X8 Release Date q:
X8 Release Date q:
I really have no idea what the 'rules' are around here; feels like so much has changed across the last month or two so moderator/webmeister, feel free to delete this thread; I won't complain or mind. I'm here to respectfully ask for an update, if there is one...
About a month ago, 8 Bit Guy said "The X8 could be available immediately and be well under $50. I'm not sure how far under $50. I'd say as low as $25 and as high as $50. "
With over 300 'votes' and voting tapered off, "immediately" well behind us, and no mention of Commander X[anything] on the VCF East agenda, I was just wondering if there was an update or maybe a date on when the folks running this show think an update might be provided. Thank you.
X8 Release Date q:
On 9/26/2021 at 4:33 PM, EMwhite said:
I really have no idea what the 'rules' are around here; feels like so much has changed across the last month or two so moderator/webmeister, feel free to delete this thread; I won't complain or mind. I'm here to respectfully ask for an update, if there is one...
About a month ago, 8 Bit Guy said "The X8 could be available immediately and be well under $50. I'm not sure how far under $50. I'd say as low as $25 and as high as $50. "
With over 300 'votes' and voting tapered off, "immediately" well behind us, and no mention of Commander X[anything] on the VCF East agenda, I was just wondering if there was an update or maybe a date on when the folks running this show think an update might be provided. Thank you.
"About a month ago" is about four weeks. That's not that long to make the fundamental decisions they have to make, given that this is a volunteer team contributing their sometime not very abundant spare time to the project, and then when those decisions are made, there will be some more time required to hammer things out into a firm enough shape for public announcement of the new development path and anticipated timeline.
As far as rules ... the team announces when they have something to announce, so the answer to "when is the next update coming" is always "when it's ready", so there is indeed a general rule against threads that are basically asking when the next update is coming. Its point three in the welcome message to the forums:
Quote
3. Please don't ask for updates/videos/pricing: Announcements will be made when available
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Oldrooster
X8 Release Date q:
I can understand their silence perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. They can spend their time and effort developing the actual hardware, or just talking about the hardware instead. And not building it. There is no opportunity to allow the internet community to help with the project, it has to be done by just a few offline people, nothing else can work, it is exactly the reason why virtually every automotive mechanic have signs that tell customers to stay out of the workshop. I always manage to be welcomed into the workshop after one or two visits, however I know the problems they face because I educate myself about those problems. Hissyfit hysterical customers at the auto mechanic drive the price astronomical for everyone. No I am not talking about you or anyone, just generally explaining why updates are scarce.
It brings to mind a Keanu movie called chain reaction, someone is criticizing his character Eddie Kasalivich asking them something like why haven't they documented the device on the computer yet or some version of that, and he's been up all night in the machine shop and says "because I was building it". So yes, there are plenty out there who do nothing at all except slow the entire process to a halt, oblivious of the effects. Again, not you or anyone, just talking generally as to why PR is counterproductive to production in a far less than ideal world.
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paulscottrobson
- Posts: 305
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:43 pm
X8 Release Date q:
On 9/26/2021 at 9:33 PM, EMwhite said:
I was just wondering if there was an update or maybe a date on when the folks running this show think an update might be provided. Thank you.
Perfectly reasonable, but so is the silence. Dave tapped the community, got a response, has probably read some of the discussions, most of which were fairly predictable, and he'll make a call with input from other senior project members. It's a difficult call and wouldn't be helped by any more speculation on his part.
We can talk about it all we like of course ? That can be helpful ; I would hope if they are going down the X8 route they've taken note of the things Bruce (mostly) has written about an SPI port.
X8 Release Date q:
On 9/27/2021 at 9:49 AM, paulscottrobson said:
I would hope if they are going down the X8 route they've taken note of the things Bruce (mostly) has written about an SPI port.
And hopefully able to keep the vram access mechanism the same as the X16 spec.
X8 Release Date q:
On 9/27/2021 at 5:32 AM, Wonderdog said:
And hopefully able to keep the vram access mechanism the same as the X16 spec.
Address compatible would not work ... but function compatible would make a reassembly or patch for compatibility of low RAM applications straightforward, that would be great!
Mind, I'm skeptical that it's possible ... I suspect the logic resources freed up by not having the incrementing address port may be part of what is used for the 6502 core (which needs an adder for indexing and an adder for the arithmetic operations) ... but if it is possible, it would be great.
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paulscottrobson
- Posts: 305
- Joined: Tue Sep 22, 2020 6:43 pm
X8 Release Date q:
On 9/27/2021 at 10:32 AM, Wonderdog said:
And hopefully able to keep the vram access mechanism the same as the X16 spec.
No, I much prefer the window. Compatibility isn't difficult - 98% of the time it is just loading stuff in to VRAM, which is part of the Kernel anyway (or should be !), and you may of course want different resolutions and/or sprite colour depths. And you can do stuff with the Window you can't do with the pipe.
Programmers should be seperating their view anyway, so you can do what Dave has done with his Petscii Robots game, port it fairly easily. And well all keep our Models and Views seperate ..... of course ?
X8 Release Date q:
On 9/27/2021 at 3:13 PM, paulscottrobson said:
98% of the time it is just loading stuff in to VRAM
Funny, I'd say 98% of the time I'm not using it to 'load stuff into VRAM'.
Maybe you do, which is fine, but don't assume that is what everyone else is doing.
On 9/27/2021 at 3:13 PM, paulscottrobson said:
Programmers should be seperating their view anyway, so you can do what Dave has done with his Petscii Robots game, port it fairly easily
Personally I find the idea of writing code that runs on all 6502 based machines boring. If I were writing a database or a spreadsheet then I guess so, but that's not where some people's interest is.
X8 Release Date q:
On 9/27/2021 at 2:32 AM, Wonderdog said:
And hopefully able to keep the vram access mechanism the same as the X16 spec.
That's Highly unlikely, due the lack of banked RAM.
On the X16, I/O sits between main and banked RAM. On the CX8, there is no banked RAM, and the ROM is apparently just a bootloader. So it's likely that the CX8's memory map will be very different in upper memory... there will still need to be some I/O space, but if the ROM is only 8 or 16K, that will definitely put the I/O map in a different location than the Commander X16.
At that point, you already have to refactor code, and David already said that changing the VRAM code for PETSCII Robots was like a 10 minute job. So if the X8 does come out, I'd rather see it be its own thing with as many optimizations as possible, to take advantage of the single integrated FPGA.
X8 Release Date q:
On 9/27/2021 at 5:46 PM, TomXP411 said:
That's Highly unlikely, due the lack of banked RAM.
On the X16, I/O sits between main and banked RAM. On the CX8, there is no banked RAM, and the ROM is apparently just a bootloader. So it's likely that the CX8's memory map will be very different in upper memory... there will still need to be some I/O space, but if the ROM is only 8 or 16K, that will definitely put the I/O map in a different location than the Commander X16.
At that point, you already have to refactor code, and David already said that changing the VRAM code for PETSCII Robots was like a 10 minute job. So if the X8 does come out, I'd rather see it be its own thing with as many optimizations as possible, to take advantage of the single integrated FPGA.
The "mechanism" being the same may be possible. That depends on how much of the logic resources the X8 uses. IIRC, Frank said that Vera used about 85% of the FPGA logic resource ... and the X8 adds a 65C02 soft core and some I/O ... so it might not be feasible. That is an open question.
The mechanism being located at the same address would indeed be too late.
The bootrom code when selected in is apparently 512bytes ... the top two pages of the 64K system memory space when the bootrom is selected, $FE00-$FFFF. So the Kernel would seem to be part of the binary blob it loads from the serial flashROM on powerup.
But if in addition to the existing window system, there was also the X16 Vera data port system in some 32bytes in the I/O control page ... I think that it in the page starting at $0600 ... then for code that fits in normal CX16 Low RAM, you wouldn't have to refactor anything ... you'd just have to change the assignment of the base of the Vera register slot, and reassemble.