Change of product direction, good and bad news!

[Danathar]

I'm new to the boards, but I'll throw my 2cents in.

Like others, I'm looking for something modern but as close to a system with discrete parts. The X16 is a different beast than what the Mega65 people are doing.

I fully appreciate the work involved in getting this thing made and shipped to people. It makes you appreciate the complexity of manufacturing a complex electronic device. Commodore made millions of C64s and had to juggle many of the same issues (though many different today) with the logistics and labor of a system that is not an SBC with an FPGA doing most of the work.

You can't expect to make a fully created and mass-manufactured discrete computer without..well..what a company has which is offices, warehouses, employees. I'm not saying it's impossible to do it with a team of distributed people who are dedicated, it's just going to be HARD.



I like the Mega65, but the reasons I'd want that system are TOTALLY different for the reasons I'd like the X16. The X16 is what I want so I can learn and tinker. I'm not a great soldering person, but I'm learning and I'd be game to buy a kit system and give it a go. I'd need people to help me in a crunch if I'm stuck. Hopefully, the forums and maybe a discord channel could help with that? Maybe there could be a youtube training video where somebody goes through the whole process of making one?

[David R.]

Hi, David,

Sorry to hear of the changes you and the rest of the project team have been going through.  It sounds like you are all handling it well, but things change - they always do.  It's never easy getting a project like this off the ground.

 I'm in favor of a "Phase 1+" X16 kit (with all components and sockets) as opposed to a fully assembled product.  That's because I have the skills to assemble such a kit.  I quite realize others may favor a kit.  Board assembly and testing can be sold separately.

It sounds like Phase 2 would be more amenable to manufacture/mass production, but I'd be lost trying to assemble SMDs with my old tired eyes.  There are options for manufacture other than China (which seems so nightmarish from what I'm told).   FineLine PCB out of Philadelphia might be a way to go. 

X8 sounds like the same mistake others have made, just on the face of it.  Stick with the X16 and see it through, and you'll come out better, I would think.

As for the case, it looks like the original case is going to be fun to find.  Any microATX case will support the Phase 1 board, am I correct?

I hope the project continues to progress in one form or another.  It would be so very cool to see one of these on sale one fine day.

 

 

[sundown]

Just also want to give my opinion on this.

As some said before: For me real thing can only be the x16. Like I was hooked when I saw the front page of the web site: Inexpensive, relatable, educational.. a real CPU, not emulation. Im just a hobby programmer and I dont know much about FPGA and those things so dont take my opinion as too important, but as far as I understand,  the x8 is exactly not that, its more like a raspberry. So wouldnt be too interested in this. I want the real old skool stuff, with factory new parts, thats why Im here. I can totally understand that one would fill up the cash stack but this is not what got me excited in the "Building my dream computer..." Youtube video.

[Ju+Te]

@sundownAt least for the VERA an FPGA seems to be necessary, unfortunately. So having an FPGA-free X16 based solely on standard "factory new parts" seems not to be an option.

[Ed Minchau]

On 10/6/2021 at 12:42 PM, Ju+Te said:

@sundownAt least for the VERA an FPGA seems to be necessary, unfortunately. So having an FPGA-free X16 based solely on standard "factory new parts" seems not to be an option.

Even then, VERA is not out of line with Commodore's chip fab capabilities circa 40 years ago. They did produce their own custom chips for video/audio like the VIC chip, and something like VERA was well within their capabilities. The chief difference between the X16 and something like a C64 or VIC-20 is that RAM is much cheaper today, and we have solid state storage devices now.

[smartroad]

I was wondering if you were going to go down the FPGA route with no expansion, why not just have a small ARM board and run an emulator? I understand that FPGA is hardware but from the end users perspective it is just a chip on a board doing a thing, it is almost irrelevant if it is fpga hardware or software emulation. Have a custom Linux install for say a Raspberry Pi which can boot straight to the emulator and thats it, a Commander X16/X8 without custom hardware.

Not trying to be controversial but the question is what is more important, the hardware, the software or both? If hardware go Phase 1, if software Phase 3/Arm emulation, if both then Phase 2.

[Tatwi]

On 10/7/2021 at 5:47 AM, smartroad said:

I was wondering if you were going to go down the FPGA route with no expansion, why not just have a small ARM board and run an emulator?

1. If you want, you can already do that. BMC64 is an ARM "bare metal" version of VICE for the Pi products. The PET even runs on the $5 Pi Zero, even software upgraded to be a SuperPET.

2. Even the best software emulation has problems, such as input lag and incompatibility, where FPGA implementations do not.

FPGA = the physical circuit schematic built into a single integrated circuit (IC)

IC = a bunch of transistors in a single package rather than having fifty bajillion of them individually soldered to the board (plus other linear circuit components.

Bottom line here folks is that an FPGA implementation is functionally identical to an IC + discreet component implementation, because the FPGA is literally the same circuity built into a different package.

[TomXP411]

On 10/7/2021 at 2:47 AM, smartroad said:

I was wondering if you were going to go down the FPGA route with no expansion, why not just have a small ARM board and run an emulator? I understand that FPGA is hardware but from the end users perspective it is just a chip on a board doing a thing, it is almost irrelevant if it is fpga hardware or software emulation. Have a custom Linux install for say a Raspberry Pi which can boot straight to the emulator and thats it, a Commander X16/X8 without custom hardware.



Not trying to be controversial but the question is what is more important, the hardware, the software or both? If hardware go Phase 1, if software Phase 3/Arm emulation, if both then Phase 2.

It’s really not quite the same. David did a review of the TheC64 where he shows the audio and video lag of using software emulators. It’s one reason I prefer my Ultimate 64 or my MiSTer over VICE when playing Commodore games. 

And that’s aside from the fact that a small ARM SOC just can’t run the Commander emulation at full speed. It struggles to do 4MHz on a Raspberry Pi 4, and that’s more powerful than most of these little ARM SOCs.

 

[maktos]

I think my post got buried -- I don't know if David noticed it or not.

But I want to repeat again: as the leader of this project -- the moral leader, even if he has passed on much of the work to others -- he has represented the leadership in ASKING FOR OUR ADVICE and demonstrating uncertainty as to how to proceed.

That *should* cause any supporters to worry. What leader wavers like that publicly? And then lets it "dangle" for almost 2 months in that state? That's not good for the project.

I understand he wanted to take a reading, get the pulse of his supporters. I understand. But he's got it. He needs to now JUST AS PUBLICLY make a decision, and try to pick up the pieces so he can BEGIN the process of RESTORING OUR CONFIDENCE in this project.

We trust him, yes. But it would seem that our trusted leader is having problems -- problems which could sink the whole project. He is uncertain. He has himself listed POSSIBLY INSURMOUNTABLE obstacles. He needs to reassure us now that he has a NEW, MODIFIED PLAN, that things are back under control, that we should sit tight now and have confidence in him once again.

I repeat: it wasn't us who lost trust or confidence in him. He HIMSELF basically said that the old plan was no longer viable. He paraded the old game-plan around as a corpse. And then he left us in that limbo state, where we've been for the last 49 days! He NEEDS to come on here with his NEW, MODIFIED PLAN so we have the OPTION of having confidence in it or not!

I was/am as excited about this project as any of us. But even I will admit that this silence basically equals "I can't figure out a way to make this dream happen now" and he can't figure out how to tell us this bad news. Or he can't bring himself to give us the bad news. That's the default meaning of silence in this case. ANY OTHER REALITY needs to be explicitly stated by him at this point.

It doesn't matter WHAT killed his dream computer: covid, shortages, economic realities, market dynamics, technical issues, time management conflicts/personal issues among those working on the project, etc. It's not about placing blame. But it sure seems like he wants to say, "I don't know when/how we're ever going to bring this thing to market, guys."

But this extremely public wavering/loss of confidence/listing of GRAVE problems with the project, the facts strongly suggesting the possibility of a complete cancelling of the project, followed by 49 days of silence -- not the best recipe for confidence in a project!

 

P.S. I appreciate my fellow retro nerds discussing technical details, but frankly you're arguing about where the deck chairs should be on the Titanic ("port side!" "starboard side!") It doesn't matter! I'm talking about the viability of this project, and you're all arguing about the fine details of a hypothetical product which will likely never see the light of day at this point, according to what I've read from David himself (the original post in this thread). Especially in light of what came afterward: deafening silence.

 

TL;DR 

ANY OF YOU, PLEASE, tell me what the new gameplan is. And I will respond, "Then why hasn't David, or another representative of this project, come on here and told us that plan yet?" Check and mate.

Because any "plan" up till now got shredded publicly, paraded about as a corpse, by David on August 19, 2021. So we can't go by ANY OF THAT. Any information, videos, or posts before that date are basically obsolete.

 

[BruceMcF]

On 10/7/2021 at 1:30 PM, maktos said:

...



I understand he wanted to take a reading, get the pulse of his supporters. I understand. But he's got it. He needs to now JUST AS PUBLICLY make a decision, and try to pick up the pieces so he can BEGIN the process of RESTORING OUR CONFIDENCE in this project.



We trust him, yes. But it would seem that our trusted leader is having problems ...

Or, just possibly, they are doing something to sort out the new development timeline that takes time. He has already mentioned in discussion on FB that the Vera designer is working on a more compatible FPGA system ... which might, bear in mind, be implemented on a larger FPGA that he may have on hand or that he might have had to obtain.

Freaking out over two months without a new development timeline is certainly an option, but it is by no means mandatory.