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I really don't understand the love people have for the commodore 64. It wasn't especially advanced for it's time nor was it especially good. Finally it basically required the use of a horrible language like Basic to use. There's like zero reason to re-create it as a retro computer.

Then you compare it to things like the Amiga which was incredibly advanced for it's time with amazing graphics and sound that even today are very playable modern-feeling experiences. For an example of what I'm talking about here's two clips (the whole video is good): https://youtu.be/kjapiUQOi2s?t=834 https://youtu.be/kjapiUQOi2s?t=1502

⬐ tenebrisalietum

The SID chip in the c64 is very unique, it's specifically designed for music versus the PSG-like square wave generators in other systems at the time. (I will say the Atari POKEY is magical though.)

Comparing c64 to Amiga isn't fair, the Amiga was a generation later. What the c64 should be compared with is the Atari 8-bit systems (400, 800, 65XE, 130XE), Apple II, Colecovision.

Having the 64k RAM, plus sprites, plus a sound chip that implemented ADSR and different waveforms other than square did introduce a lot of possibilities and excitement in 1982 though, even if you tried your best to use them from the absolutely shitty BASIC and/or had to wait minutes for things to load from disk or cassette.

⬐ mrandish

I'm not going to judge other people's retro-crushes but as an old-timer who used several of these 80s computers in the 80s, you're correct about the Amiga being especially notable from an historical perspective.

I would even say that the Amiga, at the time it shipped, was the single largest step-up in capabilities of any widely available computer that's ever occurred. Compared to all the other computers available to consumers at the time, the Amiga's graphics, sound, operating system and processing were best of breed. From today's perspective it's hard to appreciate just how stunning the Amiga was versus status quo. It literally drew crowds of people at local computer stores just to watch someone run through all the demos.

While today's PCs are many orders of magnitude more powerful and capable, I can't recall any single increment over the decades being nearly as significant across so many different dimensions (visuals, sound, speed, OS, UX, I/O, etc).

⬐ egypturnash

The c64 was cheap, easily available, and dominated the market. The Amiga was not cheap, was not made in anything like the quantities of the c64, and was fighting with the ST for third place behind the Mac and IBM PCs.

The Amiga 1000 was a decade ahead of it’s time, but Commodore sat on its ass for longer than that, with very little investment in upgrading the thing.

I say this as someone who went from a c64 in her teens to the Amiga in her twenties, and held on to the Amiga well past the time when it was obviously dead in terms of technological prowess and software availability.

The c64 was also a lot of people’s first taste of programming in a time when C compilers cost hundreds of dollars.

And if you don’t understand c64 nostalgia, I bet you must be even more befuddled by Spectrum nostalgia. Which was even cheaper and shittier than the c64, but completely ruled the UK for a while.

⬐ pvg

It's heartwarming to see some people still enjoy the old breadbox and others still enjoy telling everyone everything was better on the Amiga.

⬐ ZetaZero

The Amiga launched at $1300, while the C64 was going for $200. By the time I could afford an Amiga, I got a PC instead.

⬐ renewedrebecca

With the C64, you could literally understand what every single memory address on the machine did. You could hold the whole thing in your head. Coding on it was about as abstraction free as you could get, especially in assembly language.

Now, we run npm and have barely any idea of how any of it works. That makes sense in a way, things get bigger and more complex. For me at least, it's not fun in the way coding on a 8 or 16 bit computer is.

⬐ yakz

My family couldn’t afford an Amiga when I was a kid, but we could afford a C64 so that’s what we had.

⬐ guyzero

I really don't understand the love people have for ${literally anything}.

Nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

⬐ None

None

⬐ the_af

> I really don't understand the love people have for the commodore 64. It wasn't especially advanced for it's time nor was it especially good. Finally it basically required the use of a horrible language like Basic to use. There's like zero reason to re-create it as a retro computer.

Happy to help you understand:

Like a lot of people, I owned a C64 and not an Amiga, which was very expensive and uncommon in my country.

Agreed the included Basic was horrible, but I also started my programming journey with it. One upside, unlike with current computers, is that the C64 had an "instant on" appliance feel to it -- you plugged it in, and it booted up almost instantly, greeting you with the READY prompt, ready to go at your command. Turning it off was likewise instant.

You could also write assembly with it.

The C64 had a vast library of games, many very good, and the SID music from those games was simply amazing. It still is. I still listen to C64 music from time to time, and I love it.

The demoscene around the C64 was amazing and -- get this -- it still exists!

Finally, though less importantly, the C64 was a massive success and sold lots of units, and helped kickstart an era in computing, so it has great historical importance.

Hopefully this helped you understand the widespread love for the C64.

⬐ jansan

Just the other day I ran into this video of a recent C64 demo. It just blew my mind (5:02 is my favorite part). THere were demos at the time I played on the C64, but this is just pushing the limits so far, it is pure art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q56-23D7omY

⬐ the_af

Very cool, thanks for sharing!

⬐ lproven

> One upside, unlike with current computers, is that the C64 had an "instant on" appliance feel to it -- you plugged it in, and it booted up almost instantly, greeting you with the READY prompt, ready to go at your command.

That's true of all the 1980s 8-bit home computers. Oric-1, BBC Micro, Enterprise 64, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, whatever. Turn on; beep or click; ready to go.

But with an Oric or a Spectrum or a CPC or other cheap home micros, you could do sounds and graphics in BASIC. Not on a C64.

> You could also write assembly with it.

Also not really fair or accurate.

All mainstream computers can be programmed in assembly. The C64 did nothing to help. It didn't have a machine-code monitor (like the Sharp MZ-80K did, say). It didn't have inline assembly in the BASIC (like the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron did, say).

⬐ dansanderson

I would add that the popularity of the original machine and the vast library of games built off of each other, and the result is a large community with love and nostalgia for the C64. That in turn perpetuates modern projects, newcomers to the scene, and new generations of community here for their own reasons.

"Retro" exists independently of "nostalgia:" it's a broad cultural category that encompasses fashion, technology, and new reasons to appreciate old things. I would recommend Commodore-adjacent stuff—VICE, TheC64, Ultimate 64 in a new case, MEGA65, refurbished machines with new accessories and adapters—to people with a variety of interests that have never seen an original Commodore.

⬐ hestefisk

What is the best option for buying a fully functioning Amiga clone? I know there are various boards and accelerators out there. What should I buy?

⬐ bilegeek

Aside from FPGA/emulation options, somebody actually made a replica Amiga 4000 motherboard called the A4000TX[1], so if you can supply the custom chips, you can have an actual hardware Amiga.

The maker still apparently sells them on Amibay[2].

[1]https://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=93869

[2]https://www.amibay.com/forum/want-to-sell/hardware-for-sale/...

⬐ bitwize

There are a few good options here:

* The MiSTer FPGA computer supports an Amiga core.

* The Vampire V4+ Standalone, another FPGA-based system, is pretty much the ultimate 680x0 (compatible) Amiga. Both it and the MiSTer are going to more closely approximate the original Amiga hardware by having the FPGAs configured to mimic the custom chips, but they are a little pricey.

* If you don't mind an emulated system, or need to go cheap, then a Raspberry Pi with PiMiga might do. When you consider that the Raspberry Pi 400 is literally today's version of an Amiga 500 form factor, it makes sense.

If you wanted a modern Acorn Archimedes this is also easily had with a Raspberry Pi: simply boot the Pi port of RISC OS!

⬐ christkv

The vampire is adding 3D acceleration as well it seems at the voodoo level of quality and performance. Seems like a pretty cool platform to teach kids to code.

⬐ Findecanor

If it is classic games you're after, there is a mini retro-console coming up in March/April: TheA500 Mini . It should provide the most out-of-the-box polished experience. You could pre-order it, but I would await reviews before I'd buy. It comes with a replica mouse, and a gamepad inspired by the Amiga CD32 console's, both talking USB.

However, games back in the day hade been made for digital joysticks — which (I personally, find) are more accurate on diagonals than D-pads are. So, I think that a retro-joystick (such as the TheC64 Joystick from the same company) or vintage joystick with USB adaptor would be a must for the authentic experience.

⬐ Zenst

I'd say a Raspberry PI with emulator, for price and flexibility, more so if you have one dusting a draw sitting about. https://retrogamecoders.com/raspberry-pi-amiga-emulation/

⬐ einr

MiSTer is an FPGA implementation of the Amiga (and a lot of other cores) based on an easily available FPGA dev board. https://misterfpga.org/

Apollo Vampire V4 standalone is a "modern" FPGA implementation of a 68k Amiga that is nearly 100% Amiga compatible but much, much faster and with updated graphics etc. http://www.apollo-core.com/v4.html

So: MiSTer if you're looking for an authentic Commodore Amiga experience and want to play old games etc, Vampire if you have a lot of money to spare and want to do "modern" things on a classic Amiga (fancier games, MP3 and video playback...)

You should also consider that Amiga emulation is very accurate and fast these days and you could just get a Raspberry Pi running UAE which would be mostly indistinguishable from the FPGA reimplementations once you're up and running.

⬐ blue1

I haven't compared the two solutions personally, but MISTer is said to have less latency than emulators.

⬐ einr

This is true but depending on personal preference/perception and usecase it might not matter. If you really care about latency for twitchy old-school games, a MiSTer (or a real Amiga!) and CRT monitor would be ideal.

⬐ 0xcde4c3db

It's not so much the emulators that have latency, it's the platforms they run on that have mostly been optimized for throughput and battery life for the past ~20 years. It's possible to get low latency on modern systems, but it requires relatively advanced and often non-portable techniques to fight the system's attempts at "efficiency".

Where FPGA really shines is in producing a consistent timing model and the associated performance quirks (such as slowdown in video games).

⬐ IMSAI8080

I think the MiSTer is a good suggestion as it's flexible. Inevitably one day you will decide you want to try something other than an Amiga and then you've got all the cores available for other systems to easily install. The support is also very good from several vendors. Here's quite a nice complete kit of parts to easily make a games console style MiSTer solution:

https://rmcretro.store/multisystem-board-only/

And a review of this set of parts from Anthony of LTT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyDqGdY7ffQ

⬐ forinti

The speed comparison with the 6502 was interesting.

I recently saw a video with Sophie Wilson in which she mentions that various CPUs of the day were tested and all had roughly the same speed and hence they decided to design the ARM processor.

⬐ bullen

Isn't the comparison misguided as each 16-bit instruction can move twice as much data?

Or was that taken into account?

⬐ jecel

The 68000 takes 4 clock cycles (minimum) to access memory and can read or write 2 bytes. At 8 MHz that means that the 68000 has a memory bandwidth of (8Mclocks/s/4clocks)x2bytes = 4Mbytes/s.

The 6502 takes 1 clock cycle (which might be stretched if needed) to access memory and can read or write 1 byte; At 2 MHz the 6502 in the BBC has a memory bandwidth of 2Mbytes/s.

So going from the 6502 to the 68000 would only get you twice the performance. But the 68000 takes many more clock cycles to handle an interrupt compared to the 6502 and since the BBC Micro was designed around interrupts instead of DMA this would eat up all the performance gain. This was true of the 16 bit micros from National, Zilog and Intel as well.

The ARM2 takes 1 clock cycle (which can be stretched if needed) to access memory and can read or write 4 bytes. In addition, it can tell memory if the next access will be random or if it will be at the address following the current one. DRAM has to slow down the processor for random accesses (a RAS cycle followed by a CAS cycle) but can work at full speed for sequential accesses (just CAS cycles). That means that sometimes the ARM2 runs at 4 MHz and sometimes at 8 MHz - supposing an average of 6 MHz is very reasonable. So we are talking about a bandwidth of 6Mx4 = 24Mbytes/s. That is 12 times faster than the 6502 and 6 times faster than the 68000. And the ARM2 has a normal interrupt that is very fast plus a fast interrupt that is instantaneous.

Note that in theory you need "2MHz" DRAMs for the BBC's 6502 or an 8MHz 68000. But in practice if you want to share the memory between video and the CPU you will need 4MHz DRAMs. Which is what the ARM2 also uses, but without sharing with video. The solution is to fetch the video in chunks using the sequential CAS-only mode, put it in a FIFO and then feed the video that instead of directly. Which is what the MEMC/VIDC companion chips for the ARM2 did. Now the video still slows down the processor, but doesn't hog 50% of the bandwidth.

⬐ forinti

Yes, that's true.

Sophie Wilson's goal was to run BASIC at 6502 assembly speeds, and they couldn't do that with the processors they had available.

The first ARMs operated at ~4 MIPS, but of course they were 32 bits (registers and data bus), so they were a lot faster than the 68000 and the 6502.

Citing wikipedia: The ARM2 was roughly seven times the performance of a typical 7 MHz 68000-based.

⬐ flohofwoe

OTH everything else also got wider: opcodes are 16 bits instead of 8 bit and immediates are 16 or 32 bits. If the 'benchmark' can work mostly with 8-bit numbers and within the 6502's zero page, 8- vs 16-bit data bus width shouldn't make much of a difference.

⬐ phire

Actually, despite being classed as a 16bit processor, the 68000 has 32bit registers and can move upto 4x as much data per instruction.

It gets really hard to actually compare processing speeds across architectures. Your 32bit registers might really help accelerate 32bit math, but aren't going to do a thing for 8bit stuff like text processing.

Also the 32bit versions of instructions took longer than 16bit versions, as the 68000 only had a 16bit data bus, and a 16bit ALU.

⬐ vidarh

It can move much more per instruction with MOVEM which let's you move many full registers at once.

⬐ KerrAvon

Was it Fred Brooks or John Mashey who said we should classify CPUs by register size (so the 68000 is a 32-bit CPU on the grounds IIRC that, to software, the 16-bit ALU and data bus are implementation details)?

⬐ phire

The whole "bitness" of CPUs is a weird concept.

I dislike the "register size" definition, because it kind of falls apart on modern CPUs. Which register should you be measuring? If it's the GPRs, then we will probably be stuck with 64bit CPUs forever, which is boring. Perhaps we should allow the vector registers to be counted? That would mean most modern CPUs are 256bit, but some Intel CPUs are 512bit. What about fpu registers? That would make the 8088+8087 an 80bit cpu, despite it's tiny 8bit bus.

Personally, I think we should be using a definition that roughly scales with the the performance of the CPU, rather than the software API.

I quite like the idea of memory-bus width. That would fix the 68000 at 16bit, where it arguably belongs, but would make some weirdness with the 8086 and it's 8088 sibling being 16bit and 8bit. But then again, that does actually reflect re-world performance between the two. It gets a bit complicated once CPUs start gaining caches, but I propose we measure the bus width between the CPU core and it's L1 cache. Most modern high performance CPU designs can move actually transfer multiple registers (commonly three) to/from L1 cache every single cycle. Since those registers can be 256bit, that would make them a 768bit cpu.

Though if we start talking about per-cycle data transfers, we really should go back and update older CPUs to how much data they can actually transfer per cycle? Since it takes the 68000 12 cycles to transfer 32bits of data to/from memory, that would really make it a 3bit cpu.

The z80 would become 1bit, and the 6502 would be 2bit (remember, the 6502 does one memory transfer per cycle, while most other 8/16bit CPUs do one memory transfer every 4 cycles), and the 8080 would be 0.62 bits.

You just can't win. Might be better to just to write-off the entire concept of bitness as flawed.

⬐ christkv

I find it amazing that it worked on first silicon as well. The ARM 1 was truely a marvel of engineering design by a tiny team.

⬐ KingOfCoders

When I saw Juggler on an A1000 my world changed.

⬐ Damogran6

The spinning Amiga logo did it for me.

⬐ boboche

Bbs dial up in multitask blew my mind

⬐ mromanuk

I was waiting for this!

⬐ boboche

Still got mine, freshly recapped. Long live right to repair, teaching kids about retro glory and how stuff actually works at the hardware layer will make sure such iconic pieces of computing will never reach the landfill.

…now if only there could be actual selling 8520 CIA replacement chips/fpga replacement being manufactured AND sold instead of destroying old motherboards…

⬐ mrweasel

I don't know anything about chip design and manufacturing, so I might be way off, but could you just send working Commodore chips to China, and have someone make a clone. It seems like replicating 25+ year old chip technology should be easy enough, or are there simply no plants left that can create compatible chips?

⬐ philistine

At this point, I’d presume it’s much cheaper to get an FPGA to emulate at the hardware level the chips than it is to order 10,000 new chips in an old fab from wherever.

⬐ bogantech

8520's can still be gotten NOS from Analogic and probably a few other places but there are also a couple of projects in progress at the moment to replace the CIA's

https://github.com/niklasekstrom/cia-verilog

https://github.com/bwack/VHDL6526 (6526 and 8520 differ only in their TOD clocks so it should be simple for this to support both kinds)

⬐ boboche

Lots of CIAs out there are resold broken. The FPGAs are the best option since they wouldn’t break all over again… saw those 2 projects but one is incomplete and the other is not really “fully” tested. There’s that page since a while too but no updates. https://1nt3r.net/j-cia/

Since these were made probably with 100nm+ process, Cost of making them shouldn’t be an issue vs. potential sales, (maybe after the chip shortage ease) since whoever owns the amiga patents are not doing anything better than the last multiple owners since commodore… my money would be on fpgas even if denatures the machine a bit.