It seems people are attracted to the concept of "retro computing" for a variety of reasons.
For me, it's not so much about reliving nostalgia as it is reviving the concept of a truly "personal" computer; one you can fully use and understand. I'm not too bothered about FPGAs vs. discrete chips, or through-hole vs. SMD, but I do want to be able to connect external devices.
I don't long for the times when computers were restricted to producing annoying beeps that would make my ears bleed, or had such limited capabilities that games were playing 10-second tunes in an infinite loop, giving myself and everyone in the vicinity a headache.
While the custom audio and video chips in 8-bit systems were pretty much bleeding-edge technology, the only real reason these systems were restricted to 32, 48 or 64 kb RAM, was cost. The chips were available, they were just too expensive.
Today, RAM is ridiculously cheap by comparison, so why introduce an unnecessary barrier that will only serve to limit the system's potential?
This, unfortunately, is true.
Instead of taking advantage of the insanely fast CPUs and ridiculous amounts of RAM found in modern computers to make fast and efficient applications, we keep creating increasingly complex layers of abstraction between the hardware and the programmer. One of the most popular programming languages today is both object-oriented and interpreted, because we can just keep throwing CPU cycles at the problem, right? We're going backwards.
For me, the charm of the 8-bit (and to a somewhat lesser extent, the 16-bit) era, was precisely this: that you could understand the entire system, and that programming meant "hitting the hardware" directly rather than calling APIs.Daedalus wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 2:52 pmBut at the same time, the system as delivered should be so simple and minimal that if you have a basic understanding of how 8 bit CPUs work, you can look at a few pages of documentation and understand everything about it's hardware and software on an entry level.
What I didn't like about 8-bit computing, was having to juggle disks and tapes, waiting for ages for programs to load, and the lack of proper development tools. For instance, using an assembler that took 10 minutes to load and consumed 50% of the system's RAM wasn't great. If your program used a significant amount of RAM, you either had to reboot the entire system in order to test it, or you had to get a second computer.
If I wanted a "pure" retro experience, I could just fire up my C64. I'd like to see a "retro" system that would appeal not only to myself and people of my generation, who have fond memories of 80s and early 90s computing, but also to a younger audience.
I'd like to skip the cross-development part entirely, and have the necessary tools available on the system itself.
My journey into Z80 assembly language programming started when I got an 8-bit system with an integrated assembler. On the C64, the Action Replay cartridge was the tool that changed 6502 assembly language programming and debugging from being an absolute chore to something quite enjoyable.
Edit: And to get this back on topic, I will not be getting a Uzebox myself. Not because I'd have to use a second system for development (that's quite acceptable for something that's marketed as a console), and not primarily because of the limited RAM available, but because I don't own a single piece of equipment that can accept a composite NTSC signal, and neither does anyone else I know.
