Change of product direction, good and bad news!

[Robinkle]

Three editions:



1. X16 DIP DIY kit.

2. X16 Phase 2 Pre-assembled complete system with keyboard bundle and case.

3. X8 Phase 3 low cost pre-assembled PCB only.

[Shauny]

4 minutes ago, ZeroByte said:

I don't know why everyone keeps talking about 3d printing a case for the phase1 system. It's literally designed to use MicroATX (if I'm getting the right mini/micro prefix correct - the larger of the two) so anyone can already 3d print anything that would work for that form factor. Or, they could just buy a case of that type w/ power supply, and have done.



 

That's true, it's not as if anyone can own the MicroATX form.

 It's hard to know why or what happened but the project has taken a strange turn, their has been more updates of other computer kits on the youtube channels over the last 12 months than updates of this project;. No appetite for a kickstarter which imho is the only way to go now but the begging bowl has appeared instead!!

[Mr Jones]

2 hours ago, The 8-Bit Guy said:

Regardless of whether a crowd funding platform requires something or not, I have a reputation of integrity to uphold.  The last thing I want is people saying that the 8-Bit Guy took their money and didn't deliver on a promise.  However, I have been considering doing some sort of crowdfunding where it would literally just be asking for donations to keep this project alive.  An infusion of $20,000 with no requirement to repay it would go a LONG way to pushing this product out to the public.  $100,000 would guarantee a successful launch.   But that's a lot to ask.  I know there are several thousand people interested in this.  If everyone just donated $5 that would probably be an incredible help.

If you release the x8 with a $5 development fee tacked on to the final price, it will be the easiest way to raise extra capital for the next step.

[Kalvan]

I understand where you're coming from, Mr. Murray.  I almost don't want to say this next part, but I find myself unable to restrain myself, so...

I had been planning to buy this for my nephew for Christmas or his birthday.  He'll be 11 years old as of next week, but I trust neither him, not his parents with the soldering iron and wire cutters needed to assemble it from a bare board, diodes, resistors, transistors, ports, switches, and loose chips.  Installing sockets on the motherboard for my nephew, brother, and/or sister-in-law to populate should theoretically help in that matter, except that it would be about as much labor as soldering those chips directly, and adds at least 2mm to the height of the board, complicating parts packaging.

Since a keyboard-console version was never in the cards, if forced to go with a kit version, I would have mated it with a Silverstone HTPC/Horizontal Upright case, probably either the GD08 or the CS350, and looked for some monitor solution from PC Part Picker.  I'm lucky to live (relatively) next to a keyboard supplier and an electronics store with new production third party Super NES game controllers, and I know I could have furnished the total package at an affordable price with a (relatively) favorable value proposition.

I also considered the C256 Foenix and the Mega65.  However, Madame Allaire won't have the version I would have planned to have gotten before April of next year, and the Mega65 crew have no timetable for production or even feature finalization whatsoever.

The upshot of this exercise is that if you can't feasibly realize your project, my personal dream project is even further out of reach! ?

[Carl Gundel]

1 hour ago, x16tial said:

 



Sell me an X8 for $100. (This is double your $50 Max you mentioned)

Or whatever the equivalent is in the current circumstances, to a $100 X8 when the market was "normal".



I'm guessing a lot of other people would pay this.

You know, when you put it that way, I'm more interested in the X8, as a way to fund further work, no crowdfunding needed.

[Stéphane]

The X16 should take hints from the X8. Honestly, feature creep plagues the X16. The Yamaha chip, the Nintendo ports: it's for a niche audience, and that's what makes the X8 appealing: the X8 looks like feature creep never happened, it looks simple, it's fresh air. I can't see people willing to learn, code and assemble (the original stated goals of the X16) needing an FM chip or Nintendo ports. With all the sympathy I have for the project, the day the FM chip was discussed was the day I saw the ugly face of feature creep entering the project.

 

If it were my project, I'd build an enhanced X8 with 256KB to 1MB of memory and USB or DB9 ports as an FPGA and sell it as soon as possible (or sell the cores for the MiST and MiSTer, which would reduce the manufacturing and shipping costs to 0 and allow real and fast profit). During the next months after the release, I'd get the system rock stable (the beauty of FPGA is that not only the firmware but also the specs can evolve if some roadblock occurs) and I'd get a good software library for it thanks to the community. As a bonus, it would make the current chip shortage irrelevant.

 

Then, when the rock stable FPGA is done (18 to 24 months later), I'd build the X8 as real hardware (in that scenario, phase 1 occurs at the end of the development). I'd name the "chips version" Commander X16 and the only difference would be that the X8 is FPGA and X16 is a kit or assembled computer made of as many real parts as possible (the idea of having certified assemblers around the world for people wanting it done for them looks perfect – and it would avoid customs nightmares, especially in the EU).

[Marshall]

You guys have put so much work into this project and you've got a bunch of fans.  Now it's time for US to put up or shut up.  Find a way, like kickstarter, to get commitments on purchases and lets get this moving. It worked well for the Spectrum Next project.

What started out as a passion project shouldn't put you guys in the poor house.  Time to ask fans to start helping out and at least this fan is ready.  We all prefer to have the X16 I think, but there's room for lesser options too if it helps keep you guys solvent and keeps the project going.

 

[calags]

I think it may make sense to release the X8 but only if the BASIC it uses is compatible with the X16 BASIC with enough keywords to implement compatible graphics and sound functions.  This could make it possible to write BASIC programs for the X8 that can be immediately moved to the X16 and thus can get you started with a usable code base before the more ambitious X16 is completed. It gets the project some cash flow now, gets you a BASIC application code base the X16 can use and if there is a good machine language entry point for the graphics and sound functions it would be possible to write compatible code there too. Some programmers like myself appreciate the extra discipline of coding to lower specs.  I wouldn't brand it with the Commander name though.  Think of it as the VIC-20 to the Commodore 64.  Heck, since it's almost a 21st century VIC-20 why not call it a VIC-21? After the X16 phase 1 is complete we can reconsider a phase 3 device to replace the X8 and the X8 code should still run on it if you choose to proceed. I wouldn't implement it faster than 8MHz though to keep the apps compatible. 

[Cullen]

I would much rather just contribute directly to the effort than buy an x8, which I am not interested in, just to get cash into the x16 phase 2, which I am interested in. I guess what I'm saying is that even if the x8 gets released to fund the x16, there should be the option to not buy it and still help fund the x16.

[Larky]

I am not any kind of an expert at computers. I don’t even own a soldering iron. All I know is that I love a good game of any genre. I’ve been playing games on my PCs since 1981. I really liked the idea of the x16. I would like to see this come to fruition in the way that David conceived it in the beginning. 

 

Looks like I’ll have to buy THEC64 for now. Good luck gang.