Commander X16

Hi, I am Philippe, from France.

I followed the x16 project for a while and now hop into it.

Quick background : C64, then Atari ST, then several PCs, and finally Apple, ? ... Software engineer now working at IBM France Lab.

Few months ago I also followed and started to work with the C256 Foenix project by Stefany Allaire, a very interesting and promising (imho) new retro computer that aimed to be what a successor of the C128 could have been. Unfortunately Stefany decided to stop the development of the hardware and the project seems now a bit calm, even on sleep ?.

As I still want to try to do some developments from scratch on a "basic" computer (compared to nowadays standards) I will try to do that with the X16.

I am mainly interested in graphics and UI programming and have some ideas about that. I have done some work on the C256 and will try to reiterate for X16. I will keep you updated here.

As I am not a assembly guy I will code in C with cc65.

So, stay tuned, lol

 

never heard of the c256 foenix! interesting!

Salut Philippe, je suis bien content de voir un autre francophone dans les environs!

IIRC the Foenix started as a response to David's first blog post about his dream computer, however it quickly became its own thing with very different goals. I wasn't aware it was sort of dead. It's sad, but I guess it happens when the project has only a small following.

Nice to meet you Philippe!

(J'ai etduié la langue Français au l'ecole secondaire, mais ca c'est il y a 20 ans, alors j'ai beaucoup oublié!) <--- I'm sure I butchered that.

It's disappointing to hear that Stefany has halted progress on the Foenix, it seemed like it was going along well last I looked at the project page!  The last news update was from a year ago, but it said that they were close to shipping it. I wonder what happened....

 I remember I first heard about it when The 8-Bit Guy mentioned it in one of his videos.  Apparently they were working together at first but decided their dream computers were incompatible.  I still wanted to see both visions come to fruition though... maybe someday.

Here's Stefany's, well, kinda goodbye video.

 

 

15 hours ago, Doigt said:

Salut Philippe, je suis bien content de voir un autre francophone dans les environs!



IIRC the Foenix started as a response to David's first blog post about his dream computer, however it quickly became its own thing with very different goals. I wasn't aware it was sort of dead. It's sad, but I guess it happens when the project has only a small following.

Salut Doigt. Francophone d’où ? (J’ai vu le blason sur ton profil mais je ne voudrais pas dire de bêtises....fleur de lys et l'aigle ça m’évoquerait la Belgique... ou le Québec)

5 hours ago, John Chow Seymour said:

Nice to meet you Philippe!



(J'ai etduié la langue Français au l'ecole secondaire, mais ca c'est il y a 20 ans, alors j'ai beaucoup oublié!) <--- I'm sure I butchered that.



It's disappointing to hear that Stefany has halted progress on the Foenix, it seemed like it was going along well last I looked at the project page!  The last news update was from a year ago, but it said that they were close to shipping it. I wonder what happened....



 I remember I first heard about it when The 8-Bit Guy mentioned it in one of his videos.  Apparently they were working together at first but decided their dream computers were incompatible.  I still wanted to see both visions come to fruition though... maybe someday.

Hi john, it was not butchered ?

46 minutes ago, Philippe said:

Salut Doigt. Francophone d’où ? (J’ai vu le blason sur ton profil mais je ne voudrais pas dire de bêtises....fleur de lys et l'aigle ça m’évoquerait la Belgique... ou le Québec)

On commence à avoir une grosse communauté francophone par ici ?

I did heard of the C256, but opinions were kinda divisive from what I heard. Maybe too ambitious for what it is? But eh, kinda sad to see this abandoned.

20 hours ago, Philippe said:

Salut Doigt. Francophone d’où ? (J’ai vu le blason sur ton profil mais je ne voudrais pas dire de bêtises....fleur de lys et l'aigle ça m’évoquerait la Belgique... ou le Québec)

Je viens du Québec... plus précisement de la couronne nord de la grande région de Montréal.

 

20 hours ago, Juju said:

On commence à avoir une grosse communauté francophone par ici ?



I did heard of the C256, but opinions were kinda divisive from what I heard. Maybe too ambitious for what it is? But eh, kinda sad to see this abandoned.

Penses-tu qu'on pourrait avoir un sous forum francophone dans l'avenir si on devient assez nombreux?

I don't think there was much controversy regarding Stefany's design choices. The loudest voice and only one who has spoken really against the project was David, and even then it was more along the lines of "not bad, but not what I'm looking for". And there wasn't much controversy on their forums either. But may I'm wrong, I don't know much about it.

Of course, I know very little about the project, but back when I learned about it, the project was going well and at a good pace. The C256 had a lot of features I'd consider important already done and Stefany had the help of a few volunteers to make stuff. What kind of stuff? I don't know, I didn't watch the development closely enough. I lurked their forums from time to time... To my eyes it seemed like a done deal, something which would ship soon or soonish. As you say, it's sad.

3 minutes ago, Doigt said:

Je viens du Québec... plus précisement de la couronne nord de la grande région de Montréal.

Tiens, moi je viens de Québec ?

4 minutes ago, Doigt said:

Penses-tu qu'on pourrait avoir un sous forum francophone dans l'avenir si on devient assez nombreux?

Peut-être, faudrait voir avec les admins.

@MattGrandis @Perifractic what do you think about a French subforum? On one hand it could be nice to offer support in other languages (if one of the staff/mods speaks that language), and see programs written in French, for instance, but at the same time, not everyone understands French.