8 ms·

The C256 Phoenix Project aka What Commodore 256 could have been like

108 points by Jerry2 8y ago

Yuioup 8y ago
Page is unreadable on a tablet.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Getting quite tired of comments like these. The web was made for computers, not for tablets. If tablets are dumbed down and handicapped to the point that they can no longer partake in the web your beef is with the tablet manufacturer or the browser vendor. Either one or both has all the tools at their disposal to fix these issues. All the webserver does is serve up a bunch of data, the interpretation of that data is up to your client.
  - mikeash 8y ago
    “Unreadable on tablet/mobile” is almost always a misguided attempt to accommodate those platforms, though. Sites made without even thinking about them tend to work just fine.
    - lopmotr 8y ago
      Yes. I think this is what people are actually aggravated by. Somebody did extra work, however well-intentioned, that resulted in a worse experience than had they done nothing. On Chrome Android, you can "Request desktop site" which changes the User-Agent to look like a desktop.
  - dogma1138 8y ago
    Them not implementing scaling correctly means one should have a beef with the hardware vendor? really? It also scales poorly on my 4K display in landscape mode and it’s a unreadable as it is on my phone on my portrait 1440p computer displays. Who should I blame?
  - fredsted 8y ago
    To be fair, it's just not a very good Web site. There's some 3D stuff in the background making it very slow, too. I usually don't comment like this, because it's noise. I just downvote and move on. But if no-one tells the author, they'll never know.
  - spc476 8y ago
    Page was unreadable on a desktop computer. To read the actual content, I had to disable Javascript, and disable CSS rendering (Firefox: View->Page Style->No Style). Otherwise, any interaction with that page resulted in the Beach Ball Of Death, as my computer struggled to keep up. Perhaps it's my own fault though, for not using an 8-way 64-bit core machine with 64G RAM to view a site for a hypothetical machine from the late 80s. EDIT: It also looks like the main home page is attempting to load every font from webfonts.fonts.com. At the very least, it references 271 external fonts. It also takes 1.8M of HTML to render some 4K of text.
  - Annatar 8y ago
    The web was made on a NeXT workstation for any device, on any operating system. Sir Tim Berners-Lee would likely be extremely grumpy if he read your comment.
    - jacquesm 8y ago
      Phones are computers these days, so are tablets. I'm not aware of any mechanical interpreters for web pages but I'm open to being surprised.
  - mortenjorck 8y ago
    Sorry (and apologies for a tangent completely unrelated to the OP), but this is a terribly reactionary way to view web technology. Moreover, it ignores what was an endemic problem in web design up until the proliferation of responsive layout. If CSS had never become a layout language, sure. We could all be browsing on opinionated clients that render everything arbitrarily. But that's not what happened, and front-end people for much of the past 20 years instead wrote opinionated layout. These layouts generally assumed quite a few things, such as a landscape-oriented display and a certain resolution or point density. So yes, these sites were, as you say, made for computers, not for tablets – quite in opposition to the original, client-agnostic vision of the web. Modern, responsive web design attempts to bring the layout-oriented web closer to the client-agnostic place it started by assuming fewer things about the client. You're advocating for more assumptions.
adamnemecek 8y ago
I was really tempted to buy that C64 (C64 mini?) remake the other day, eventually decided not to buy it but this is very intriguing.
walkingolof 8y ago
This is a dupe (sort of) of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17273954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17273954
mmjaa 8y ago
Its been really interesting for me to observe this re-focus on older technology, having been involved in the retro computing scene for the last few decades .. it has grown and grown, to the point where there are now titles being released for machines in the 80's that are nowhere like what our expectations were, back in the day. We have titles on some systems that are simply mind-blowing these days, in comparison. My favourite 80's system, the Oric-1/Atmos range of computers, has even gotten a few re-designs as well: The Oric-1/Atmos machines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oric The SuperOric: http://andre.cheramy.net/super/hardsuper.htm http://andre.cheramy.net/super/hardsuper.htm The AtmoStrat: http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?t=1692 http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?t=1692 -and- http://oric.club/atmostrat http://oric.club/atmostrat The Twilighte expansion: http://orix.oric.org http://orix.oric.org (^^ named in honour of one of the best programmers for the Oric systems that ever lived...) One wonders whether or not we won't see, in a few short years time, some sort of return to the retro-computing ethos of simpler computers, more easily maintained by their interested users, for more advanced tasks. I could imagine, for example, building an Internet capable suite of software for Atmos machines equipped with the Twilighte card, and do away with (for example) using my MacBook Pro for email/casual news reading. The idea of moving to a less powerful architecture for the most common daily tasks, as perverse as it sounds, really appeals to me. There's no reason I couldn't use the same machine as a Twitter client, also...
- hansjorg 8y ago
  > We have titles on some systems that are simply mind-blowing these days, in comparison. Sounds interesting, could you name any of these?
  - mmjaa 8y ago
    I sure can! Check out this great collection of games for the Oric-1/Atmos, released in the 21st Century, which nevertheless would have blown several thousand users' minds if they had've been released in the 80's. Titles such as this were never even dreamed of back in the day - yet here we are, in the 21st Century, and the amazing titles just keep coming: http://www.defence-force.org/index.php?page=games http://www.defence-force.org/index.php?page=games For a bonus, check out anything published by Twilighte in the Oric archives: https://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=softwaresearch https://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=softwares... .. he was (RIP, fuck cancer) one of the greatest Oric developers of all times, and the inspiration he set off in the community over 15 years ago has shown no signs of dying out .. in fact, we keep getting stuff on this platform 'as a tribute to Twilighte', 5 years after his passing .. EDIT: a recent example I thought worth mentioning - Twi's unfinished O-Type project, I link here to a mid-thread demo video: http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=345&hilit=o+type&start=45 http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=345&hili... Anyone who was ever an Oric user is bound to watch that video and go "WTF, I had no idea the Oric could do that..." Graphics and Music far beyond what we considered a norm back in the day. Simply mind-blowing.
_pRwn_ 8y ago
is this guy aware of the Mega65 Project ( http://mega65.org/ http://mega65.org/ ) which actually already has working machines, a case and is on the brink to begin mass production?
- f_allwein 8y ago
  > this guy girl, actually.
  - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
    Always bothers me how common it is for people to gender everything male.
    - C256_Stef 8y ago
      Maybe because they don't pay attention! ;)
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
      English doesn't have a third-person gender-neutral pronoun and traditionally uses "he" when the gender is unknown, so it isn't really surprising that people, at least English speaking people, assume "male" until they know otherwise.
      - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
        You’re describing a historical norm, but it’s one I feel is rooted in a historical bias. Men ran the world and defined the word “man” to mean a person of any gender, but that was always an act by men. I’d like to see this kind of bias removed from our language, and it takes individual choice to make that so.
      - rusk 8y ago
        "They" and "Their" are perfectly acceptable as gender neutral pronouns. A stickler might object, but also bear in mind that in English there's no "proper" second person plural ...
mlmartin 8y ago
A very similar project is nearing completion for the arch rival (in the UK anyway) ZX Spectrum. https://www.specnext.com/ https://www.specnext.com/ Uses FPGA to ensure backwards hardware compatibility, while providing extra clock speed and new video modes.
- dirtbox 8y ago
  I grew up with the ZX Spectrum, initially starting out with the ZX80 and 81 which I soldered together myself with the help of my equally clueless father. One of the most enduring and engaging aspects of the old micros is the inherent limitation of the hardware. You're constantly battling with extreme optimisation and utilising often quite hacky hardware tricks to do things that would otherwise be impossible to achieve while mastering the arcane arts of assembler. I think above all that's the beauty of them and why people are still supporting these projects. I'm very sad about missing out on the Spectrum Next which is nearly due to ship their completed cased model after a successful release of only the board. Complete with keyboard and design from the recently late original designer of those same machines I had in the 80s, Rick Dickinson.
ageofwant 8y ago
I appreciate the 80's hardware ethic, as well as the 'art by constraint' philosophy. But I do see a place for devices where those constraints are just programmed into into a modernish FPGA - no silly scouring old warehouses for obsolete parts - way less routing, fraction of the size pcb etc, all the 80's angst. The words of a Philistine perhaps, but I do think we can get the constraint and creativity benefits without the hardware headache, and I'm saying this a EE.
- C256_Stef 8y ago
  I am glad you appreciate the discipline I am trying to put on the design. However, I do have to take into account these facts. This is 2018 and there just so much I can do to emulate this philosophy. So, I will do as much as I can without destroying the practical aspect of things. Also, the idea is to create it in a way, someone could actually build it (solder it) by hand... So I need to take that into account as well...
hotsunnyvale 8y ago
These are very exiting times! Old machines and old custom chips can be re-imagined on FPGA (and then custom ASIC given enough demand) if NOS isn't available. Seeing artists work within the constraints of these 8-bit games to make new games that push the limits of the technology beyond what anyone thought possible (like moving video).
sehugg 8y ago
An actual Commodore 256 was designed, but never built, thank goodness: https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-256-the-8-bit-that-never-was/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-256-the-8-bit-that-never-... But they did release the CBM 256, with an optional 8088 or Z80 daughterboard: http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cb3s.html http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cb3s.html Oh, to be a fly on the wall at all of those meetings of computer manufacturers where they asked the engineers "why can't we run PC software too?"
- colomon 8y ago
  The C128 came standard with a Z80 as a secondary processor. (Would have been more useful for me if they'd also had an 8" floppy drive so I could have easily gotten stuff to my parents' CP/M machine at work.)
  - vidarh 8y ago
    The C128 is a really bizarre beast - it actually "boots" with the Z-80 in control initially, and uses that to check for a CP/M disk in the drive, a C-64 cartridge in the cartridge port, or if you hold down the Commodore key, and uses that to determine whether to go into CP/M mode, C128 mode or C64 mode on startup... During CP/M operation, some BIOS functionality actually causes a context switch from the Z-80 to the 8502 and back...
    - rusk 8y ago
      The C128 is a really bizarre beast It really is. It's a fantastic looking machine but the internals are just bonkers. The reason for the internal Z80 was that Commodore had sold all these CP/M plugin cartridges that actually had a Z80 in them, but they drew too much power and the C128 engineers pretty much unilaterally decided it was cheaper to just build in the second chip than sort out the power issue [0]. The story of how this machine was designed and built is quite hair-raising and the likes of which I doubt we'll ever see again! [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/c128/comments/682da4/c128_ama_from_bil_herd/dgvcla9/ https://www.reddit.com/r/c128/comments/682da4/c128_ama_from_...
- 8y ago
gbraad 8y ago
After reading http://blog.snapeda.com/2018/06/06/building-the-commodore-computer-that-should-have-existed-an-interview-with-stefany-allaire/ http://blog.snapeda.com/2018/06/06/building-the-commodore-co... I doubt pretty much about this. Besides, we had the C-one which IS a successor and more...
- C256_Stef 8y ago
  I love your enthusiasm! C'mon! let's stay positive! The worst that can happen is that I will fail miserably and I will be forgotten immediately and then people will rejoice around their Mega65! cheers! Stefany
Aardwolf 8y ago
Is making a good sid chip clone something within reach of hobbyists today?
- sehugg 8y ago
  With a FPGA: http://www.fpgasid.de/ http://www.fpgasid.de/
  - Aardwolf 8y ago
    How about with the actual analog circuits :) Probably not I guess, if it even depended on the manufactoring process
- rusk 8y ago
  There are issues with the analogue aspects of the SID. No problem with the digital, but the oscillators, filters etc rely on imperfections of the silicon manufacturing process back in the day. I'm given to understanding that they weren't so much designed as were just "there" and exploited to make sounds. This is evident in how different generations of SID sound slightly different.
narrator 8y ago
How about building a machine to run TempleOS natively? The crazy guy who wrote it says explicitly that the OS was meant to implement the commodore 64 ideal of one big flat address space and no memory protection, everything is rung 0, no protected io, etc.
- ashleyn 8y ago
  I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with this engineer's nostalgia for the kind of systems I first learned everything on. When Terry compares TempleOS's design inspirations to the C64, I know exactly where he's coming from. I've thought once or twice about writing a 64-bit DOS in Rust but just couldn't justify the time and trouble.
  - 0x445442 8y ago
    I thought about doing the same thing with AmigaDOS
- bencollier49 8y ago
  Buy yourself a Raspberry Pi and install RISC OS (Full or Pico version, depending on whether you want a GUI or not). It runs BBC BASIC, so it can run old school type ins and has an inline assembler and modern hires graphics.
- boomlinde 8y ago
  Doesn't TempleOS already run natively on a rather bare x86-64 PC?
Annatar 8y ago
No head, no tail... what are the specifications?
- C256_Stef 8y ago
  https://www.c256foenix.com/forum/the-specifications/early-specifications https://www.c256foenix.com/forum/the-specifications/early-sp... You will find them there... Cheers Stef
mozumder 8y ago
The Super Nintendo was probably the closest thing to a C256.
LarryMade2 8y ago
The site is kinda sparse on details so far - Wondering if the 256 is going to be along the lines of the initial C-One concept where it would have something like a Monster SID (multiples of 3 voices) and a Super VIC (massive resolutions, copper list, etc.) These were the Specs Jeri Ellsworth had hoped for initially: http://c64upgra.de/c-one/s_specs.htm http://c64upgra.de/c-one/s_specs.htm Unfortunately costs/manufacturing decisions curtailed much of that.
- C256_Stef 8y ago
  I don't believe the 256 will be like a C-one. Graphic Controller wise, it ought to be closer to an A500 than anything else. For the sound, I too would like to come up with something that would be more than just 3 voices. A 6 Voices SID Per Channel, like a 6586 or 8586 would be great! As far as know, the C-one was abandoned or never completely finished... Was it? Otherwise, I am sorry if the information is sparse right now, the whole SnapEDA interview caught me off guard. I wasn't quite ready to deal with that kind of attention. Not now, anyway! Cheers, Stefany

108 points by Jerry2 8y ago

Yuioup 8y ago

Page is unreadable on a tablet.

jacquesm 8y ago
Getting quite tired of comments like these. The web was made for computers, not for tablets. If tablets are dumbed down and handicapped to the point that they can no longer partake in the web your beef is with the tablet manufacturer or the browser vendor. Either one or both has all the tools at their disposal to fix these issues. All the webserver does is serve up a bunch of data, the interpretation of that data is up to your client.
- mikeash 8y ago
  “Unreadable on tablet/mobile” is almost always a misguided attempt to accommodate those platforms, though. Sites made without even thinking about them tend to work just fine.
  - lopmotr 8y ago
    Yes. I think this is what people are actually aggravated by. Somebody did extra work, however well-intentioned, that resulted in a worse experience than had they done nothing. On Chrome Android, you can "Request desktop site" which changes the User-Agent to look like a desktop.
- dogma1138 8y ago
  Them not implementing scaling correctly means one should have a beef with the hardware vendor? really? It also scales poorly on my 4K display in landscape mode and it’s a unreadable as it is on my phone on my portrait 1440p computer displays. Who should I blame?
- fredsted 8y ago
  To be fair, it's just not a very good Web site. There's some 3D stuff in the background making it very slow, too. I usually don't comment like this, because it's noise. I just downvote and move on. But if no-one tells the author, they'll never know.
- spc476 8y ago
  Page was unreadable on a desktop computer. To read the actual content, I had to disable Javascript, and disable CSS rendering (Firefox: View->Page Style->No Style). Otherwise, any interaction with that page resulted in the Beach Ball Of Death, as my computer struggled to keep up. Perhaps it's my own fault though, for not using an 8-way 64-bit core machine with 64G RAM to view a site for a hypothetical machine from the late 80s. EDIT: It also looks like the main home page is attempting to load every font from webfonts.fonts.com. At the very least, it references 271 external fonts. It also takes 1.8M of HTML to render some 4K of text.
- Annatar 8y ago
  The web was made on a NeXT workstation for any device, on any operating system. Sir Tim Berners-Lee would likely be extremely grumpy if he read your comment.
  - jacquesm 8y ago
    Phones are computers these days, so are tablets. I'm not aware of any mechanical interpreters for web pages but I'm open to being surprised.
- mortenjorck 8y ago
  Sorry (and apologies for a tangent completely unrelated to the OP), but this is a terribly reactionary way to view web technology. Moreover, it ignores what was an endemic problem in web design up until the proliferation of responsive layout. If CSS had never become a layout language, sure. We could all be browsing on opinionated clients that render everything arbitrarily. But that's not what happened, and front-end people for much of the past 20 years instead wrote opinionated layout. These layouts generally assumed quite a few things, such as a landscape-oriented display and a certain resolution or point density. So yes, these sites were, as you say, made for computers, not for tablets – quite in opposition to the original, client-agnostic vision of the web. Modern, responsive web design attempts to bring the layout-oriented web closer to the client-agnostic place it started by assuming fewer things about the client. You're advocating for more assumptions.

adamnemecek 8y ago

I was really tempted to buy that C64 (C64 mini?) remake the other day, eventually decided not to buy it but this is very intriguing.

walkingolof 8y ago

This is a dupe (sort of) of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17273954 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17273954

mmjaa 8y ago

Its been really interesting for me to observe this re-focus on older technology, having been involved in the retro computing scene for the last few decades .. it has grown and grown, to the point where there are now titles being released for machines in the 80's that are nowhere like what our expectations were, back in the day. We have titles on some systems that are simply mind-blowing these days, in comparison. My favourite 80's system, the Oric-1/Atmos range of computers, has even gotten a few re-designs as well: The Oric-1/Atmos machines: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oric https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oric The SuperOric: http://andre.cheramy.net/super/hardsuper.htm http://andre.cheramy.net/super/hardsuper.htm The AtmoStrat: http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?t=1692 http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?t=1692 -and- http://oric.club/atmostrat http://oric.club/atmostrat The Twilighte expansion: http://orix.oric.org http://orix.oric.org (^^ named in honour of one of the best programmers for the Oric systems that ever lived...) One wonders whether or not we won't see, in a few short years time, some sort of return to the retro-computing ethos of simpler computers, more easily maintained by their interested users, for more advanced tasks. I could imagine, for example, building an Internet capable suite of software for Atmos machines equipped with the Twilighte card, and do away with (for example) using my MacBook Pro for email/casual news reading. The idea of moving to a less powerful architecture for the most common daily tasks, as perverse as it sounds, really appeals to me. There's no reason I couldn't use the same machine as a Twitter client, also...

hansjorg 8y ago
> We have titles on some systems that are simply mind-blowing these days, in comparison. Sounds interesting, could you name any of these?
- mmjaa 8y ago
  I sure can! Check out this great collection of games for the Oric-1/Atmos, released in the 21st Century, which nevertheless would have blown several thousand users' minds if they had've been released in the 80's. Titles such as this were never even dreamed of back in the day - yet here we are, in the 21st Century, and the amazing titles just keep coming: http://www.defence-force.org/index.php?page=games http://www.defence-force.org/index.php?page=games For a bonus, check out anything published by Twilighte in the Oric archives: https://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=softwaresearch https://www.oric.org/index.php?page=software&fille=softwares... .. he was (RIP, fuck cancer) one of the greatest Oric developers of all times, and the inspiration he set off in the community over 15 years ago has shown no signs of dying out .. in fact, we keep getting stuff on this platform 'as a tribute to Twilighte', 5 years after his passing .. EDIT: a recent example I thought worth mentioning - Twi's unfinished O-Type project, I link here to a mid-thread demo video: http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=345&hilit=o+type&start=45 http://forum.defence-force.org/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=345&hili... Anyone who was ever an Oric user is bound to watch that video and go "WTF, I had no idea the Oric could do that..." Graphics and Music far beyond what we considered a norm back in the day. Simply mind-blowing.

_pRwn_ 8y ago

is this guy aware of the Mega65 Project ( http://mega65.org/ http://mega65.org/ ) which actually already has working machines, a case and is on the brink to begin mass production?

f_allwein 8y ago
> this guy girl, actually.
- TaylorAlexander 8y ago
  Always bothers me how common it is for people to gender everything male.
  - C256_Stef 8y ago
    Maybe because they don't pay attention! ;)
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    English doesn't have a third-person gender-neutral pronoun and traditionally uses "he" when the gender is unknown, so it isn't really surprising that people, at least English speaking people, assume "male" until they know otherwise.
    - TaylorAlexander 8y ago
      You’re describing a historical norm, but it’s one I feel is rooted in a historical bias. Men ran the world and defined the word “man” to mean a person of any gender, but that was always an act by men. I’d like to see this kind of bias removed from our language, and it takes individual choice to make that so.
    - rusk 8y ago
      "They" and "Their" are perfectly acceptable as gender neutral pronouns. A stickler might object, but also bear in mind that in English there's no "proper" second person plural ...

mlmartin 8y ago

A very similar project is nearing completion for the arch rival (in the UK anyway) ZX Spectrum. https://www.specnext.com/ https://www.specnext.com/ Uses FPGA to ensure backwards hardware compatibility, while providing extra clock speed and new video modes.

dirtbox 8y ago
I grew up with the ZX Spectrum, initially starting out with the ZX80 and 81 which I soldered together myself with the help of my equally clueless father. One of the most enduring and engaging aspects of the old micros is the inherent limitation of the hardware. You're constantly battling with extreme optimisation and utilising often quite hacky hardware tricks to do things that would otherwise be impossible to achieve while mastering the arcane arts of assembler. I think above all that's the beauty of them and why people are still supporting these projects. I'm very sad about missing out on the Spectrum Next which is nearly due to ship their completed cased model after a successful release of only the board. Complete with keyboard and design from the recently late original designer of those same machines I had in the 80s, Rick Dickinson.

ageofwant 8y ago

I appreciate the 80's hardware ethic, as well as the 'art by constraint' philosophy. But I do see a place for devices where those constraints are just programmed into into a modernish FPGA - no silly scouring old warehouses for obsolete parts - way less routing, fraction of the size pcb etc, all the 80's angst. The words of a Philistine perhaps, but I do think we can get the constraint and creativity benefits without the hardware headache, and I'm saying this a EE.

C256_Stef 8y ago
I am glad you appreciate the discipline I am trying to put on the design. However, I do have to take into account these facts. This is 2018 and there just so much I can do to emulate this philosophy. So, I will do as much as I can without destroying the practical aspect of things. Also, the idea is to create it in a way, someone could actually build it (solder it) by hand... So I need to take that into account as well...

hotsunnyvale 8y ago

These are very exiting times! Old machines and old custom chips can be re-imagined on FPGA (and then custom ASIC given enough demand) if NOS isn't available. Seeing artists work within the constraints of these 8-bit games to make new games that push the limits of the technology beyond what anyone thought possible (like moving video).

sehugg 8y ago

An actual Commodore 256 was designed, but never built, thank goodness: https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-256-the-8-bit-that-never-was/ https://dfarq.homeip.net/commodore-256-the-8-bit-that-never-... But they did release the CBM 256, with an optional 8088 or Z80 daughterboard: http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cb3s.html http://www.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cb3s.html Oh, to be a fly on the wall at all of those meetings of computer manufacturers where they asked the engineers "why can't we run PC software too?"

colomon 8y ago
The C128 came standard with a Z80 as a secondary processor. (Would have been more useful for me if they'd also had an 8" floppy drive so I could have easily gotten stuff to my parents' CP/M machine at work.)
- vidarh 8y ago
  The C128 is a really bizarre beast - it actually "boots" with the Z-80 in control initially, and uses that to check for a CP/M disk in the drive, a C-64 cartridge in the cartridge port, or if you hold down the Commodore key, and uses that to determine whether to go into CP/M mode, C128 mode or C64 mode on startup... During CP/M operation, some BIOS functionality actually causes a context switch from the Z-80 to the 8502 and back...
  - rusk 8y ago
    The C128 is a really bizarre beast It really is. It's a fantastic looking machine but the internals are just bonkers. The reason for the internal Z80 was that Commodore had sold all these CP/M plugin cartridges that actually had a Z80 in them, but they drew too much power and the C128 engineers pretty much unilaterally decided it was cheaper to just build in the second chip than sort out the power issue [0]. The story of how this machine was designed and built is quite hair-raising and the likes of which I doubt we'll ever see again! [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/c128/comments/682da4/c128_ama_from_bil_herd/dgvcla9/ https://www.reddit.com/r/c128/comments/682da4/c128_ama_from_...
8y ago

gbraad 8y ago

After reading http://blog.snapeda.com/2018/06/06/building-the-commodore-computer-that-should-have-existed-an-interview-with-stefany-allaire/ http://blog.snapeda.com/2018/06/06/building-the-commodore-co... I doubt pretty much about this. Besides, we had the C-one which IS a successor and more...

C256_Stef 8y ago
I love your enthusiasm! C'mon! let's stay positive! The worst that can happen is that I will fail miserably and I will be forgotten immediately and then people will rejoice around their Mega65! cheers! Stefany

Aardwolf 8y ago

Is making a good sid chip clone something within reach of hobbyists today?

sehugg 8y ago
With a FPGA: http://www.fpgasid.de/ http://www.fpgasid.de/
- Aardwolf 8y ago
  How about with the actual analog circuits :) Probably not I guess, if it even depended on the manufactoring process
rusk 8y ago
There are issues with the analogue aspects of the SID. No problem with the digital, but the oscillators, filters etc rely on imperfections of the silicon manufacturing process back in the day. I'm given to understanding that they weren't so much designed as were just "there" and exploited to make sounds. This is evident in how different generations of SID sound slightly different.

narrator 8y ago

How about building a machine to run TempleOS natively? The crazy guy who wrote it says explicitly that the OS was meant to implement the commodore 64 ideal of one big flat address space and no memory protection, everything is rung 0, no protected io, etc.

ashleyn 8y ago
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one with this engineer's nostalgia for the kind of systems I first learned everything on. When Terry compares TempleOS's design inspirations to the C64, I know exactly where he's coming from. I've thought once or twice about writing a 64-bit DOS in Rust but just couldn't justify the time and trouble.
- 0x445442 8y ago
  I thought about doing the same thing with AmigaDOS
bencollier49 8y ago
Buy yourself a Raspberry Pi and install RISC OS (Full or Pico version, depending on whether you want a GUI or not). It runs BBC BASIC, so it can run old school type ins and has an inline assembler and modern hires graphics.
boomlinde 8y ago
Doesn't TempleOS already run natively on a rather bare x86-64 PC?

Annatar 8y ago

No head, no tail... what are the specifications?

C256_Stef 8y ago
https://www.c256foenix.com/forum/the-specifications/early-specifications https://www.c256foenix.com/forum/the-specifications/early-sp... You will find them there... Cheers Stef

mozumder 8y ago

The Super Nintendo was probably the closest thing to a C256.

LarryMade2 8y ago

The site is kinda sparse on details so far - Wondering if the 256 is going to be along the lines of the initial C-One concept where it would have something like a Monster SID (multiples of 3 voices) and a Super VIC (massive resolutions, copper list, etc.) These were the Specs Jeri Ellsworth had hoped for initially: http://c64upgra.de/c-one/s_specs.htm http://c64upgra.de/c-one/s_specs.htm Unfortunately costs/manufacturing decisions curtailed much of that.

C256_Stef 8y ago
I don't believe the 256 will be like a C-one. Graphic Controller wise, it ought to be closer to an A500 than anything else. For the sound, I too would like to come up with something that would be more than just 3 voices. A 6 Voices SID Per Channel, like a 6586 or 8586 would be great! As far as know, the C-one was abandoned or never completely finished... Was it? Otherwise, I am sorry if the information is sparse right now, the whole SnapEDA interview caught me off guard. I wasn't quite ready to deal with that kind of attention. Not now, anyway! Cheers, Stefany