On 8/21/2021 at 1:31 PM, The 8-Bit Guy said:
... Some people seem confused on why I'm in favor of releasing this [the X8]. So I'm going to open up and totally lay it out here. This is my honest opinion on that matter: The X16 has taken much longer to bring to market that I thought. There were many times where development was halted for 6 months or more because of unsolvable bugs. And even though we are close to being able to release a kit fo the X16, it's going to still take more time to get this out the door and the people wanting fully assembled systems will be waiting extra time. The X16 is definitely happening. The X8 is not meant as a replacement for it. But, I felt like the X8 with it's super-low price-tag and easy manufacturing could help keep interest in the project much like "The C64 Mini" did, even though everyone was wanting a full-sized machine. This would keep development on-going, and most anything made for the X8 could easily be ported to the X16 later.
On 10/8/2021 at 10:27 AM, maktos said:
If David came on here and said, "We're waiting for the component shortages to end, which might be 2-3 years. Have patience, guys. We're still bringing this thing to market, it might just be a while."
That would END IT. At least for all those who matter -- the NON-JERKS. Understand the difference?
When David puts forward some info, and that "isn't good enough for some people", that doesn't matter, because those who don't trust David are jerks who should just leave. We don't need to appease naysayers, trolls, troublemakers, etc.
This is about those who take David at face value -- who trust his leadership, who believe in this project. Those are the only people who matter!
My point is that David himself has expressed grave misgivings about the future of this project -- even if I trust David, I have reason to give up on this project at this point. That was never the case, before August 19th.
And thus far, after giving those grave misgivings and listing all the huge obstacles, DAVID HIMSELF hasn't put forward his new plan for us to trust him with (or not). That's a HUGE difference.
If you can't see that, then I can't help you.
My point is that "David has expressed grave misgivings about the future of this project" is a massive misrepresentation of what David has said.
(1) David has explained that one part of the previously laid out development path is cancelled, and has express uncertainty about whether or not to release the X8 system as already designed, and solicited community feedback to help inform the decision that the team makes.
(2) David, in the original post, didn't express any misgivings about releasing the X16p when it is ready, but warned that it was not as close to being release ready as the X8 system was. Above, he reiterates and clarifies that the X16p is close to being ready, but it's not there yet.
This is where "grave misgivings about the project" goes off the rails as a description of "It's close. It's not quite ready for release yet, but the X16p will definitely be released at some point."
Now, as far as, "it's been TWO MONTHS AND NO CLEAR PLAN!!!!" as the foundation for a decision to panic ... the question becomes, is it certainly the case that two months without an announced clear plan is evidence of trouble? So the rest of this is much more speculative, but that's OK ... whether or not it is the actual situation, it presents one scenario where it would be unreasonable to expect an announced clear plan in a mere eight weeks or so ... so establishing that "two months and no clear plan yet" is by no means unambiguous evidence of trouble.
(3) Objectively, when it was decided more recently that the X8 wasn't "close enough", that would seem to intersect with David's thinking that "most anything made for the X8 could be easily ported to the X16 later". That would seem likely to be true for any Basic program, but when it comes to assembly language programming, that becomes a bit fuzzier.
(4) Information that it was decided that the X8 system as it had been designed was not going to be released ... and that Frank is going to work on a full X16e design ... doesn't pin down exactly what comes next.
So, consider, that what MIGHT come next is flipping the Phase 1 through Phase 3 script, making a more completely upwardly compatible "smaller" FPGA that would more thoroughly support binary X8/X16 compatible assembly language programming, "HighRAM based" system programming, etc.
But ... how would that compare in terms of price-point to a full fledged 512K or greater system RAM X16e? Would the price appeal of the "more compatible X8" starting point still work out?
One way to answer a hardware question with so many unknowns is to do prototypes of the alternatives, and get a firmer idea of the bill of materials for actual system designs, rather than relying on guesswork.
The development path there would be to prototype an X16e, then take that design and redesign it for relying on slimmed down X16 memory map for SPRAM and Block RAM resources hosted entirely on an FPGA in the same family, and evaluate what the price points look like at that stage.
Now, that involves, (A) the team deciding that the X8 design as it stands is not as suitable for a "work on this now, upgrade to X16 later" approach as David was originally thinking ... that takes time ... (B) deciding to get a better idea of the opportunities for a more compatible approach ... (C) Frank laying out a prototype development path and the team agreeing to it ... (D) Frank developing the X16e prototype ... (E) Frank stripping it down to the "more compatible X8" prototype ... (F) decision ... (G) announcement.
Now, would it really be unreasonable for that to have not yet reached (G) in two month's time? I would argue that a month to get to (C) would be reasonable and three months to get to (G) would not be at all surprising.
So I'm not saying this is what is going on, but simply that, to my mind, it's far too early to be panicking because of no public declaration of the new development path two months after David solicited feedback on the strategy of going with the X8 first.
