5 ms·

Speaking of "modern retro computing" there is already a player in the town: C256 Foenix [1]. Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - alread

by aniou 5y ago

Speaking of "modern retro computing" there is already a player in the town: C256 Foenix [1]. Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - already available and well tested. It definitively deserve for user interest. For curious - there is an emulator available [2] (even one-and-half, because mine [3] is rather limited and created mostly for Forth [6, 7] development). 320x240 (double-pixel), 640x480, 800x600 all with 8 bit colors - 2 to 4MB of RAM, SD-card, IDE, FDD, joysticks, DVI for modern monitors - there are even expansion cards (second monitor(!), Ethernet) already available. Community is - currently - small and it affects the amount of software available, unfortunately - but it is a matter of time, I hope. There is a wiki [4], but discussions and deep technical details are available mostly on project Discord [5]. 1 - https://c256foenix.com/ https://c256foenix.com/ 2 - https://github.com/Trinity-11/FoenixIDE https://github.com/Trinity-11/FoenixIDE 3 - https://github.com/aniou/go65c816 https://github.com/aniou/go65c816 4 - https://wiki.c256foenix.com/index.php?title=Main_Page https://wiki.c256foenix.com/index.php?title=Main_Page 5 - https://discord.gg/wvM2vABR https://discord.gg/wvM2vABR 6 - https://github.com/aniou/of816/tree/C256/platforms/C256 https://github.com/aniou/of816/tree/C256/platforms/C256 7 - https://github.com/aniou/retro816 https://github.com/aniou/retro816

wott 5y ago
> https://c256foenix.com/ https://c256foenix.com/ Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - already available and well tested. I went to the link: Available: it's all sold out. Admittedly, it exists more than the project of this post, which was announced 2 years ago and still has to deliver. Affordable: disputable, this is priced $220/$260 for a bare board (no power supply, no case) so you can find cheaper Amiga/ST FPGA boards; but it is not ridiculously expensive either and some of those Amiga/ST boards are unavailable too.
- aniou 5y ago
  Re: availability - a victim of own success. ;) And chip shortage too, unfortunately. Re: affordable: I come rather from 8-bit Atari and - in my opinion - it is not a cheap hobby. Modern extensions like Sophia2 or VBXL aren't cheap, memory extensions also require some bucks. Not mention about SD-card interfaces, although they are cheaper. And re-implementations like already assembled EclaireXL or Atari 1088 XEL are even more expensive.
crb 5y ago
David "The 8-Bit Guy" Murray, the initiator of the Commander X16, has a blog post about why he wasn't satisfied with the C256 Foenix: http://www.the8bitguy.com/3543/my-dream-computer-part-2/ http://www.the8bitguy.com/3543/my-dream-computer-part-2/ > Stefany and I disagree over some of the design at the moment. For example she has an integrated floppy drive, MIDI ports, SID chips, and a whole host of other things that I don’t feel are necessary and will inflate the cost of the computer. > Even if she agreed to all of my design changes, it would still be a computer that would be $80 or more for somebody to buy, well above the original price point I was hoping to target.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  His machine will probably end up costing pretty much as much and be less interesting. Stefany is a hyper-competent hardware engineer and her machine is excellent. It is an interesting machine -- and it exists. But I personally cancelled my order after a personality conflict with her. I personally am excited about the Mega65.
  - borninator 5y ago
    I'm curious; why cancel a product you want made by someone who you describe as competent due to a personality conflict? Some moral boundary or principle matter? I wouldn't think a clash of personalities should be a factor in such a transaction.
    - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
      I was subscribed for a development board. Given the acrimonious relationship I couldn't see myself doing development on it.
gecko 5y ago
I thought the Foenix was canceled. We had a discussion about it the last time the Commander X16 came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23801266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23801266
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  She had a change of heart, it seems like.
- lproven 5y ago
  Yes, I thought so too, and I also thought it sounded like a shame because the tiny scraps of information I'd heard sounded good. But there's no info about it on that website. Is there anywhere that I can read about design, specs etc?
  - rzzzt 5y ago
    Stefany's YouTube channel has some additional info: https://www.youtube.com/user/SerasChronicles/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/SerasChronicles/videos I vaguely remember an announcement video there where she discusses the sunsetting process of the project, delivering what was built, etc. But either there has been a change or I'm mistaken.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  I forgot I still get her newsletter despite her enmity towards me, so here's what she said in her April email: "Now... At some point in April I was supposed to begin a new job which would have brought the Foenix back to the Hobby level but things didn't work out quite as planned, did I dodged a bullet? Time will tell! So in a way, what I am trying to say is that for almost a year I have been resisting the idea to make the Foenix a full-time gig and despite my best effort to avoid it, it seems pretty obvious to me that I won't be able to escape it..." She then goes on to discuss project future and sustainability and even hints at maybe moving beyond the 816 at some point. So TLDR she's still working on it on an aggressive basis and it's not going to be abandoned.
karmakaze 5y ago
This sounds like a much better spec. Using the 65c816 keeps the 8-bit vibe but doesn't force you to play the bank switching game to access more than 64K. DVI instead of VGA itself is also enough to give it a much better chance of success.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago
  It's true you don't have to bank switch... but... the 816 doesn't have 32 bit or even 24-bit registers, so working with memory regions over 64k (such as the video framebuffer) is surprisingly awkward. You end up fiddling with the bank registers a lot, and doing a lot of futzing around. Having screen resolutions that require a framebuffer >64k isn't a good match for it, for example. And the program counter is a 16-bit register, too, so you can't have programs over 64k without incrementing the program bank register at the end of the 64k region, etc. Also the stack and direct page can't be located out of the bottom 64k, etc. So while changing a bank register is easier than doing bank switching with a 6502, it's actually not that different. And using the 16-bit registers on the 816 require a mode change, so working back and forth between 8 and 16 bit values is also awkward. The 816 on paper sounds good at first. In practice, after working with it for a while (I wrote an emulator for an earlier version of her machine and then started working on software) I found I didn't enjoy the 816 as much as I thought I would and understand better now why Commodore and Atari made the jump to the 68000 instead of to the 816 or other modifications to the 6502.
  - hth313 5y ago
    You can work with 24 bit pseudo registers in the direct page using the [dd],y addressing mode, basically scaling up the very useful (dd),y on the 6502 to be 24+16 bits instead of 16+8. I am currently working on a compiler for the 65816 and has taken the approach of avoiding mode shifts as much as possible. I also lock the direct page and bank register to a fixed place while running normally. This simplifies it a lot. Segmenting your functions/code block on 64K is not a huge limitation. How big functions do you write? LOL The 65816 does require more discipline when programming than the 6502. Yes, they all went 68000 which is no wonder as it was a step up further. The 16 revolution never really happened, we went from 8 to 32 bits computers. Commodore did go back to modify the 6502 later, that was the Commodore 65. That the C65 project went as far as it did is beyond me. I would have stopped it immediately if I was shown it at the time, both from marketing and technical aspects. Today, I suppose it makes some minor sense to revive it as a curiosity, just for the sake of it. I wonder how you can find the 65816 odd, when the Mega 65 comes with three altered variants of the 6502. Also considering that some well known 6502 programming idioms no longer works as before, as soon as you move the zero page or the stack. Having studied them all, I find the 65816 puts those 6502 variants to shame.
ibobev 5y ago
> Speaking of "modern retro computing" there is already a player in the town: C256 Foenix Is there any community site where I can download software for this machine? It is a very good feature of the other retro projects that there are centralized websites where can be distributed and downloaded software. For ZX Spectrum Next[1], for Commander X16[2] and for Mega65[3]. [1] https://www.specnext.com/software-directory/ https://www.specnext.com/software-directory/ [2] https://www.commanderx16.com/forum/index.php?/files/ https://www.commanderx16.com/forum/index.php?/files/ [3] https://files.mega65.org/html/main.php https://files.mega65.org/html/main.php

by aniou 5y ago

wott 5y ago

> https://c256foenix.com/ https://c256foenix.com/ Based on 65c816, affordable, powerful and - most important - already available and well tested. I went to the link: Available: it's all sold out. Admittedly, it exists more than the project of this post, which was announced 2 years ago and still has to deliver. Affordable: disputable, this is priced $220/$260 for a bare board (no power supply, no case) so you can find cheaper Amiga/ST FPGA boards; but it is not ridiculously expensive either and some of those Amiga/ST boards are unavailable too.

aniou 5y ago
Re: availability - a victim of own success. ;) And chip shortage too, unfortunately. Re: affordable: I come rather from 8-bit Atari and - in my opinion - it is not a cheap hobby. Modern extensions like Sophia2 or VBXL aren't cheap, memory extensions also require some bucks. Not mention about SD-card interfaces, although they are cheaper. And re-implementations like already assembled EclaireXL or Atari 1088 XEL are even more expensive.

crb 5y ago

David "The 8-Bit Guy" Murray, the initiator of the Commander X16, has a blog post about why he wasn't satisfied with the C256 Foenix: http://www.the8bitguy.com/3543/my-dream-computer-part-2/ http://www.the8bitguy.com/3543/my-dream-computer-part-2/ > Stefany and I disagree over some of the design at the moment. For example she has an integrated floppy drive, MIDI ports, SID chips, and a whole host of other things that I don’t feel are necessary and will inflate the cost of the computer. > Even if she agreed to all of my design changes, it would still be a computer that would be $80 or more for somebody to buy, well above the original price point I was hoping to target.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
His machine will probably end up costing pretty much as much and be less interesting. Stefany is a hyper-competent hardware engineer and her machine is excellent. It is an interesting machine -- and it exists. But I personally cancelled my order after a personality conflict with her. I personally am excited about the Mega65.
- borninator 5y ago
  I'm curious; why cancel a product you want made by someone who you describe as competent due to a personality conflict? Some moral boundary or principle matter? I wouldn't think a clash of personalities should be a factor in such a transaction.
  - cmrdporcupine 5y ago
    I was subscribed for a development board. Given the acrimonious relationship I couldn't see myself doing development on it.

gecko 5y ago

I thought the Foenix was canceled. We had a discussion about it the last time the Commander X16 came up: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23801266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23801266

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
She had a change of heart, it seems like.
lproven 5y ago
Yes, I thought so too, and I also thought it sounded like a shame because the tiny scraps of information I'd heard sounded good. But there's no info about it on that website. Is there anywhere that I can read about design, specs etc?
- rzzzt 5y ago
  Stefany's YouTube channel has some additional info: https://www.youtube.com/user/SerasChronicles/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/SerasChronicles/videos I vaguely remember an announcement video there where she discusses the sunsetting process of the project, delivering what was built, etc. But either there has been a change or I'm mistaken.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
I forgot I still get her newsletter despite her enmity towards me, so here's what she said in her April email: "Now... At some point in April I was supposed to begin a new job which would have brought the Foenix back to the Hobby level but things didn't work out quite as planned, did I dodged a bullet? Time will tell! So in a way, what I am trying to say is that for almost a year I have been resisting the idea to make the Foenix a full-time gig and despite my best effort to avoid it, it seems pretty obvious to me that I won't be able to escape it..." She then goes on to discuss project future and sustainability and even hints at maybe moving beyond the 816 at some point. So TLDR she's still working on it on an aggressive basis and it's not going to be abandoned.

karmakaze 5y ago

This sounds like a much better spec. Using the 65c816 keeps the 8-bit vibe but doesn't force you to play the bank switching game to access more than 64K. DVI instead of VGA itself is also enough to give it a much better chance of success.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago
It's true you don't have to bank switch... but... the 816 doesn't have 32 bit or even 24-bit registers, so working with memory regions over 64k (such as the video framebuffer) is surprisingly awkward. You end up fiddling with the bank registers a lot, and doing a lot of futzing around. Having screen resolutions that require a framebuffer >64k isn't a good match for it, for example. And the program counter is a 16-bit register, too, so you can't have programs over 64k without incrementing the program bank register at the end of the 64k region, etc. Also the stack and direct page can't be located out of the bottom 64k, etc. So while changing a bank register is easier than doing bank switching with a 6502, it's actually not that different. And using the 16-bit registers on the 816 require a mode change, so working back and forth between 8 and 16 bit values is also awkward. The 816 on paper sounds good at first. In practice, after working with it for a while (I wrote an emulator for an earlier version of her machine and then started working on software) I found I didn't enjoy the 816 as much as I thought I would and understand better now why Commodore and Atari made the jump to the 68000 instead of to the 816 or other modifications to the 6502.
- hth313 5y ago
  You can work with 24 bit pseudo registers in the direct page using the [dd],y addressing mode, basically scaling up the very useful (dd),y on the 6502 to be 24+16 bits instead of 16+8. I am currently working on a compiler for the 65816 and has taken the approach of avoiding mode shifts as much as possible. I also lock the direct page and bank register to a fixed place while running normally. This simplifies it a lot. Segmenting your functions/code block on 64K is not a huge limitation. How big functions do you write? LOL The 65816 does require more discipline when programming than the 6502. Yes, they all went 68000 which is no wonder as it was a step up further. The 16 revolution never really happened, we went from 8 to 32 bits computers. Commodore did go back to modify the 6502 later, that was the Commodore 65. That the C65 project went as far as it did is beyond me. I would have stopped it immediately if I was shown it at the time, both from marketing and technical aspects. Today, I suppose it makes some minor sense to revive it as a curiosity, just for the sake of it. I wonder how you can find the 65816 odd, when the Mega 65 comes with three altered variants of the 6502. Also considering that some well known 6502 programming idioms no longer works as before, as soon as you move the zero page or the stack. Having studied them all, I find the 65816 puts those 6502 variants to shame.

ibobev 5y ago

> Speaking of "modern retro computing" there is already a player in the town: C256 Foenix Is there any community site where I can download software for this machine? It is a very good feature of the other retro projects that there are centralized websites where can be distributed and downloaded software. For ZX Spectrum Next[1], for Commander X16[2] and for Mega65[3]. [1] https://www.specnext.com/software-directory/ https://www.specnext.com/software-directory/ [2] https://www.commanderx16.com/forum/index.php?/files/ https://www.commanderx16.com/forum/index.php?/files/ [3] https://files.mega65.org/html/main.php https://files.mega65.org/html/main.php