
Building the Commodore computer that should have existed - natashabaker
http://blog.snapeda.com/2018/06/06/building-the-commodore-computer-that-should-have-existed-an-interview-with-stefany-allaire/
======
egypturnash
I wonder if Ms. Allaire knows about the C65[1]. Her initial sketch of specs[2]
is not too far off from that.

IMHO Commodore was right to kill the C65 when they were already making the
Amiga 1000. The end of _all_ the 8-bit systems was pretty obvious by '89, when
rumors of the c65 started going around - the Mac had been out for five years,
the Amiga and Atari ST for four. It would have suffered a fate almost as
ignominious as the Sega Saturn.

1:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_65](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_65)

2: [https://www.c256foenix.com/forum/the-specifications/early-
sp...](https://www.c256foenix.com/forum/the-specifications/early-
specifications)

~~~
cmrdporcupine
Yes, the death of 8-bit systems was obvious by 89, but so was the death of the
68000. Motorola was already pushing the failed 88000 by the late 80s. And the
68000 itself was killed off only a couple years later. So I don't really agree
with you here. The 68000 was as big of a dead end, and IMHO was a terrible CPU
for home computers and gaming machines. It was fast for 16 and 32 bit integer
arithmetic, so basically good for its target market of minicomputer
replacements and workstations -- but very slow at memory accesses and
interrupt response, two things that slow down gaming/graphics type machines.

The Amiga would have been more responsive and really just as powerful with the
same custom chipset tied to something like a 65816 clocked at 8mhz. Would have
been able to address just as much RAM but would have higher interrupt
responsiveness, and Commodore could have made use of its existing 6502
expertise, thrown in a couple SID chips, and maybe even a VICII for C64
portability. What a machine that would have been!

Likewise, I think Tramiel could have done something similar instead of diving
down the 68000 path with the Atari ST. They could have improved on the
excellent Jay Miner designed A8 chipset but tied it to something like the 816,
which was just coming out in 84 when they started the ST project.

Just some fantasy alternative history :-)

~~~
walkingolof
>Likewise, I think Tramiel could have done something similar instead of diving
down the 68000 path with the Atari ST.

The Atari ST was built from scratch in less than 8 months after the deal to
license the Amiga chipset fell trouhg. The ST is an amazing engineering feat
considering the insane schedule.

I agree on you that the 68k is a terrible CPU for gaming, but it got better
when there was some cache added to it, starting with the 68030.

I had an Acorn Archimedes with an ARM 2 clocked 8 Mhz (the same speed as the
Atari ST, and 1 Mhz faster than the Amiga 1000/500), it was so much faster
than my ST.

~~~
Lio
I always wonder if considering the processor and the “chunky pixels” of the
Archimedes if had had something like a Wolfenstein or Doom back in 1987 if it
would have driven sales enough to change.

Ofcourse that was probably pretty unlikely considering the Acorn/Olivetti bet
so heavily on the education market.

~~~
pjc50
Probably not quite enough raw MIPS in 1987, but people have since ported it:
[http://gerph.org/riscos/ramble/doomplus.html](http://gerph.org/riscos/ramble/doomplus.html)

~~~
Flow
Maybe it was more a lack of the DOOM source code or know-how?

According to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second#Millio...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_per_second#Millions_of_instructions_per_second_\(MIPS\))
the ARM2 at 8MHz was 4MIPS. The 386DX at 33MHz was 4.3MIPS. The 8MHz 68000 was
1.4MIPS.

Of course there could be other things that made it hard, such as too few bus
cycles when running the 8-bit chunky graphics mode? Or that sound did not use
DMA(I don't know if the Archimedes had sound DMA) or that the CPU had to mix
samples instead of the sound hardware doing it?

------
ajnin
Any tips getting into mechanical design ? I love designing PCBs, creating a
schematic, then laying out the component and traces in the most elegant way is
very satisfying. However when it comes to 3D stuff I wouldn't know where to
begin.

~~~
janekm
Download Fusion 360 (probably the easiest of the serious programs and free for
hobbyists), and start playing around, try making some enclosures for your PCBs
copying features from existing objects around you.

------
hfdgiutdryg
_However, I believe that restriction is the mother of creativity, so I’m
trying to restrict myself to keep it limited to what would have been available
back then._

I'm going to steal that phrasing.

~~~
emptybits
_" The more constraints one imposes, the more one frees one's self. And the
arbitrariness of the constraint serves only to obtain precision of
execution."_

\- Igor Stravinsky

------
Fnoord
Reminds me of Computer latency: 1977-2017 [1] as recently linked on HN. _1977_
and _60 ms_ latency. The SGI Indy of _1993_ also had _60 ms_ latency.

[1] [https://danluu.com/input-lag/](https://danluu.com/input-lag/)

------
samatman
That grey and fine font on a white background is pretty hostile to the older
sets of eyes that might like this article.

I know this comes up a bit too often on HN but it's pretty, um, glaring, in
this case.

------
rbanffy
Shouldn't it be beige?

~~~
anyfoo
Why? Many of Commodore’s later models weren’t.

------
teddyh
I would hope it runs something other than BASIC. BASIC is a terrible language,
and the only reason it became popular is that there was a book published with
a lot of games written in that language. People buying a home computer wanted
games, and the commercial game market was initially nonexistent, so people
wanted a computer with BASIC, since then they assumed they could play those
games. The designers of this new computer might want to restrict themselves to
old hardware, but there is no reason for them to restrict themselves to that
old accident of history.

Naïvely, I would assume that something like Forth or Occam would be much
better for this, and both are also age-appropriate.

~~~
reaperducer
_BASIC is a terrible language, and the only reason it became popular is that
there was a book published with a lot of games written in that language._

Not even close.

BASIC was a very powerful language. Not "powerful" in the way we think of
languages today with OOP and all that, but powerful in its flexibility. Each
machine had its own version of BASIC that made the most of each machine's
unique capabilities.

Games were probably the minority of BASIC programs. BASIC was a serious
language for serious business programs, especially in sales and accounting.

If your needs were scientific, you went with FORTRAN. If you were needs were
hardcore business, you went with COBOL. If your needs were academic, there was
Lisp and a bunch of others. But BASIC was the common language that almost
every computer had available.

Huge companies managed inventory with BASIC. Transit timetables were
calculated in BASIC. Machine control, non-mainframe astronomy, specialized
journalism applications, record-keeping, and dozens of other needs were
handled well by programs written in BASIC.

The first program I ever sold commercially was essentially a single-user
Salesforce for the Commodore 64 tailored for limousine companies. I wrote it
in BASIC.

If you think BASIC was only used for games, that's a reflection of your
limited experience, not of the limitations of BASIC.

~~~
spc476
No, not every version of BASIC made the most of the underlying machine's
capabilities. The BASIC on the C64 (the most popular 8-bit machine of all
time) did _not_ support graphics or sound.

Seriously, there was _no support_ for what made the C64 the C64 in the C64
BASIC! You wanted grpahics? PEEK and POKE. Sound? PEEK and POKE.

~~~
reaperducer
You're right, there was no direct CIRCLE or BOX or other easy BASIC commands
on the 64 unless you had a Simon's BASIC cart or something similar.

That said, I didn't have any trouble doing graphics on the 64 with PEEKS and
POKES that was good enough to get one of my screens on the cover of Run
Magazine. It wasn't easy, but once you got your brain around it, I remember it
being pretty fun.

Sound, however... no argument there. But that could be because I've never been
musical in any way whatsoever. Never understood notes and scales and such.

