Change of product direction, good and bad news!

[David Snopek]

The X8 sounds cool, but I think the worries about it diluting the X16 are very real. If the X8 is ever released, I think it should be long (years!) after the X16, so that the X16 has time to establish itself.

Regarding the phases: I'm only interested in Phase 1 for myself, and DIY is fine. Phase 3 is what I'm going to convince all my friends and family to get. ? (But that only really works if the software for Phase 1 and 3 are compatible, which they wouldn't if Phase 3 was the X8.) I don't really see the sense in Phase 2 - who is the target audience? People who would really like the Phase 1 but don't have enough money for it? I say make Phase 1 and 3 (which have clear audiences in my mind) and then only make Phase 2 if there seems to be a sizeable enough audience that can't be addressed with only Phase 1 and 3.

Anyway, what ever is decided, I can't wait for it to be released! Or even to have a release date, then I can focus on finishing up dev on all my apps with some kind of deadline. ?

Thanks for all your hard work and persistence!

[Brad]

I don't possibly see how an X8 would dilute demand for an X16. My rationale is this is such a niche sort of product in the first place that anyone interested in purchasing an X16 will do so, regardless of any sort of chopped down version. RE: development, isn't all dev being done on the emulator, anyway? Anyone who wants to make an X16 game can do so, right now, and it will run on the physical hardware when released.

While I understand why you wouldn't want to release an X8 from a marketing perspective, you can basically throw all that sort of stuff out the window when you take into account the actual audience for this product. If somehow either the X8 or X16 gain traction and become used in education as Pi replacements, two competing products is a GOOD problem to have, honestly. Opens the door for all sorts of possibilities.

Finally, a shipped product in the hands of a consumer is infinitely better than vaporware or something that takes years to materialize. People lose interest when delays pile up, so the X8 would be a good stop gap and allow proper X16 production to take place.

EDIT: The whole case thing seems like a blessing in disguise to me. This is supposed to be a kit computer, why not distribute 3D printer models for the case and let people make their own? Hell, when I built my first computer I couldn't afford a case and just used a piece of plywood to mount everything.

[Fnord42]

6 hours ago, Tmp2k said:

I work with a bespoke SFF case manufacturer. There's no minimum order, the cases are manufactured ad-hoc. The case could be designed from scratch around the X16 and supplied in kit form or fully assembled. Right at the start, before you announced the official case, we were looking at offering our own product to go with the X16. 



I'd love to work with you and produce an official case, or if you don't want the hassle of managing a new case project maybe we could just produce our own complimentary product? 



Hope this post doesn't get lost in the noise, please drop me a PM. 



 

I'd love to be able to buy a professionally-made case for my X16P.

[Ender]

I'm kinda bummed people are voting to have no phase 2.  It's honestly what I would probably get, since it's still customizable (you can add RAM, etc.) but it will be smaller and cheaper than phase 1 (if I'm understanding correctly).  I'm not all that interested in soldering a phase 1 myself, or spending a lot of money to have it soldered, and the phase 3 seems kind of boring to me, like others said, you might as well just use an emulator with a RPi.  As for the X8, it seems really neat, but I'm too worried about it diluting the software ecosystem.  It seems a bit too incompatible as it is now.  I'd say either make the the addressing of the VERA more compatible with the X16 (even then, having only half the VRAM is a big limitation compared to the X16) or, as @David Snopek said, release the X8 at some point in the far future after the X16 is well-established (but maybe release the X8 emulator so that we (read: I) can play around with it ?).

[a9m]

I don't mind phase 2 being skipped asides feeling a bit disappointed that it now has less points to buy it over the FPGA board I already have. But at least please make phase 3 with all the phase 1 features, especially expansion slots. In my point of view, I'm not that interested in having all through-hole components and soldering all of them. What I'm interested more is the platform and the architecture itself. So it would be very nice if I can just have a cheaper small board with all the features intact.

Also, it's better to not release an X8. In my opinion, it's too incompatible with X16 and people would struggle porting between these two already niche platforms.

[Fnord42]

Speaking of upgradeability - I'm curious: Is there anyone here who does not plan to max out their X16's RAM to 2MB immediately?

Leaving the X8 aside for a moment, the availability of an X16 with less than 2MB of RAM could also lead to people developing only for the smallest common platform, couldn't it?

[rje]

I wrote and deleted this response so many times since midnight last night.  There are so many points I agree with in this topic already.   What can I add?

 

 

****** Suggestion 1. Make the REFERENCE version ** COTS **, and produce kits slowly and deliberately.  No burnout allowed.

 

****** Suggestion 2. Make the PRODUCT as cheap + easy as possible.  [Tramiel]

...if that means an optimized emulator running on the Raspberry Pi instead of Phase 3, then so be it.

 

****** Suggestion 3. Do what's right for the ECOSYSTEM.  

 

 

 

***

Regarding the X8, I would prefer that it be on a card (or something) that could plug into other Commodore machines.  To provide X16 capabilities to PETs and C64s for example.   Make it a graphics card.  Or make it an "X8 Card".   Something like that.  THAT sounds like a non-competing product that could EXPAND the X16's ecosystem.

 

[Snickers11001001]

I have clicked the poll.    I hope it is the last one.     Here are a few of my thoughts for what they are worth. 

1.   Decide SOON and stick with it.     Shifting sands cause people to stop working on projects that are the life's blood of an ecosystem for this thing being a success.   Beware of poll-based decisions.     There are people (not me, I'm just a johnny come lately) on these boards who have hundreds of hours of time and effort on your platform.   Their voices ought to count louder than just poll clicks from drive by internet denizens.    Message them privately.    Get their phone numbers.   Have a discussion.   Listen.  

2.   Spend money on people instead of stuff.   Sure there are dev costs, but why keyboards need to be ordered already I can't quite understand.    Speaking of People:  Once hardware is locked down to what it will be period, then I would gladly drop $$ into a crowd-fund  if needed to provide a pool of compensation to induce Michael to put finishing the kernal and basic as his top priority.    If you look at the things other projects are getting stuck on,  and just read through the GitHub and see what he's done, I think you will have to realize he's not just the 'kernal guy'  -- he's possibly one of the internet's preeminent experts on the  Commodore kernal.   Just look at what WORKS, and works right without any issues, on the emulator so far is a testament to that.    Do NOT lose his participation!   He's an MVP.    And the sooner you get the Kernal and BASIC to a final point to where people can document not just the official kernal calls, but have the FP library addresses set in stone and all the important stuff like "VARTAB" and "TEXTTAB" set in stone (or close!) the better for development. 

3.   The 'X8" is in my opinion a cop-out option that you seem to be tempted to put out and wash your hands of this whole episode moving forward.   I urge you not to.    The Plus/4 died in part because of the Commodore 16 and even Commodore handicapping things well below the Plus/4 capabilities so it would work on the lesser machine.     Don't spend all this time only to submarine everyone's work with a lower common denominator. 

4.   Consider bringing in someone to be a project manager to drive the project with deadlines and decisions that don't amount to internet bike shedding etc.   I'm not sure how a youtube creator could have the time to take that role, but I think it would help.  

[rje]

1 hour ago, Brad said:

I don't possibly see how an X8 would dilute demand for an X16.

 

I can.  If it's easier to use the VERA on the X8, then maybe I'd rather program on that instead of the X16.

The hobby platform has to be hackable, but (in my case) accessible too.

 

[Birk]

I've been watching the project from the outside for a while.  For me the reasons that I like the X16 are that it is "hackable" and it's "understandable."  For a fun hacking project or for educational use these are great.  This is why I like the Phase I (DIY or otherwise) and the Phase 2 (less hackable but more attainable) but Phase 3 and the X8 both seem like a grossly under-powered Raspberry Pi.

I like the idea of all the exposed hardware that I can poke around on, troubleshoot and hack.  If you stick it all in an FPGA then I'm not interested.  I can just grab an STM32 Nucleo board or a Raspberry Pi for those things.  Or if it's a nostalgic software itch then the emulator works fine for that.  I want to hack the hardware.

For what it's worth, I would also love to see the VERA board offered on it's own for use on the aforementioned STM32 Nucleo projects.  Maybe a VERA shield (eh, eh).