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So this sort of thing never really made much sense to me, because you could emulate this entire thing on a raspberry pi for significantly less than $500. Can an

So this sort of thing never really made much sense to me, because you could emulate this entire thing on a raspberry pi for significantly less than $500. Can anyone who is enthusiastic about this explain the appeal?

colejohnson66 4y ago
His original proposal video[0] explains it well: it's not supposed to be powerful; he is aware of the Raspberry Pi but doesn't see it fitting his vision. It's supposed to be something like the C64 and other computers of the era where you could understand how all the various chips interacted and worked. Things like DDR memory abstract all that stuff away. Computers today don't "put an address on the bus and read the data" like parallel SRAM/DRAM; they send a command packet to the memory chips and wait for the data packet to come back. Audio interfaces, especially over PCIe, aren't as simple anymore either. You can't write direct to the screen anymore like you could with VGA cards on old IBM PCs. All these abstractions make computers so complex that one person can't possibly understand it all at once. [0]: https://youtu.be/ayh0qebfD2g https://youtu.be/ayh0qebfD2g
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
  But a C64 already fits that criteria and costs a lot less than $500. The FPGA that runs the video, the SD card controller, and probably a few other things are more powerful than the entire rest of the device and certainly not understandable the way a C64 was. The philosophy behind it feels incoherent. He talks about some future version being as little as $50, but my understanding from other videos is that that version will lack features and probably all be running on FPGA or something anyway. Why not just emulate the entire thing on an FPGA from the start and pretend it is simple? Or skip the FPGA and use whatever computer the user already has? Suffice it to say I just don't get it except as some kind of artistic expression, where even then I think it fails to have coherent vision.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - kgwxd 4y ago
    The decision to use an fpga in there hurt some of the appeal for me. But knowing the reason the choice was made makes it forgivable to me. And after completing Ben Eater 6502 breadboard computer, which the x16 announcement years ago inspired me to try in the first place, some of the magic of the processor was lessened in my mind. I still plan on getting one because the community is really fun and I can afford it. Plus, I already have the WASD mechanical keyboard to go with it :) Even if someone were to make it so a rpi could boot right into the x16 emulator, which I think has been done for a c64 emulator, the real hardware would still appeal to me.
    - cbm-vic-20 4y ago
      One of the reasons there area couple of FPGAs in there is that some of the ICs that they really wanted to use aren't produced anymore. One of them is the FM synthesis IC that he talked about in this video. Quickly looking at Mouser and Digi-Key suggests that nobody manufactures FM synth ICs any more. Same with video display ICs. FPGAs are used to emulate these 1980s-era ICs, which seems reasonable since there's no reliable source for the Real Thing.
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- goosedragons 4y ago
  When I first watched his proposal I thought why not just take a NES on chip, bundle more RAM and maybe a good mapper and a ROM with BASIC on there + add support for a keyboard? Those are AFAIK still readily produced with the mountains Famiclones available on AliExpress and other places and must be dirt cheap.
programmer_dude 4y ago
The last time I asked this I was given many reasons but the reason that stuck with me is (paraphrasing): "it is a complete system small enough to be understood by a single person".
- deleted 4y ago
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cellularmitosis 4y ago
Emulating on a Pi doesn’t get you the “instant-on boot to BASIC” appeal. But for that, there’s the $50 Agon Light 2: https://www.olimex.com/Products/Retro-Computers/AgonLight2/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/Retro-Computers/AgonLight2/o... Comparing this project to the Agon is quite the contrast in decisions made and outcomes reached.
jhbadger 4y ago
If you weren't there for the 8-bit era you'll never get it. The point of all of this (and related projects) is to create the ideal 8-bit computer that never existed in the era. Sure modern technology is better, and you can write emulators or "fantasy consoles" like PICO-8 or TIC-80 that run on modern hardware, but that seems like cheating -- like creating a biplane with a jet engine.
tomxp411 4y ago
Actually, you can't The Pi struggles to emulate this system at even half of the rated speed.

colejohnson66 4y ago

His original proposal video[0] explains it well: it's not supposed to be powerful; he is aware of the Raspberry Pi but doesn't see it fitting his vision. It's supposed to be something like the C64 and other computers of the era where you could understand how all the various chips interacted and worked. Things like DDR memory abstract all that stuff away. Computers today don't "put an address on the bus and read the data" like parallel SRAM/DRAM; they send a command packet to the memory chips and wait for the data packet to come back. Audio interfaces, especially over PCIe, aren't as simple anymore either. You can't write direct to the screen anymore like you could with VGA cards on old IBM PCs. All these abstractions make computers so complex that one person can't possibly understand it all at once. [0]: https://youtu.be/ayh0qebfD2g https://youtu.be/ayh0qebfD2g

AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y ago
But a C64 already fits that criteria and costs a lot less than $500. The FPGA that runs the video, the SD card controller, and probably a few other things are more powerful than the entire rest of the device and certainly not understandable the way a C64 was. The philosophy behind it feels incoherent. He talks about some future version being as little as $50, but my understanding from other videos is that that version will lack features and probably all be running on FPGA or something anyway. Why not just emulate the entire thing on an FPGA from the start and pretend it is simple? Or skip the FPGA and use whatever computer the user already has? Suffice it to say I just don't get it except as some kind of artistic expression, where even then I think it fails to have coherent vision.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- kgwxd 4y ago
  The decision to use an fpga in there hurt some of the appeal for me. But knowing the reason the choice was made makes it forgivable to me. And after completing Ben Eater 6502 breadboard computer, which the x16 announcement years ago inspired me to try in the first place, some of the magic of the processor was lessened in my mind. I still plan on getting one because the community is really fun and I can afford it. Plus, I already have the WASD mechanical keyboard to go with it :) Even if someone were to make it so a rpi could boot right into the x16 emulator, which I think has been done for a c64 emulator, the real hardware would still appeal to me.
  - cbm-vic-20 4y ago
    One of the reasons there area couple of FPGAs in there is that some of the ICs that they really wanted to use aren't produced anymore. One of them is the FM synthesis IC that he talked about in this video. Quickly looking at Mouser and Digi-Key suggests that nobody manufactures FM synth ICs any more. Same with video display ICs. FPGAs are used to emulate these 1980s-era ICs, which seems reasonable since there's no reliable source for the Real Thing.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
goosedragons 4y ago
When I first watched his proposal I thought why not just take a NES on chip, bundle more RAM and maybe a good mapper and a ROM with BASIC on there + add support for a keyboard? Those are AFAIK still readily produced with the mountains Famiclones available on AliExpress and other places and must be dirt cheap.

programmer_dude 4y ago

The last time I asked this I was given many reasons but the reason that stuck with me is (paraphrasing): "it is a complete system small enough to be understood by a single person".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

cellularmitosis 4y ago

Emulating on a Pi doesn’t get you the “instant-on boot to BASIC” appeal. But for that, there’s the $50 Agon Light 2: https://www.olimex.com/Products/Retro-Computers/AgonLight2/open-source-hardware https://www.olimex.com/Products/Retro-Computers/AgonLight2/o... Comparing this project to the Agon is quite the contrast in decisions made and outcomes reached.

jhbadger 4y ago

If you weren't there for the 8-bit era you'll never get it. The point of all of this (and related projects) is to create the ideal 8-bit computer that never existed in the era. Sure modern technology is better, and you can write emulators or "fantasy consoles" like PICO-8 or TIC-80 that run on modern hardware, but that seems like cheating -- like creating a biplane with a jet engine.

tomxp411 4y ago

Actually, you can't The Pi struggles to emulate this system at even half of the rated speed.