Commander X16

I'm fine with whatever 8BG wants to do re funding.  He's talked about it, too.  I suspect the issue isn't money, but rather other resource needs, such as time and prioritization and organization.

1. 
   We can't really buy time.
   


2. 
   We can't really prioritize things for the principals.
   


3. 
   We can't really organize them.
   

 

But I think your question is more like "what can we do?"        ....and I think the answer is, do what you can, until we know more.

 

If you want to collaborate on a project around the X16 (emulator...), I'm interested, and others probably are as well, but the trick is Project Management, not nerd skillz.

1. 
   Matching skills up
   


2. 
   Organizing a project
   


3. 
   Followthrough.
   

On 3/18/2022 at 9:37 AM, x16tial said:

Right, somehow in the last 7 months, the money issue just went away, magically...  gotcha.  Sorry, this response isn't just to you, it's to anyone saying money isn't the issue.



My call is this:  Do something to help push the project toward success.  If you can't help with the hardware or software, then join David's Patreon for $1 a month, or just Paypal him 5 bucks.  Let's hit it on all fronts.

By all means, sure, money will help. However,  no amount of money will help when the FPGA used for VERA isn't going to be available anywhere in the world until September. Unless you raise a few billion to start up a chip fab, we're going to have to wait.

On 3/18/2022 at 11:18 AM, Ed Minchau said:

By all means, sure, money will help. However,  no amount of money will help when the FPGA used for VERA isn't going to be available anywhere in the world until September. Unless you raise a few billion to start up a chip fab, we're going to have to wait.

Or we implement it with random TTL in our cabinets.  What's a few million 2n2222's?

On 3/18/2022 at 9:18 AM, Ed Minchau said:

By all means, sure, money will help. However,  no amount of money will help when the FPGA used for VERA isn't going to be available anywhere in the world until September. Unless you raise a few billion to start up a chip fab, we're going to have to wait.

Again, I made zero mention of timeline.

I agree with @x16tial. Points made by others are valid too, but I did this very thing last August: signed up to be a $20/month patreon supporter. Not because it will make things happen on a certain time table, but because by David's own words he's invested "five figures" (or words to that effect) on CX16 so far. It was a way to support David and help offset the expense. Not all help needs to be financial, but if you can, it won't hurt. If nothing else you are supporting more content creation.

If throwing money at the project will help, I'm already regularly donating to T8BG's Patreon fund.

But in order to do what you're talking about, to have the money really make a difference, right now, then what you'd need is enough money coming in to make the project more than just a labor of love for the primary participants. Not 'making a profit,' but 'paying the workforce.' Even peanuts and chickenfeed would have at least a symbolic value.

On 3/18/2022 at 4:37 PM, x16tial said:

Right, somehow in the last 7 months, the money issue just went away, magically...  gotcha.  Sorry, this response isn't just to you, it's to anyone saying money isn't the issue.



My call is this:  Do something to help push the project toward success.  If you can't help with the hardware or software, then join David's Patreon for $1 a month, or just Paypal him 5 bucks.  Let's hit it on all fronts.

After all, I can see your point. I am already a patreon but I think I will make an extra donation even if money isn’t the main issue right now. It is an encouragement and a way to let the project group know that we are many who support the project.

On 3/18/2022 at 10:28 AM, x16tial said:

Where did I say "hurry up"?  I said "successful outcome", I made no mention of timeline, you're inferring that, incorrectly.

I was like, "what does x16tial MEAN, of COURSE it said 'hurry up'" ... but then rereading it, it's nowhere in the text. Then a little while later, I realized where I got the "hurry up" impression.

We use metaphors because they are striking, but because they are striking, they can convey more than we intend. The metaphor of a racing car being pushed over the finish line so that it can officially finish the race, used in the title of the post, really does imply that the car stopped running close enough to the finish line that it can be pushed over. A car that is "pushed over the finish line" has always stopped running / wrecked in the final lap of the race.

So while the discussion said nothing about timeline, the title of the post gives a picture that seems a lot closer to finished than the earliest possible Q4 2022 dictated by the availability of the FPGA chips in the Vera design.

Luckily this is an online forum and not a print magazine, so those kind of misunderstandings of an argument can be cleared up.

Yeah, my first impulse upon recently hearing the issues with the project was to lose more faith and join a thread grousing about the situation.

But I realized, that won't help at all. And decided to take a different tack.

It's really quite amazing what a small, volunteer team has so far accomplished.  And I have enough faith that David, and team, want to see this through, that in all likelihood, we'll at some point have a decent product to mess around with.  So I decided I wanted to help in some way, not just sit on the sidelines.  Hopefully more will join me, and like I said before, it doesn't have to be financial, there are other ways to help.  Cheers.

On 3/19/2022 at 12:26 AM, x16tial said:

Do you actually think someone is getting rich from this?

If they didn't they would make the blue prints available online for free. If they did i would have had a working cx16 long ago, and probably a few copies available on eBay for you guys.