ThinkpadIL wrote on 2022-10-17, 06:34:

Whether I ever wanted to max out an 8-bit computer to the degree when it becomes not compatible with any previous model but still has not a CP/M capability? Of course not!

😀

There main thing I dislike about the Commander X16 is that it's butt ugly. It looks like it was designed by a chinese toy company in 2003. It's just so ugly and cheap looking.

As others have said though who wants to really return to the bad old days of complete incompatibility between systems?

The biggest thing that really kills all these homebrew retro computers for me is the complete lack of practical productivity software or good graphical interfaces. Like wth these guys realize computers weren't just used for playing clunky 8 bit games right?

Tried the emulator. Tried some games and demos. And frogot about it. Nice effort. But kinda pointless. But i am really thinking to buy NuXT by the way. But even then i think i have few 486 motherboards that can be slowed down to XT speeds. But hey if you have the money to spend. They are both nice trinkets that cost hundreds of euros/dollars.

If alibaba starts to clone them for sub 50 bucks, then maybe for myself for cristmas/birthday. 🙄

Its a large cost for a limited interest item.

By limited interest I mean it will only hold you interest for a short time before you toss is like a cheap American toy.

Cyberdyne wrote on 2024-10-04, 09:30:

Tried the emulator. Tried some games and demos. And frogot about it. Nice effort. But kinda pointless. But i am really thinking to buy NuXT by the way. But even then i think i have few 486 motherboards that can be slowed down to XT speeds. But hey if you have the money to spend. They are both nice trinkets that cost hundreds of euros/dollars.

NuXT is great. I got one when I wanted to learn x86 asm, and it just felt more fun doing it where it all began. Even had the chance to go wading through the open source BIOS and fix a few bugs that were annoying me.

Was OK for games. Populous ran pretty alright, Space Quest too. Messed around with Archipelago a bit, and Indianapolis 500 I think. I keep meaning to go back to it and maybe beat a Might & Magic or a Bard's Tale.

I was very curious about the X16, for the tinkerers aspect. But in a lot of ways it felt like learning Klingon instead of Spanish. Just couldn't justify it.

Just hearing about this now, but seems like something I'm gonna want to keep an eye on. Got a 6502, got a C64 BASIC ROM, might kludge together some input output from Grant Searle's designs, http://searle.wales/ and have a partially compatible incompatible or something. Anyway, I guess something might be got to work with 6502 and the BASIC.

However, I am more tempted to start with Grant's CP/M design first, because there's a lot of CP/M stuff.

Also a fever dream, is cobbling together my own PC incompatible, heh, well sort of Atari Portfolio compatible, since I have a CPU and a screen the same resolution as that.

Years ago I was thinking about an Amiga semi-compatible, inspired I guess by that Draco clone, just runs OS legal stuff, no custom chips. RTG output. IDK if I could be bothered now with good emulation, unless there's some particularly fast and cheap coldfire or dragonball dev stuff turns up or something, native 68k but super fast.

But there's a lot of competition in the realm of "retro-ish but compatible only unto itself" "simple" systems as there are at least a dozen or so handheld or plug to TV arduino, esp32, or other dev board based systems. Some of them have got some traction, think there's one with a better game library than some original 8 bits had *cough*Color Computer 2*cough*

King_Corduroy wrote on 2024-10-03, 19:05:

[..]
The biggest thing that really kills all these homebrew retro computers for me is the complete lack of practical productivity software or good graphical interfaces.
Like wth these guys realize computers weren't just used for playing clunky 8 bit games right?

That's exactly how I feel often! ^^
I love playing old text-adventures on a C64 (or C128D) but there are times in which I prefer to "play" with my vintage computers in a different way.:
I love to tinker with old electronics, such as relay cards, vintage EPROM prommers and run vintage astronomy programs.

Including vintage computers into other hobbies is so much fun, I think.

Like running an IC database on an IBM PC, an astronomy program on an Amiga
or tracking ISS on a DOS-based PC set-top box with a green monitor.

Btw, this reminds me of an older topic/thread here at Vogons:
Re: Anything else besides games on your retro PC? How old are You?

It's also fun to build replicas of set pieces of sci-fi shows using classic computer tech.
This one here runs on DOS hardware and can be used to build a functional terminal station from TNG.
There's a MusicBox, too.

I hope I'm not the only one who's like this.
From what I was told, many radio amateurs, shortwave listeners and CB radio fans once had a C64 in their shack (man cave).
Or an Atari 800, ZX Spectrum, all-in-one Macintosh etc. They used them as part of their hobby.
Doing SSTV, Packet-Radio, RTTY, checking radio schedules, decoding time signals..

Edit: To give an idea. https://hackaday.com/2020/10/29/tracking-sate … -commodore-pet/

Non-radio enthusiasts maybe were dialing into a BBS, via landline, instead.
Or they used a home computer to retrieve little programs from the school's or uni's mailbox, I don't know.

Some wrote the school's news paper on a C64, even. HaD once had featured an article about it.
https://hackaday.com/2023/03/22/commodore-64- … ports-the-news/

Maybe I'm weird, but these are things that I'm thinking of first when old computers are being mentioned, not pixelated games.
This and War Games movie, of course. The first one, of course. With the 1970s tech. IMSAI 8080, serial terminals, speech synths etc. ^^

There are other vintage projects, like building a digitizer for still images (composite video).
Or running old CAD programs with wire frame graphics. The Amiga had the Digi-View device in mid-80s, also.

Edit: Man, I forgot fractals and raytracing! Programs such as POV Ray and the many early 90s renderings!
There used to be quite some fanart made by fans of B5, too, I vaguely remember.

Hmm... does Betteridge's law of headlines apply here or not? 😀

I've followed this project since near the beginning when it was supposed to be a "simple" system that a single person could understand. The addition of the FPGA kind of erased that notion for me (and I suspect many other people). I understand why it's there since there are few options for generating video, the other being to use a separate microcontroller or just bit-bang it out with the host CPU (like a ZX80/81).

In its current form, it's essentially a faster and more expandable VIC-20, with the VERA (Versatile Embedded Retro Adapter) replacing the VIC, and the addition of the Yamaha OPM YM2151 FM synth (in addition to the 12-channel PSG and PCM audio in the VERA) and microcontrollers to handle keyboard input. That plus the mix of SMT and THT parts means the developer edition board ends being rather pricey ($350). AIUI, there is going to be Gen 2 SMT model (without expansion slots) to bring the cost down but at the moment they seem to be focusing on making more peripherals for the original slot-equipped version.

rmay635703 wrote on 2022-10-14, 11:50:

As for 6502 based CPM, yeah that was never a thing and I doubt anyone cares about omitting a z80.

There is now CP/M-65 for 6502-based machines, including the X16. Not binary-compatible traditional 8080-based CP/M so executables will have to be rebuilt. There is a Z80 upgrade card in the works for the X16 though.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-10-14, 15:15:

But it's cool that the commodore has been cloned (in essence), the kernal and basic has essentially been clean reverse engineered and recreated as an open source rom right? I hope so.

Commodore BASIC and the KERNAL are actually licenced from Cloanto. At the time, I thought this made it somewhat of a successor to the older Commodore machines but having never owned one I hadn't realised how poorly regarded Commodore BASIC was.

In the end I bought a different, much cheaper, neo-retro 8-bit computer that does run CP/M.

A little fun fact, the C64 BASIC v2 can be run on an 8-Bit Atari now (400/800/1200 series, not the ST).
This is funny, because the Atari 800 (an 800 XL) was some sort of an C64 rival. It was better in certain tasks, too.
https://hackaday.com/2021/08/14/yo-dawg-we-he … retrocomputers/

For example, the 800 (and the 400 model) had been used at the ground stations for the OSCAR 10 and 13 satellites.
There are pictures and footage showing the 8-Bit Ataris. Thank god no toy-grade ViC20 or C64 had been used here for once. 😜
The satellite OS "IPS" also had been programmed on such machines, maybe. A TRS-80 CoCo can be seen, too, I think.
More information: https://tinyurl.com/5yrwaxxu English language version
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDR4pqkmmxE

Speaking of the VIC-20, it can be emulated on a C64 also. The PET can be, too.
Back in early 80s, some guys wrote orbital prediction software for 8-Bit Ataris and VIC-20.
They're not graphical and rely on BASIC. Maybe the X16 can run some of them unmodified.
The OSCAR book (7. edition) by S. Karamanolis mentions them, I think. Listings are in the book, too.

Edit: I've always felt that the C64 and especially the VIC20 were more like programmable terminals or "arduinos" of their time.
They were great for bit-banging stuff and for embedded use, also due to them being cheap. If they did bite the dust, no tears were shed.
I assume the C64 had also not seldomly been taken apart and the motherboard had been used in an custom application or different shell (even Commodore did it. PET 64, C64GS etc).
Here's a custom C64 system running on board of a ship, for example. I'm not affiliated, just saw it years ago browsing the web.
https://seefunknetz.de/hax.htm
English translation

Edit: It's also a bit funny that the X16 has no GUI, despite the typical C64 "power user" experience being one with a GUI.
Advanced C64 users either had used GEOS, -which even was bundled by Commodore at one point-, or they had the The Final Cartridge III at hand (original or clone).
Heck, the C64 platform even had two types of mice! 😀 The simple joystick mouse and the real mouse using the X/Y inputs of the SID chip.

I don't mean to bash the X16 here, but to me it's like favoring the plain command line experience of PC-DOS with batch files, EDLIN and GW-BASIC
over using Norton Commander and an BASIC with IDE (Quick Basic, Turbo Basic). But each to his own. Some like using punch cards and front panel switches, too.

Edit: What's also a bit against my use case is the absence of a datasette interface in modern retro machines. No really.
I'm not a fan of the C64 datasette by all means, but in general, such an interface itself was useful for homebrew projects.
The C64 version for example, could be used as an i/o port for decoding RTTY. The software QBF, Quick Brown Fox, used tape control to sense RTTY pulses (TTL).

On other home computers, which decoded/encoded audio tones for datasette internally, the MIC and EAR jacks could be connected to a radio directly (more or less).
Such home computers could then be used to sense 1200 and 2200 Hz tones, for example. With a bit of tinkering, this allowed easy RTTY or SSTV decoding, too.

In case of RTTY, it's enough to either decode Mark or Space, also. So the shift between two isn't that much of an issue;
the radio can be de-tuned until the signal has a frequency the datasette electronics can recognize.

That's how the ZX Spectrum software for amateur radio did work, I assume. It allowed easy use with little extra hardware.
Unfortunately, all these things aren't mainstream. So it's no wonder it's out of the focus of most retro enthusiasts.
Edit: Here's a sample video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPIoIiMzJ7E

Edit: I've forgot something. X/Y paddle inputs. Just like the gameport on PC, the C64 had analogue inputs that could be used for reading real world data.
The 8-Bit Ataris had them, too, I vaguely remember. By using them, it was possible to interface NTCs/PTCs and photo resistors with little effort.
That's another thing that maybe has been forgotten these days, but brought joy to many children (old and young).
Speaking of electronics, the cheap ZX81 was often used as a micro controller, too. It hadn't have many ports, but it could drive a relay card or an robot arm.

BloodyCactus wrote on 2022-10-14, 12:06:

I look at it like the Mega65. Massively expensive and its not really "retro" or anything. its inspired by the classic machines we love, but feels somewhat pointless.

I thought the same, but then I learned that the Mega65 is based on the unreleased Commodore 65, of which a few actually exist (or at least existed). To me that means it does actually seem somewhat "retro" - it's a recreation of something old - and I'm a bit more interested in hearing about it than if it was just something entirely invented in the 2020s. That's just my feelings on the matter though, and they don't matter any more than anyone else's!

Reminds me those Stationery, Games and Unique Objects by Tiffany & Co.: $350 whistle, $475 paperweight, $650 clothespin, $15,000 mahjong set, etc.

Even after two years since I opened this thread I don't get it. Why to mass produce such a weird incompatible niche homebrew computers?

If one is looking for business success I guess there is more sense in producing parts and add-ons for already successful vintage computers like the original Commodore 64.

I like that he created an 8-bit computer, loved that the process between planning and execution was explained in his videos, but the outcome was rather poor, IMHO.

Spiritual successors to the Commodore 64 are quite abundant and started life decades ago. There is an existing niche market that is still splitting and getting thinner with every new product that arrives more or less on a yearly basis promising to be the next best thing to the C64.

I do not see any special trait that makes his computer unique, be it in its software or hardware domains, that could potentially make it attractive enough.

I see a lost opportunity to where he could have used his talents to propel some other type of new retro-computer into adoption. He should have clearly stayed away from the task of system design. Having said that, he is really good at performing other tasks though.

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2024-10-07, 16:53:

Even after two years since I opened this thread I don't get it. Why to mass produce such a weird incompatible niche homebrew computers?

Ultimately it's his dream computer, and he's trying to get others to buy into that dream.

I also came across the X65, which software-backwards-compatible with the X16 and is a fully open design. There is also the Foenix Retro Systems range of Commodore-inspired computers that are also incompatible with anything else; in this case the firmware and hardware are open-source but the FPGA code is closed-source.

That's just some of the 6502-based ones, there are many others based on the Z80, most of which are compatible with CP/M at least.

Some people just like designing computers or perhaps they're learning about a (new to them) CPU and what better way to learn than to design a computer around it? Although in this case the X16 was designed by other people.

igully wrote on 2024-10-07, 18:17:

I do not see any special trait that makes his computer unique, be it in its software or hardware domains, that could potentially make it attractive enough.

The VERA is sort of what makes it unique and, because it's open-source, others have designed computers around it like the X65 mentioned above. The designer of the VERA also went on to design the Aquarius+, which can run CP/M.

jtchip wrote on 2024-10-07, 23:36:

Ultimately it's his dream computer, and he's trying to get others to buy into that dream. […]
Show full quote

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2024-10-07, 16:53:

Even after two years since I opened this thread I don't get it. Why to mass produce such a weird incompatible niche homebrew computers?

Ultimately it's his dream computer, and he's trying to get others to buy into that dream.

I also came across the X65, which software-backwards-compatible with the X16 and is a fully open design. There is also the Foenix Retro Systems range of Commodore-inspired computers that are also incompatible with anything else; in this case the firmware and hardware are open-source but the FPGA code is closed-source.

That's just some of the 6502-based ones, there are many others based on the Z80, most of which are compatible with CP/M at least.

Some people just like designing computers or perhaps they're learning about a (new to them) CPU and what better way to learn than to design a computer around it? Although in this case the X16 was designed by other people.

I think the main mistake of many homebrew computers designers is inability to see the difference between a prototype and a production model. When you have a dream, then prototype will be your dream come true and every exhibition or museum will be glad to put it on display. But when you plan to mass produce something and you want it to be commercially successful, you have to make others dream come true instead.

I spent a little bit of time reading about this.
An old saying comes to mind - just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD
It seems like he is expecting this to attract some big following - I don't really see that happening
You can't roll the clock back, that time has passed

I agree with the above. I was spending some time reading about this project and perusing the Commander X16 forums. It sounds like the intent was to create an entire ecosystem around the X16.

The problem is the barrier to entry (esp. cost-wise) is too high. Compared to something like a Raspberry Pi, the latter is highly affordable which allows a much greater user base. Not to mention having a lot more contemporary applications.

Something like the X16 with its high cost, limited availability, and niche application seems doomed to remain niche.

I wasn't thinking so much about the cost but the amount of time that would have to be spent getting up to speed - it's kind of a rabbit hole.
I looked at the programming manual (granted not THAT much time) but nowhere did I see something like, to turn on sprite X poke this byte to this memory address (like it was in the C64 programming manual)

Looking at their website, they don't even have cases in stock - and they want to sell those and the keyboards separately. Should be a complete setup.
It *IS* interesting though. Reading about this I learned about FPGA - didn't know that existed
Something I gotta wonder though - might it have been possible to reverse-engineer the VIC-II chip and make new ones?