Commander X16

If I could do a small asic 65c02 computer and if it was low power, I would want it in a net book,  sd card, usb, key board. Geos, word processor, graphing calculator, dictionary, and thesaurus. And have a small low power lcd screen, and maybe some networking or wifi or what have you. A small keyboard is that is big enough to type on for word processing and  spell check then great Though would it be possible to even make a cheap word processor and graphing calculator and use only two c cell batteries or AA and use just 3v at 0.5ma or so. And could it be made for less than 50 dollars? And should it just be monochrome or color and full function at same power rating? I don't know how the C64p works but that may be a better alternative. So I also seen some Commodore conversions to laptops on other sites and youtube. Though I guess the Geos PDAs may be a better way to go for a work book conversion?    https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/c64p.html

Did you happen to notice the price on that c64p?  Yikes.

As far as that and whether it could be made for less than $50 ... you can't get that for $50 for a Raspberry Pi Zero, and a RPi0-W costs $10 for the board. The first versions of the CX16 will have prices with three digits in them for the board.

This is a niche product, (hopefully) produced as a batch. Anything made with as many through hole parts as the CX16p is GOING to have a price in the three digits range, if you are lucky. We will see whether the mostly-FPGA version gets made, but the idea to have the board under $50 like a Raspberry turned out to be an unrealistic part of the dream ... if they are lucky, maybe they will get it out at under $100.

Indeed, there's a reason that cheap Chinese tablets are nothing but a touch sensitive screen, a volume rocker and an on-off button. When you start trying to add a keyboard, and keep it ultra cheap, it's SO cheap it is essentially useless. The cheapest USABLE chromebooks at around $200 is around the cheapest useable netbook that can be produced and sold for the mass market, and if it was produced in smaller volumes it would cost $100's more.

On 6/1/2021 at 6:03 PM, x16tial said:

Did you happen to notice the price on that c64p?  Yikes.

An Arm and a leg in price. I hope the CX16 is cheaper than that. Remember the one laptop per child. I think it finally puttered out. I guess a pie zero w would have been the way to goo for that rig.

On 6/4/2021 at 12:58 AM, Travis Bryant moore said:

An Arm and a leg in price. I hope the CX16 is cheaper than that. Remember the one laptop per child. I think it finally puttered out. I guess a pie zero w would have been the way to goo for that rig.

I think we can be confident that the CX16p will be MUCH less than $1,000, but OTOH it will be in a desktop case and a separate keyboard.

If somebody made a "Hacktop" out of the CX16p as a one at a time build, and then offered them for sale, $1,000 would not be an unreasonable asking price, at the same time as being a price 99.9% of the potential CX16 market could never afford for a hobby purchase.

Handmade always costs a lot more than factory made, and you always pay a premium for compacting a design not made to be compacted.

Yes and I just found the pie top amiga build on youtube. So I guess it comes down to do you want a machine that works though emulation or something that is made more like the original with chip sets consolidated of the original or a remake of the original with a similar chip set and lay out that worked the same.