Hit Deity on 16/3/2023 at 00:30
In a nutshell, a "vintage tech guy" named David Murray came up with a plan back in 2019 to make a new computer... But it's also a "What If Commodore had decided to make a successor to the Commodore 128 before they went out of business"?
What if we took an old-school CPU and gave it a boost, included some more RAM, ran BASIC and assembly language natively together, boosted the video capabilities and sound...? Put it all into a system that a single user could learn completely and fluently, and understand the whole system and how to program it...
He kicked around the idea for a while, finally posting about it in 2019..
(
https://youtu.be/ayh0qebfD2g)
He wanted to create a small yet powerful enough "successor to the C128" and the concept has gone through several changes.. 8-bit has become 16-bit, etc.
As the project took off and sorta got out of hand, other people have kind of taken over for him, folks that could dedicate more time to it.
Here's the website dedicated to it..
(
https://www.commanderx16.com/)
They have succeeded in showing their 2nd Gen prototype, and it's looking pretty good.
You can find a lot of the development videos about it on the 8-bit Guy's (David Murray) YouTube channel:
(
https://youtube.com/@The8BitGuy)
He originally wanted it to sell for around $50, at a "non-profit" selling point, but I don't think that's remotely possible.
There's an emulator at the CX16 website and many games and utility programs have been written for it. Now, I don't expect too many of the younger folks would be too interested in this, but it highly appeals to me.
ZylonBane on 16/3/2023 at 04:20
So... he's making something like an Amiga, but worse?
Hit Deity on 16/3/2023 at 11:08
A lot less expensive, hopefully.
But something made of new parts so folks won't have to use a significant portion of their time maintaining their platform, or finding replacement parts in thrift stores, etc.
If you choose to see it that way, then that's fine, but I expected nothing more from our resident naysayer. :laff:
Renzatic on 16/3/2023 at 13:04
Quote Posted by ZylonBane
So... he's making something like an Amiga, but worse?
It's more of a Commodore, but better.
ZylonBane on 16/3/2023 at 21:07
Quote Posted by Renzatic
It's more of a Commodore, but better.
That's not a high bar to clear. The C64's hardware, other than the sound chip, was junk. This was a system so shoddily designed that the keyboard and the joysticks used the same registers, and had a video chip that displayed fewer colors than game systems released in the 70s.
Renzatic on 17/3/2023 at 13:29
Plus a disk drive sporting a bug that made it transfer data far slower than most other drives at the time. Still, despite it's shortcomings, it was a machine that carved a very large niche out for itself among other computers. It was the home to a dedicated demo scene, and a number of classic games still beloved today.
The Commander's major draw is that it's a Commodore with all of the good, none of the bad, and a lot more power behind it. I wouldn't expect it to set the world on fire, because it's still an 8-bit machine when you get right down to it, but there's some appeal for those simpler machines.
Hit Deity on 20/3/2023 at 13:42
Quote Posted by Renzatic
The Commander's major draw is that it's a Commodore with all of the good, none of the bad, and a lot more power behind it. I wouldn't expect it to set the world on fire, because it's still an 8-bit machine when you get right down to it, but there's some appeal for those simpler machines.
As of a month ago or so, they've raised close to $50K toward it, which is well more than they anticipated on getting.. I think there's more appeal than a lot of folks realize. The library of games for it is growing like crazy, and it's not even out yet! :)
Shadowcat on 25/3/2023 at 07:41
Quote Posted by Renzatic
Plus a disk drive sporting a bug that made it transfer data far slower than most other drives at the time.
That's an understatement. That drive was
shockingly bad. We had a BBC Micro, initially with a tape deck, but after a few years we upgraded to a disk drive which was amazing -- it took just a handful of seconds to load anything (maybe as much as 10 seconds for something big). One day I visited a friend who had a C64 with a disk drive, and I was so confused by what they were having to cope with -- it honestly felt like waiting for things to load off tape. I think it took literal minutes to load programs. I can't begin to imagine how that product went to retail in that state... I find it unimaginable that they hadn't used competing systems, so they would have known full well how badly borked it was.
demagogue on 25/3/2023 at 14:28
I used to have a theory that Gen X was so much more patient than any other generation because we had to sit through loading screens for C64 games for so long. At least I can say whenever I have to wait for anything, the instinct that got burnt into me from that constant experience kicks in, and I can see it not kicking in like that for kids these days.
Pyrian on 25/3/2023 at 19:13
I remember, some years later, installing things with dozens or even hundreds of diskettes. :(
