Our Developer Resources: code and bug reports

[TomXP411]

The Commander X16 software development has migrated to a new GitHub address. Three of our community users have been very active in patching the emulator, the BASIC, and the KERNAL ROMs, and we are now using the X16Community organization to manage these patches.

From now on, please use our new GitHub address to post issues and PRs.

https://github.com/X16Community/x16-emulator for any emulator issues. This would be bugs directly related to the emulator and not the ROMs. Examples might be: the emulator behaves differently than hardware. Crashes or lockups doing things that work (or should work) on hardware. Host File System issues (ie: crash or problems reading or write files without an SD card image.)

https://github.com/X16Community/x16-rom for KERNAL or BASIC bug reports. If a BASIC command or KERNAL function doesn't work as expected, this is the place to post a bug report. We suggest you discuss it here on the forum or on the Discord first, to confirm it's a bug and not user error.

https://github.com/X16Community/x16-docs for the official documentation. This documentation covers the physical machine, BASIC, the KERNAL, and CMDR-DOS. Note that all ROM updates must be accompanied by a corresponding documentation update. You can think of this as the evolving "Programmer's Reference Guide" for the system.

https://github.com/X16Community/x16-user-guide This is the VIC-20 style user guide, which will help new users learn to program on the Commander X16. This is designed for ages 9 and up, with a fifth grade reading level.

https://github.com/X16Community/x16-smc This microcontroller handles the keyboard, mouse, and ATX power interface. Users with hardware can file bug reports for related issues here. (for example: the keyboard locks up under certain conditions.)

https://github.com/X16Community/x16-demo Demos and example programs. This is a companion to the web site, and you may post programs here in source code form. This includes games, feature demos, music (that runs on the Commander), and tutorial programs.

Note that the demo repository does not currently have a posted license. We plan to adopt a 2-clause BSD license, the same as the emulator and the community additions to the KERNAL and BASIC ROMs. Any new code submitted will fall under this license.

[Yazwho]

Sounds good, couple of questions:

Will changes to the ROM make it to production machines?

Who is in charge of merging the PRs, specifically into the ROM, but it might be useful to know for the other repos as well.

What is happening with the VERA repository? Will changes there go to the production machine, and is that staying where it is?

[TomXP411]

Will changes to the ROM make it to production machines?

I sure hope so! The sound system code that was recently checked in is a game changer for people wanting to write music and sound effects in BASIC, and stuff is still being added to the KERNAL and BASIC language.

So yes, I expect that R42 will get cut off at some point before the mass production of Gen-1 boards ensues. For those people who already have Gen-1 boards, they will be able to download the ROM binary and flash their ROMs with an EPROM programmer or directly on the board (once the in-system ROM flasher is stable.)

Who is in charge of merging the PRs, specifically into the ROM, but it might be useful to know for the other repos as well.

Right now, there are 4 people in the X16Community org: myself, Stephen Horn, MooingLemur, and Wavicle. Stephen and ML are reviewing incoming PRS and cross-checking each other's code, and I'm making updates to documentation.

What is happening with the VERA repository? Will changes there go to the production machine, and is that staying where it is?

Frank owns VERA, and he controls updates to the VERA code. There are some recent updates to VERA, so I assume they will make their way into new boards; for boards already in users' hands, they'll have to update VERA themselves using an EPROM programmer and an adapter cable.

[Johan Kårlin]

The Commander X16 software development has migrated to a new GitHub address. Three of our community users have been very active in patching the emulator, the BASIC, and the KERNAL ROMs, and we are now using the X16Community organization to manage these patches.

Is this migration made due to cooperation issues or why? Whatever the reason is, it seems like a good idea to make the old repositories private. By doing that you can keep history but avoid confusion. You easily end up in the wrong place right now when searching for Commander X16 on GitHub.

[StephenHorn]

Johan Kårlin wrote:
> Is this migration made due to cooperation issues or why? Whatever the
> reason is, it seems like a good idea to make the old repositories private.
> By doing that you can keep history but avoid confusion. You easily end up
> in the wrong place right now when searching for Commander X16 on GitHub.

We can't make https://github.com/CommanderX16 private, we don't own it. The reason for the move was not so much directly because of cooperation issues, as it was because the owner of the CommanderX16 repos has been repeatedly unavailable and incommunicado, causing PRs to stay in limbo for a long time, which discourages would-be contributors and generally slows down development of the platform -- especially when those PRs apply to x16-rom. The tipping point was the most recent time The 8-Bit Guy himself expressed discouragement by the long delays involved with changing the kernal.

X16Community has multiple people with the authority to accept PRs across the board, as well as to invite other trustworthy individuals to become approvers, which will hopefully keep it more resilient to the loss of any single individual.

[Johan Kårlin]

Ok, then it surely seems to be the best thing to do. I am very grateful for your work and commitment. Great to see R42 of the emulator released today.