Commander X16

While officially Feb 29 is the pre-order date, there is (unofficially) a possibility of some systems coming together sooner.

If this happens, we estimate early-December as the "cut off date" of when SD card content should be ready. Whether systems become available that soon or not, that's a good "target date" to get the initial set of media ready.

So to be prepared for that contingency, we'll be looking over the next month at what software is available.

This means that I:

1) Verify it runs on the as-intended-for-release ROMs and hardware
2) Preparing the PRG, folder arrangement, and any necessary support files
3) Ensure no "rights" issues in distributing said software (or examples)


So if you're working on software and close to finishing up, and it's something you're willing to freely distribute with the X16, then now is a great time to dust it off (do final PRG builds w/ R45) and let us know!

Or, if you want to prepare a scaled down demo version of the software - that's an option as well.


Also - while part of the "charm" of learning BASIC is actually typing in the code from a book or magazine, some people appreciate having that content already typed in (remember, on hardware there is no CTRL-V pasting of code!). So if there is a set of examples that you have literature (blog, book, etc.) refering to, this might be a good opportunity to get those included all in one place that people can refer to. Same for any ASM or .s examples as well. That said, the focus here is more "capability demonstration" than "tutorial" - but there may be room for both. I'm not sure about PDFs (tutorial type stuff), but I think we're open to at least talking about it.


So to kick things off: I've gone through the X16 forum and summarized the set of software there as a first cut.
That took a while and I'm sure I missed some things. However, we also can't "include everything." Well, we can, since we have 8GB available. But to explain that:

I'm not trying to maintain a full X16 software catalog. What I mean is, as a kind of "launch title" media, we may make a choice on including some things and not others. In some "retro systems" I've gotten in the past, they have like 50,000 pieces of software, and I just feel overwhelmed and lost - then discouraged when half of it doesn't work or isn't very interesting. I'm not saying we only need "top tier" quality here - but there is some of that: we need content that represents the system well and makes it appealing. That said, PC-DOS 1.0 did include DONKEY.BAS


NOTE: Another reason we might not include a title is just that it's a little exhausting to test each title (emu + H/W). So if another title basically shows the same X16 capability, we may skip to move on to another title to get more coverage variety. In addition to the on-hardware testing, another thing going on is I'm trying to help debug Blitz and I am applying Blitz to the BASIC titles to see/verify if it helps or not.

This has gotten long, so I'll explain "the plan" in the next post.

HERE's THE PLAN...

Here is my "master" working title list of what I'm aware of: (it should be freely VIEWABLE, but I think you will need a Google Account)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Notice the "JUNE SD" content is itemized on another tab - as all that software still works on R45, I assume it will still be included (except for a few alterations, like the ROM update stuff has evolved). [ "SD" is SecureDigital, the little "disk" that the hardware supports; the first media for the June DevBoards had a chosen set of sample content ]

I'd like folks to respond here on any suggestions or info about software media (updates to existing ones, or anything I've missed - especially stuff that maybe isn't here on the forum).

Then throughout the week, I'll compile those notes into my master list, then we'll start a new thread in the next week (Saturday evening). And we'll iterate on that over the next few weeks, until about December 2nd.

Please try to keep it on-topic, along the lines of "Candidate Suggestion: <link>" (or corrections to anything in the spreadsheet linked above)

Use CTRL+F to search the spreadsheet to see if a title is already present.

And please don't be shy on sharing - projects large or small, even if they don't end up on the SD card, it will be good to be aware of them.

Likewise, if there is some software you DON'T WANT SHARED, let us know as well. At this point, I'm going to have to assume that if it's in the forum and made it on the spreadsheet, we took it to be "distributable software." As another clarification: we don't need source code to all the samples, but I am interested to know what the development environment was used for the titles (BASIC, cc65, tasm64, ca65, p8, etc).


NOTE: At bottom of first tab, and on the third tab, of the link above is several DevTool relates stuff that I'm aware of. While we're avoiding any Windows/Mac/Linux content on this media, do let me know if I've missed any similar set of tools that would help developers make software for the X16! Having that reference should help motivate other developers to know what tools are available already.

Additional details for Petdraw/X 2.0 and Dreamrtacker:

Petdraw/X 2.0
Source: https://gitlab.com/m00dawg/petdrawx
Dev Env: ca65 (65c02 assembly), Makefile provided (at least for Linux)

Dreamtracker
Dev Env: ca65 (65c02 assembly), Makefile provided (at least for Linux)
System Requirements: 2MB BRAM (see below)

I'm hoping to relax the BRAM requirements. Most songs won't need that much but I need to add some extra checks and to dynamically map the BRAM pages for those cases and also check for if someone wants to load a song too big to fit in BRAM. If that needs to be a priority for launch (given I think the boards will only come with 512k out of the box) let me know and I can prioritize appropriately. Longer term I have some even more interesting thoughts (like streaming parts of the song off disk interleaved with the playback routine) but that's fancy polish stuff I don't want to jump into until the rest of the tracker is more feature complete.

EDIT: Oh and my Discord name is the same as the forums as well (m00dawg)

If you are including my GIMP plugin on the list of "big computer" software, you should also probably include the `tmx2vera` conversion tool: viewtopic.php?t=6456
They work hand-in-hand as a pipeline for tiles and maps.

Just to confirm, I'm happy for Scumbotron to be on there - there'll definitely be updates to it coming soon.

Apologies to voidstar, who did send me a heads-up which I completely missed!

As some folks may not have a forum account, here is a "for generic public" editable worksheet for anyone to share notes on software candidates for the X16.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

I started a few entries in there for starters.

By the end of each week, we'll roll these suggestions back into the master list.


And reminder, that "master list" is here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

First off, thanks for doing this effort

Then a few things for the sheet:

Tab Software:
- neofetch has Prog8 source.


Tab June SD:
- BADAPPLE and MEDEMO are by me.


Tab "Support":
- cc65,kickc,prog8 are listed as "Windows" but they're all multi-platform. (Linux, Windows and Mac).
- desertfish my forum name is also my discord name. (DesertFish)

UPDATING FOR WEEK #2... And noting just a few weeks left.

NOTE, the R45 ROM build of the emulator has been released and is available here:

https://github.com/X16Community/x16-emulator/releases

(still waiting for TryItNow to catch up to R45 )

Some of the media on this proposed-SD will require some features of the R45 release. So you'll either need to use the R45 emulator or if you do have hardware already, do update your ROM, VERA, and SMC accordingly.

As an example of some of those features: mouse wheel support, TILE and other BASIC extended commands, BANNER command.

And as an incentive to participate in Discord, be aware that the proposed media is available for test on Discord. At this time, the files are too large to be shared here on the forum.

But beyond testing - the focus here is to note or report on any software titles you'd like considered, that haven't been noted down already. For those that are noted down, I'll seek out updates and revisions throughout the week.

I have a platformer ready to be released in a couple of weeks. I am using some music from vgmrips.net. Is that a rights issue?

Tough call. They categorize the stuff by individual composers and by companies - and I see Nintendo and Sega on there and other big shops that are still around. And wow, Brøderbund still exists? At VCFMW panel talk last August, they had a brief discussion related to this (more in the context of archive purposes).

I'd say consider including a file to credit the composer at least (if anything, to keep track of what was used). You might also consider just uploading the clip/audio to YouTube and see what it is says (even if Unlisted, I think they'll scan and probe the content thoroughly). It might not be a final answer, but it can be something to check for anything obvious.

I wouldn't let it hold up your development and giving a preview - especially if the file is external and can be swapped fairly easily. Also on Discord is a #help-wanted section - there are a few good audio folks in the group that might offer suggestions or something similar to what you're looking for.