Commander X16

On 10/15/2021 at 8:42 AM, EMwhite said:

(Also, what happened in the mega-thread?  did somebody drop an F-bomb?  I see the mod-squad shut down the show)

I can only hypothesize as I have no inside knowledge, but as an active participant in the thread: off topic posts that were more off topic than most, and possibly me trying to rail against it by insisting there were better places for such replies and perhaps too snide comments on my part in relation to said posts. While I will feel bad if it is *my* post that locked the thread instead of the other posts that managed to lock it, it is hard for me to view locking of that thread at this point as a bad thing given the state of commentary.

But I don't want to derail this thread, just answering the question. Start another thread or message me if I can answer more questions.

On 10/15/2021 at 10:51 AM, Janne Sirén said:

@Scott Robison



I hope this is a suitable thread to answer in, coming from the X8 poll thread. Moving onwards from any of that debate, I guess my question/point is how/what do you perceive the unique sales proposition being for an FPGA-only X8 or X16? There are certainly FPGA-only computers already out, but usually they have some other USP such as a case/compability/legacy with ZX Spectrum Next or the MEGA65, or they are lean-mean FPGA monsters like the MiSTer family, the ZX-One family or training boards such as Nexys. Others, like the Foenix computers, have the unique proposition of offering several discrete chips such as "real" processors and several hardware sound chips in addition to FPGAs.



What would be the unique sales proposition of a simple FPGA board like X8/16 that could easily run on any existing FPGA platform that are already being produced? I am genuinely curious about your answer and I hope my question also illustrates the area where I think it would be beneficial for the X16 project to continue having a clear message and a clear point.

I'm going to start a new thread to address my thoughts on this to avoid doing more thread derailing than I recently may have contributed to. ?

Perfect, I just think it is a worthy question in its own right.

My potential purchase of an X8 would not be based on when it was available. I'm happy if it is released, more so if it helps get the X16 project further along. If it delays the X16 that would be disappointing, but still acceptable to me.



For me the attraction of the X16 is the DIP kit, the use of modern/sourcable accessories (Kb, mouse, monitor, SD card) and the hardware expandability. The X8 doesn't meet my wants. 



Others have stated they would buy an X8 and I hope it is made available for them.  

On 10/15/2021 at 12:51 PM, Janne Sirén said:

I hope this is a suitable thread to answer in, coming from the X8 poll thread. Moving onwards from any of that debate, I guess my question/point is how/what do you perceive the unique sales proposition being for an FPGA-only X8 or X16? ...

The thing is, the "unique value proposition" of the two are different.

The "unique value proposition" of the X16e is that it is hardware that lets you run X16 software out of the box, if you like, with a complete system costing somewhere on the order of half as much as the X16c. SBCs that can run the X16 emulator are already available in the $50-$100 price range, but if people really press the limits of the hardware, there could well still be some cool demos or games that don't run correctly or at full 60fps frame rate on the emulator.

The "unique value proposition" of the X8 is a small, inexpensive board that a single person can understand down "to the hardware specification", a la the C64 or Atari 800, of particular interest to those who already understand 6502 Assembly Language (and optionally also Forth) programming.

Relative to the FPGA Speccy+, the X8 is substantially cheaper, the X16e is a 6502 core while the Speccy is a Z80 core. So the X16e vs the Speccy+ (watchamacallit) is more like horizontal product differentiation, the X8 vs the Speccy+ is more like vertical differentiation.

As far as what you can DO with the X8 ... well, I spilled likely over 1,000 words on the simple proposition that if it had a spare select line for using the existing SPI interface to access a "hat", and brought select, SCLK, MOSI and MISO out to the existing debug interface pinout, to my mind it would be able to do a lot more interesting things.

Also, the value proposition of the X16e depends much more directly on following up the X16p and X16c, which are the anchors for the development of the "interesting X16 software" that drives the X16e value proposition.

Most people have shrugged it off, but I still worry about having two incompatible systems out there, competing for software development resources, especially if the X8 comes out first.  I'd much rather have a X16 FPGA solution come out first instead.  It would be fine if the X8 were to release eventually (although once the X16 comes out I don't really see the point), once the X16 software ecosystem has matured a bit.

On 10/15/2021 at 2:44 PM, Ender said:

Most people have shrugged it off, but I still worry about having two incompatible systems out there, competing for software development resources, especially if the X8 comes out first.  I'd much rather have a X16 FPGA solution come out first instead.  It would be fine if the X8 were to release eventually (although once the X16 comes out I don't really see the point), once the X16 software ecosystem has matured a bit.

David has said that the X8 is not a plan going forward as it turned out to be too different, and that Frank was looking at something that could be more like the X16. So I think you need not worry about fragmenting the ecosystem in that way. Maybe some other new and improved way, but not that way. ?

So what else can we talk about that is not this topic and not off-topic?  {crickets}

 

On 10/15/2021 at 5:38 PM, Scott Robison said:

David has said that the X8 is not a plan going forward as it turned out to be too different, and that Frank was looking at something that could be more like the X16. So I think you need not worry about fragmenting the ecosystem in that way. Maybe some other new and improved way, but not that way. ?

Yup, I was relieved to see that.  I was about to say I'm still a little skeptical that that's actually what he meant based on the wording in the screenshot that's been circulating, but I did some searching on the Facebook group just now, and apparently they've come to the same conclusion, and I'm sure they would have been corrected by David or Frank there if it wasn't true (since they both seem to regularly post there).

Don't get me wrong, the X8 does sound cool, and I would probably buy one at some point, but I'd just feel better if the X16 came out first.

On 10/15/2021 at 5:44 PM, EMwhite said:

So what else can we talk about that is not this topic and not off-topic?  {crickets}

tl;dr: "Huh, yeah, the X8 was an interesting proof of concept, even if they decided not to release it to the market."