Change of product direction, good and bad news!

snerd · Post by **snerd** » Tue Aug 31, 2021 10:16 pm

I'm seeing a lot of debate in this thread over what might happen to "future sales" depending on what gets released and when. I'm just going to point out that none of that really matters if there isn't a vibrant developer community making things for the platform. A computer without a developer is a violin without a musician. I just checked the downloads section of this website and to date there are mostly demos, a few games, and a few utilities available for download. Not nearly what would be necessary to sustain a platform. On the current trajectory - and I say this with ❤️ in my heart for everything the team is trying to do - the most likely outcome is that some form of the computer gets released, a few thousand hobbyists buy one, maybe a few dozen of those release some kindof software for it, and the whole thing kindof goes nowhere.

I'm going to propose something that may be controversial. Why not set up an app store for the commander platform? One that will allows devs to either release their apps for free or charge a small fee. It would encourage third party devs to make cool things for the platform, provide a revenue stream to the hardware folks, and provide incentive for folks to buy the thing because there's more stuff you can do with the thing.

Let me put this another way. I'm a professional dev with other 20 years of experience hacking on everything from system/Z to PCs to mobile and cloud. From a capability standpoint I absolutely can make cool stuff for the Commander. The reason why I'm not doing that is because I can't afford to spend the time doing so. I have a demanding full time dev gig, a family, and all the adult responsibilities that come with being someone's dad and provider. If I didn't have to work I would totally spend my days hacking away at the X16/8. -But- I do have to work and as such my time very limited which leaves me asking myself questions like "can I afford to spend [x] units of time hacking on the X16/8 when I could spend that time learning new industry skill [y] that will translate into $$$ I can use to support my family?" Sadly, at present the answer to that question is no.

Give me and others like me a reason to turn that 'no' into a 'yes'. Even if it's just for beer money. Set up a marketplace now before the hardware is released and put some energy into growing the developer community. The emulator is released so there is already a ready-bake user base for devs to cater to. If you want the x16/8 to thrive as a platform (and I most certainly do), it's the developers you need to worry about - not how phase one or three will impact future sales.

obligatory Steve Balmer "developers" video because I think it's funny

Scott Robison · Post by **Scott Robison** » Tue Aug 31, 2021 11:21 pm

56 minutes ago, snerd said:

I'm going to propose something that may be controversial. Why not set up an app store for the commander platform? One that will allows devs to either release their apps for free or charge a small fee. It would encourage third party devs to make cool things for the platform, provide a revenue stream to the hardware folks, and provide incentive for folks to buy the thing because there's more stuff you can do with the thing.

I'm not opposed to someone creating an app store if they think it's a good idea. I don't think it is a bad idea per se, but I think the same reason that you say developers won't invest time if there isn't an opportunity for return on that investment is the same reason why an app store isn't a great idea.

We're not talking about a platform that is designed for a captive audience that has no other way to install applications like iOS or, to a lesser extent, than Android. We're not talking about a locked down DRM encumbered platform where signed apps are the only apps people can run.

Further, we're not talking about a platform that will ever extend beyond the thousands of units, I suspect. Maybe tens of thousands on a good day. That's just not large enough of a population to make an app store a viable concern, I think. The people who will be interested in the X16 or even the X8 are going to be relatively tech savvy. Not opposed to downloading something to their microsd and sneaker netting it to their X16. Not opposed to typing LOAD "FILE": RUN and hitting Enter or Return or whatever the key is labelled on the X16 keyboard.

The file download section here *is* the free download service for X16 at the moment. The fact that more software hasn't been released at this point I think has more to do with waiting for final blessed hardware specs and an out of date emulator. Once final emulator / hardware is known, I think things will pick up quite a bit.

As for an opportunity to make a buck, the various app stores take a 30% cut or something. That's good money when you have literally billions of customers who are not as technically literate and locked into some form of DRM using the app store. That just doesn't describe the X16. I'd love to be wrong!

snerd · Post by **snerd** » Tue Aug 31, 2021 11:41 pm

21 minutes ago, Scott Robison said:

I'm not opposed to someone creating an app store if they think it's a good idea. I don't think it is a bad idea per se, but I think the same reason that you say developers won't invest time if there isn't an opportunity for return on that investment is the same reason why an app store isn't a great idea.

We're not talking about a platform that is designed for a captive audience that has no other way to install applications like iOS or, to a lesser extent, than Android. We're not talking about a locked down DRM encumbered platform where signed apps are the only apps people can run.

Further, we're not talking about a platform that will ever extend beyond the thousands of units, I suspect. Maybe tens of thousands on a good day. That's just not large enough of a population to make an app store a viable concern, I think. The people who will be interested in the X16 or even the X8 are going to be relatively tech savvy. Not opposed to downloading something to their microsd and sneaker netting it to their X16. Not opposed to typing LOAD "FILE": RUN and hitting Enter or Return or whatever the key is labelled on the X16 keyboard.

The file download section here *is* the free download service for X16 at the moment. The fact that more software hasn't been released at this point I think has more to do with waiting for final blessed hardware specs and an out of date emulator. Once final emulator / hardware is known, I think things will pick up quite a bit.

As for an opportunity to make a buck, the various app stores take a 30% cut or something. That's good money when you have literally billions of customers who are not as technically literate and locked into some form of DRM using the app store. That just doesn't describe the X16. I'd love to be wrong!

I think we're in alignment. The idea would be to provide revenue for the hardware folks and an incentive for developers to put in the time. Moreover - it's a means for the community to support both the ongoing efforts of the hardware folks and to support devs that are doing cool stuff. In theory, I can set up a patreon page but if I'm successful at earning some $$$ then none of that is going back to support the project beyond my developer contributions. Nobody is going to earn quit-your-job money doing this, but speaking for myself I'd be much more inclined to put in the hours necessary to make some truly rad @#$! for the platform if I knew (1) the platform is alive, and (2) there are beers I didn't pay for at the other end.

EDIT

I want to add that the financial incentive isn't the only value-add for developers. A lot of us do side-hustle work in addition to our FTE gigs to earn extra scratch and to transition into consulting. One tried-and-true way to do that is to spend time developing for small niche platforms and use that success to grow the consulting business. The money - even if it's beer money - is not nearly as valuable as a proven track record of making things other people like enough to spend money - any money - on.

BruceMcF · Post by **BruceMcF** » Wed Sep 01, 2021 3:33 am

5 hours ago, snerd said:

I'm seeing a lot of debate in this thread over what might happen to "future sales" depending on what gets released and when. I'm just going to point out that none of that really matters if there isn't a vibrant developer community making things for the platform. A computer without a developer is a violin without a musician. I just checked the downloads section of this website and to date there are mostly demos, a few games, and a few utilities available for download. Not nearly what would be necessary to sustain a platform. On the current trajectory - and I say this with ❤️ in my heart for everything the team is trying to do - the most likely outcome is that some form of the computer gets released, a few thousand hobbyists buy one, maybe a few dozen of those release some kind of software for it, and the whole thing kindof goes nowhere. ...

"I just checked the downloads section for a system that doesn't yet exist except as a few prototype boards and an emulator, and it didn't look like it was enough to sustain a platform."

Man, I'm guessing you are a glass half empty type.

A few thousands sold and what I take it is a few dozen hobbyists releasing software on an ongoing basis for a few years (since a few dozen releasing at least one application of some sort has already been passed) would not actually be "the whole thing kind of goes nowhere", it would be a nice little hobbyist system. This is the level of success where the worriers among us would be worried about fracturing the software ecosystem between the X8 and X16 families.

Sure, the hope would be 10,000 or more sold. A hundred hobbyists or so releasing software on an ongoing basis for a few years while it is a thing, and a few dozen releasing software on a longer trajectory is more like what it would be aiming at, as that would be a level of success that would sustain repeated production of batches of the different systems in the product line. I don't really think the division of the ecosystem between the X8 and X16 is a serious problem at this level of success, because where it's practical to port between the two, there will be a lot of ports ... indeed at this level, the FOSS applications that are popular on one system and practical to port are going to get ported (though possibly not by the original developer).

But the idea that the current selection in the downloads for a system that hasn't even started its crowdfunding campaign yet, let alone shipped, is representative of what it will be on delivery day seems like you needed to arrive at a "oh, this current system isn't going to work" conclusion as the launchpad for the proposal you wanted to make.

It's hard to see how an app store can beat the download store at this site for ability to maintain both a FOSS ecosystem and a platform for Patreon/Indiegogo retro developers. The key thing is not just that everything is free to download, but most things can be tried in the browser before downloading. After all, what Patreon/Indiegogo retro developers are going to be putting up are their free teaser versions, and the lower the barrier to entry for trying out the teaser version, the greater the likelihood of attracting patreons or backers.

Fracturing the software ecosystem with an app store for paid apps and the download store at this site for free try-before-you-buy downloads is recreating the very problem with the healthiness of software ecosystem that the download store is very well designed to prevent.

As far as people building their resumes to become a consultant ... it seems unlikely that this is for that stage of the process. This is for earlier in the stage of getting your feet wet with putting your code into public for others to see and use, in a community that is supportive of newbies and forgiving of newbie mistakes. I reckon that if somebody after some successes with some weekend development projects in this space decides they want to pursue that path, they really would be ill-advised to stay in this space for their resume building.

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4 hours ago, Scott Robison said:

I'm not opposed to someone creating an app store if they think it's a good idea. I don't think it is a bad idea per se, but I think the same reason that you say developers won't invest time if there isn't an opportunity for return on that investment is the same reason why an app store isn't a great idea.

We're not talking about a platform that is designed for a captive audience that has no other way to install applications like iOS or, to a lesser extent, than Android. We're not talking about a locked down DRM encumbered platform where signed apps are the only apps people can run.

This is the key point. A free download site is the only system that can work as a central point of contact ... with paid options connecting into it via free teasers. In competition with that, an app store is going to have a relatively small share of total system owners participating, and it's highly unlikely to be viable.

This app store idea seems like an effort to transport experience outside of the retro niche and bring it in, but between the development team and others whom David is in regular contact with, there was quite a bit of retro niche experience that stands behind the design of the download platform and the decision to do an early release of an emulator long before the design was even close to finalized.

An app store has a comforting "what people are used to" feel to it, but beyond that it's not a great fit to this market niche.

Scott Robison · Post by **Scott Robison** » Wed Sep 01, 2021 4:18 am

42 minutes ago, BruceMcF said:

An app store has a comforting "what people are used to" feel to it, but beyond that it's not a great fit to this market niche.

And until the X16 has native internet access, an app store would be limited to sneaker net anyway. I'd love to see the popularity surge enough to justify someone taking that task on (I won't be doing it myself) or someone doing it and thus causing a popularity surge. I would happily admit I was wrong. The purpose of the app store is to make download and install of applications easy. I'm not saying an app store couldn't work for X16, but it would have several strikes going against it from the get go with what is currently known about the design.

BruceMcF · Post by **BruceMcF** » Wed Sep 01, 2021 4:21 am

6 minutes ago, Scott Robison said:

And until the X16 has native internet access, an app store would be limited to sneaker net anyway. I'd love to see the popularity surge enough to justify someone taking that task on (I won't be doing it myself) or someone doing it and thus causing a popularity surge. I would happily admit I was wrong. The purpose of the app store is to make download and install of applications easy. I'm not saying an app store couldn't work for X16, but it would have several strikes going against it from the get go with what is currently known about the design.

To be fair, I am not deep enough into the Raspberry Pi community to be aware of whether it has some thriving app stores, but if it does, maybe a comparison of their estimated user base to an estimate of total RPi users would give a reasonable idea of the share of X16 users an X16 app store might attract.

And if it doesn't, that also may be a useful piece of information to bring into the assessment of the idea.

After all, except for being a likely market that is three to six orders of magnitude smaller, that is a good approximation of the degree of openness of a retro 6502 board that can be programmed down to the bare metal.

TomXP411 · Post by **TomXP411** » Wed Sep 01, 2021 6:14 am

1 hour ago, BruceMcF said:

To be fair, I am not deep enough into the Raspberry Pi community to be aware of whether it has some thriving app stores, but if it does, maybe a comparison of their estimated user base to an estimate of total RPi users would give a reasonable idea of the share of X16 users an X16 app store might attract.

And if it doesn't, that also may be a useful piece of information to bring into the assessment of the idea.

After all, except for being a likely market that is three to six orders of magnitude smaller, that is a good approximation of the degree of openness of a retro 6502 board that can be programmed down to the bare metal.

The Pi runs (primarily) Linux. The idea of an app store is anathema to the Linux community, although there is an included package manager that largely serves the same function.

The difference is that only free, open source software gets distributed through the package manager. The Pi foundation dared to add a Microsoft repository so users could download Visual Studio Code without needing to manually add a repository (because VS Code is the best way to write Python, which is the preferred language of the new Pi Pico microcontroller), and the community lost their stuffing. You'd think the Pi foundation had sold out to Gates and MS was going to turn all of our Pis into Redmond zombie love slaves, or something.

So 100% of Raspbian users are using an "app store" in the form of the package manager, mostly because (like the App Store on iOS) it's included, free, and easy to use. But you can't actually buy an app through the repository manager. Instead, if you want to buy software, you've got to go through the process of downloading it with a web browser and installing it yourself, either via an installer package, compiling source, or hand installation.

David Snopek · Post by **David Snopek** » Wed Sep 01, 2021 11:54 am

13 hours ago, snerd said:

I just checked the downloads section of this website and to date there are mostly demos, a few games, and a few utilities available for download. Not nearly what would be necessary to sustain a platform. On the current trajectory - and I say this with ❤️ in my heart for everything the team is trying to do - the most likely outcome is that some form of the computer gets released, a few thousand hobbyists buy one, maybe a few dozen of those release some kindof software for it, and the whole thing kindof goes nowhere.

I think there's a lot more development going on than is visible in the downloads section. Personally, I have a number of little prototypes that I've been working on here and there, which I haven't posted in downloads because I don't think they're ready, and since there's no release date for the X16, there's no rush. (Here's one I've been poking at for about a week, along with the source code, if anyone's interested).

Honestly, I think there's no rush in general! The development community around the X16 seems (to me, at least) to be alive and vibrant and going strong. Yeah, the project has taken a little longer than expected, but I don't think the community will evaporate if nothing is released soon (or even for another year or two). If anything the community will just continue to grow! I don't think the project leads should feel pressured to get something (like the X8) out the door, just for the sake of getting something out there.

BruceMcF · Post by **BruceMcF** » Wed Sep 01, 2021 12:28 pm

6 hours ago, TomXP411 said:

The Pi runs (primarily) Linux. The idea of an app store is anathema to the Linux community, although there is an included package manager that largely serves the same function.

The difference is that only free, open source software gets distributed through the package manager. ...

Yes, AFAIU, the requirement of the X16 download section is "free as in free beer", not necessarily "free as in personal freedom". I expect a strong contingent of FOSS in the download section over time, but there will also be a strong contingent of various types of "free, but source closed in various ways" software, and of course teaser free software for applications with more features (game levels, instrument channel combinations supported, whatever) in traditional paid, Patreon or Indigogo versions.

But while an app manager is not likely to be anathema to as many in the X16 community ... it also is not going to get very many retro hearts racing, either.

6 hours ago, TomXP411 said:

So 100% of Raspbian users are using an "app store" in the form of the package manager, mostly because (like the App Store on iOS) it's included, free, and easy to use. But you can't actually buy an app through the repository manager.

The original proposal for an app store was definitely about it being for paid applications.

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34 minutes ago, David Snopek said:

I think there's a lot more development going on than is visible in the downloads section. Personally, I have a number of little prototypes that I've been working on here and there, which I haven't posted in downloads because I don't think they're ready, and since there's no release date for the X16, there's no rush. (Here's one I've been poking at for about a week, along with the source code, if anyone's interested).

Honestly, I think there's no rush in general! The development community around the X16 seems (to me, at least) to be alive and vibrant and going strong. Yeah, the project has taken a little longer than expected, but I don't think the community will evaporate if nothing is released soon (or even for another year or two). If anything the community will just continue to grow! I don't think the project leads should feel pressured to get something (like the X8) out the door, just for the sake of getting something out there.

I think there is quite a lot to this.

I can see deciding to go with the X8 instead of the X16e because the X8 can be made available much sooner, where the X16e was, famously, only going to be the third of three "phases", without any guarantee that there would be enough inertia to get all the way there.

Instead, especially since the partially customized X16p case is off the table, it would be possible to do a different three phases to the crowdfund.

When it is felt that the X16p system is sufficiently ready to go that there is no further development risk, launch the X16p DIY Kit and X8 projects side by side.

If the X16p DIY Kit funds, then launch a crowdfund for a fixed number of X16p built boards.

While the crowdfunding projects are working toward their deadline dates, finalize the design specification of the CX16c, and after the release dates for the first two sets of projects, open the crowdfunding for the X16c, built and in case. With a stable, working X16p platform already in the market, this has a clear hardware development target, and much lower development risk than there was at the beginning of what turned out to be the X16p development project (several years ago now). Also, the built CX16p kits already released provide a strong framing for whatever turns out to be a realistic CX16c price point.

Cullen · Post by **Cullen** » Wed Sep 01, 2021 12:43 pm

41 minutes ago, David Snopek said:

I think there's a lot more development going on than is visible in the downloads section. Personally, I have a number of little prototypes that I've been working on here and there, which I haven't posted in downloads because I don't think they're ready, and since there's no release date for the X16, there's no rush. (Here's one I've been poking at for about a week, along with the source code, if anyone's interested).

Honestly, I think there's no rush in general! The development community around the X16 seems (to me, at least) to be alive and vibrant and going strong. Yeah, the project has taken a little longer than expected, but I don't think the community will evaporate if nothing is released soon (or even for another year or two). If anything the community will just continue to grow! I don't think the project leads should feel pressured to get something (like the X8) out the door, just for the sake of getting something out there.

To be honest, I've been following this project only casually since it started. When this thread got posted someone said something to the extent of "don't complain about hardware limitations for software you haven't even written" -put up or shut up basically. So I watched SlithyMatt's videos, compiled the emulator, and got started on a game engine. I've been having a blast putting it together, but the learning curve is steep and it's going to be a while yet before I have something worth posting. I imagine there's a lot of people right now having fun tinkering with the emulator but with nothing concrete finished to put in the downloads section.