got my own PC at 16 years old in 1994, I've used mostly, at friends houses, c64, Amiga 500, SNES and SEGA MS.

Yeah I did the same and hung out at my friend's house with his Amiga 500, and that was a reality check.  The Amiga in the late 1980s was just orders of magnitude more impressive than the PC.

On 12/31/2021 at 4:08 AM, Dacobi said:

I ended up studying EE and have worked a lot with C++ and OpenGL.

I went down the C++/DirectX path myself, but like you I'm also interested in the X16.

I'm really a "2D" gamer at heart and, while possible, I feel it doesn't really "ring true" to use a fraction of the capabilities of a ridiculously over-powered modern 3D graphics API for designing 2D games.

I'd much rather program on an 8-bit or 16-bit platform to accomplish this using bitmaps, as opposed to textures on billboarded polygons.

 

On 12/31/2021 at 3:07 AM, Edmond D said:

Based on Hard Hat Mack (https://archive.org/details/wozaday_Hard_Hat_Mack) it seems that your fathers 286 had a CGA card in it. 

Ahh yes, CGA, the color palette of my childhood ? 

I've always preferred Cyan/Magenta/White over Red/Green/Orange.

When I started coding VGA Mode 13h ASM in DOS my palettes were always a combination of cyan and magenta ? 

On 12/31/2021 at 3:13 AM, MaicoD said:

I went down the C++/DirectX path myself, but like you I'm also interested in the X16.



...



I'd much rather program on an 8-bit or 16-bit platform to accomplish this using bitmaps, as opposed to textures on billboarded polygons.



 

I was mostly on Linux at the time when 3D acceleration became mainstream, so no DirectX for me ?

I agree regarding using a GPU for 2D games. In the earlier versions of OGL you had glDrawPixels that could draw a bitmap directly to framebuffer. But that's probably gone by now.