Oldschool demos getting vendor locked?
category: general [glöplog]
@paldepind: I think I understand your concerns about obscure platforms, the same fear raises up inside me when thinking of switching to another obscure platform from the c64. The factor here is that I just never really stopped using a c64 (only switching over to emulation;) ever since we first met,and I know the community around it. Also if there was no audience/community I think I would have stopped long before. Seeing new stuff done by someone else is always a big productivity boost. (hey look the machine is still alive, we are still doing stuff)
Oswald: Out of curiousity, what about the concern of the hardware as a physical product itself? I mean C64's as physical computers are admirable to have lasted for 30 years, but the number is decreasing over time as the manufacturing material begins to age.
Following gargaj's question, a couple of my own:
- Is it possible to build a c64 from scratch nowadays? I mean, assuming you had the money to get the PCB built, are the required chips available? (New that is, and I'm assuming a regular keyboard would suffice :)
- Are the VIC + SID chips (and anything else I guess) well known enough now to make 100% compatible clones, or emulate them (either ASIC or FPGA or software)? I'm thinking here of those little things like new video modes, or mahoney's recent audio stuff.
- Is it possible to build a c64 from scratch nowadays? I mean, assuming you had the money to get the PCB built, are the required chips available? (New that is, and I'm assuming a regular keyboard would suffice :)
- Are the VIC + SID chips (and anything else I guess) well known enough now to make 100% compatible clones, or emulate them (either ASIC or FPGA or software)? I'm thinking here of those little things like new video modes, or mahoney's recent audio stuff.
Question 1: No. The C64 uses the mentioned custom chips (VIC, SID, PLA) and a few semi-custom ones (CIA, 6510). None of these are still made and I doubt they made many spare ones.
Question 2: Depends. VIC is reasonably well understood (though there are a few details that many people don't yet know, so beware, e.g. the "2 bits set at once in column shift register due to VSP" bugs involving nondeterministic behaviour on real hardware - it's not the VSP crash bug, it's a different thing). Nondeterminism aside, you could pretty much make one. SID is a different issue, it's a highly analog device, it e.g. uses anlog multiplication for volume (2 times - each voice and the voice sum) and filters, involving distortions, that all is difficult to emulate and probably nearly impossible to do with modern manufacturing equipment.
Question 2: Depends. VIC is reasonably well understood (though there are a few details that many people don't yet know, so beware, e.g. the "2 bits set at once in column shift register due to VSP" bugs involving nondeterministic behaviour on real hardware - it's not the VSP crash bug, it's a different thing). Nondeterminism aside, you could pretty much make one. SID is a different issue, it's a highly analog device, it e.g. uses anlog multiplication for volume (2 times - each voice and the voice sum) and filters, involving distortions, that all is difficult to emulate and probably nearly impossible to do with modern manufacturing equipment.
I dont worry about that at all.
for many guys its important to use the real hardware, but I think they are the minority. emulation is simply more convinient, and more than accurate enough. it's been years since the last time I've turned on my c64/c128.
and if everything fails, a guy develops a c64/c65 FPGA clone, which I will buy into for sure. c65 is a must have even as a clone :)
but frankly I believe all c64 sceners can have working machines until they die/stop being active, without serious efforts. We are not many, and there's a lot of machines still around. there are no moving parts, the only enemy is rust / too much usage (heat killing some chips).
for many guys its important to use the real hardware, but I think they are the minority. emulation is simply more convinient, and more than accurate enough. it's been years since the last time I've turned on my c64/c128.
and if everything fails, a guy develops a c64/c65 FPGA clone, which I will buy into for sure. c65 is a must have even as a clone :)
but frankly I believe all c64 sceners can have working machines until they die/stop being active, without serious efforts. We are not many, and there's a lot of machines still around. there are no moving parts, the only enemy is rust / too much usage (heat killing some chips).
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It's not that windows is dying, but that it's no longer dominant. It's dominance that's dying fast, not the platform. If you take windows share of the desktop and notebook market then yes it's still pretty high, but if you take PC back to its roots of "personal computer", you find people using phones, tablets and other things as their personal computer, and windows is probably somewhere around 50% share, perhaps less by now.
The market has just become a lot larger (if you choose to count it that way). But Windows is still as relevant as ever on the machines it was targeted at. Just because crappy smartphones run on crappy Android based on crappy lunix doesn't mean that linux itself is actually threatening Windows on its original market. It doesn't even mean that Windows runs on less devices than before (perhaps just slightly... as I said, from 90% to 85% perhaps... but that is mostly Apple's doing, not linux).
I mean, nothing has changed, there still is nobody who takes linux seriously when it comes to gaming, software development, content creation, DAW, or whatever else.
There are just a lot more devices out there, and apparently most of those devices are not running a Windows-based OS (yet?).
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It's not that windows is dying, but that it's no longer dominant. It's dominance that's dying fast, not the platform. If you take windows share of the desktop and notebook market then yes it's still pretty high, but if you take PC back to its roots of "personal computer", you find people using phones, tablets and other things as their personal computer, and windows is probably somewhere around 50% share, perhaps less by now.
Exactly my point!
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@paldepind: I think I understand your concerns about obscure platforms, the same fear raises up inside me when thinking of switching to another obscure platform from the c64. The factor here is that I just never really stopped using a c64 (only switching over to emulation;) ever since we first met,and I know the community around it. Also if there was no audience/community I think I would have stopped long before. Seeing new stuff done by someone else is always a big productivity boost. (hey look the machine is still alive, we are still doing stuff)
Oswald: You're the first one who seems to understand me :) But for me doing retro demos wouldn't be hanging on to a platform i love – it would be digging something up that seems very far away. I hardly know what a c64 is beyond its name and the fact that it's a PC.
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I hardly know what a c64 is beyond its name and the fact that it's a PC.
More specifically it's a Home Computer.
@paldepind
one important thing to point out that 99.99% of guys on retro platforms owned these machines in their child/teenagerhood, nostalgia plays a big role.
we're just having fun, playing with our childhood computer. nobody is forcing itself into this :) if you consider doing any scene activity, pick the platform you like most, and just enjoy yourself.
one important thing to point out that 99.99% of guys on retro platforms owned these machines in their child/teenagerhood, nostalgia plays a big role.
we're just having fun, playing with our childhood computer. nobody is forcing itself into this :) if you consider doing any scene activity, pick the platform you like most, and just enjoy yourself.
There is a trend, I heard some people saying "PCs will die, everything will be running on Android or Iphone in the future" which sometimes seems like wishful thinking (we like to imagine that evil PCs/Windows will die). I wouldn't be surprised and wouldn't mind if in the future we also work on PCs running android instead of windows, but tablets/phones making PCs totally disappear? I already hate using a touch to type a single email, how bout doing real work? As long as there is a need for a useful tool to code and do your work properly, PCs in the form we know them will not die. Or is it?
This is not a reply to any argument, just something that was brought up by the discussion.
This is not a reply to any argument, just something that was brought up by the discussion.
It becomes clearer when you consider that oldschool demoscene machines are not "computing platforms" at all. They are very special cultural artifacts, instruments and paintbrushes. The demoscene may look like software development, but it's not. Try to be less of an engineer and geek, and more of a humanist and freak. Even among artists there's a widespread misconception, trying to separate the "pure core of art" from its makers, tools, audience and cultural context. Art is a human thing, interactions between people and the world as a whole.
Worrying about old computers dying is valuable, but only from the perspective of preserving culture. We have this magnificent cultural scene here right now, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with keeping it alive.
Worrying about old computers dying is valuable, but only from the perspective of preserving culture. We have this magnificent cultural scene here right now, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with keeping it alive.
kabuto: thanks. Guess FPGA with limited accuracy is the best way then. I'm slightly discounting emulators, because while they're pretty much the same in theory they're rarely connected to a TV :D
Umm.... no. Because what's actually happening is that people are using phones and tablets to do the stuff they used to do on a PC. They're not buying many new PCs as a result, and they're not using the PCs they still have as much.
So while windows share of the PC market has hardly changed, the PC market is getting smaller. Quite a lot smaller. Especially the home computer part, which is where the big change is happening (PC still dominates in the enterprise, and phones/tablets aren't replacing desktops much there).
Actually apple shows exactly what's happening here. The mac increased market share by a decent amount, yet they sold *less* macs than the year before. On the other hand, iOS lost market share to Android, yet they sold a lot more iPhones and iPads.
There are definitely more devices out there, but there's still a big move from PC to phone/tablet. It's very unlikely, but imagine if in a few years MS is back at 95% PC market share, but nobody uses a PC outside of an office :D
Content creation and DAW perhaps (I don't know much about either on linux tbh), but gaming and dev? It's not like valve is a small games company, and they're taking linux gaming very seriously :D And linux is *very* heavily used for dev work.
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The market has just become a lot larger (if you choose to count it that way). But Windows is still as relevant as ever on the machines it was targeted at. Just because crappy smartphones run on crappy Android based on crappy lunix doesn't mean that linux itself is actually threatening Windows on its original market. It doesn't even mean that Windows runs on less devices than before (perhaps just slightly... as I said, from 90% to 85% perhaps... but that is mostly Apple's doing, not linux).
Umm.... no. Because what's actually happening is that people are using phones and tablets to do the stuff they used to do on a PC. They're not buying many new PCs as a result, and they're not using the PCs they still have as much.
So while windows share of the PC market has hardly changed, the PC market is getting smaller. Quite a lot smaller. Especially the home computer part, which is where the big change is happening (PC still dominates in the enterprise, and phones/tablets aren't replacing desktops much there).
Actually apple shows exactly what's happening here. The mac increased market share by a decent amount, yet they sold *less* macs than the year before. On the other hand, iOS lost market share to Android, yet they sold a lot more iPhones and iPads.
There are definitely more devices out there, but there's still a big move from PC to phone/tablet. It's very unlikely, but imagine if in a few years MS is back at 95% PC market share, but nobody uses a PC outside of an office :D
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I mean, nothing has changed, there still is nobody who takes linux seriously when it comes to gaming, software development, content creation, DAW, or whatever else.
Content creation and DAW perhaps (I don't know much about either on linux tbh), but gaming and dev? It's not like valve is a small games company, and they're taking linux gaming very seriously :D And linux is *very* heavily used for dev work.
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Oswald: You're the first one who seems to understand me :) But for me doing retro demos wouldn't be hanging on to a platform i love – it would be digging something up that seems very far away. I hardly know what a c64 is beyond its name and the fact that it's a PC.
Well, look at it another way: the c64 scene is older than the PC scene, and it's still going very strong. Somebody did some stats on the number of prods released over time a while back, and I have a vague memory it suggested the PC scene would die before the c64 scene :D
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There is a trend, I heard some people saying "PCs will die, everything will be running on Android or Iphone in the future" which sometimes seems like wishful thinking (we like to imagine that evil PCs/Windows will die). I wouldn't be surprised and wouldn't mind if in the future we also work on PCs running android instead of windows, but tablets/phones making PCs totally disappear? I already hate using a touch to type a single email, how bout doing real work? As long as there is a need for a useful tool to code and do your work properly, PCs in the form we know them will not die. Or is it?
This is not a reply to any argument, just something that was brought up by the discussion.
Anyone suggesting that will happen short term is pretty stupid. Phones + tablets are good for some stuff, desktops are good for other, different stuff. Both will continue to exist, at least for a while :)
Then again, I don't think there's been much serious exploration of touch-based coding tools - everything is based around typing code, not manipulating and connecting things with our fingers. Perhaps in 10 years we'll look back at the clumsy keyboard oriented tools we have now and laugh. Or perhaps we'll still be typing on keyboards.
I can definitely see coding working on a tablet to some degree at least. I mean, you can make a demo with werkzeug. And I can imagine a touch-based version of werkzeug working well - perhaps better than the desktop version if it was well designed. So who knows?
FPGAs and emulators can be helpful, but I don't want to do stuff for an emulator scene. For example, there are these certain MSX demos that have a couple of effects that look like absolute rubbish on a real machine and normal 50Hz CRT display, but fine on an emulator so many people think there's no problem. And that's just incredibly stupid. If someone has problems running my prod on an emulator, I don't care as long as it's fine on the real thing.
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Phones + tablets are good for some stuff, desktops are good for other, different stuff. Both will continue to exist
+1
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Umm.... no. Because what's actually happening is that people are using phones and tablets to do the stuff they used to do on a PC. They're not buying many new PCs as a result, and they're not using the PCs they still have as much.
They still have PCs. Evne if they don't buy new ones as much, or don't use them as much, they still have them, and these PCs still run Windows. Phones and tablets don't replace PCs, they just allow you to do some of the things you needed a PC for, while being on the move.
So you should be saying 'yes' rather than 'no'.
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PC market is getting smaller. Quite a lot smaller.
No it isn't, you just admitted that yourself.
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Content creation and DAW perhaps (I don't know much about either on linux tbh), but gaming and dev? It's not like valve is a small games company, and they're taking linux gaming very seriously :D And linux is *very* heavily used for dev work.
Problem is, nobody takes Valve seriously. "Look we ported a game with 2003 technology to lunix!" <sound of crickets chirping>
Linux may be used for dev work, by misguided souls (just as most open source software is developed by misguided souls). Real developers use Windows and Visual Studio. Nothing on linux comes close to Visual Studio and the plugins available for it.
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It's not like valve is a small games company, and they're taking linux gaming very seriously :D
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey - under 1%.
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Question 2: Depends. VIC is reasonably well understood (though there are a few details that many people don't yet know, so beware, e.g. the "2 bits set at once in column shift register due to VSP" bugs involving nondeterministic behaviour on real hardware - it's not the VSP crash bug, it's a different thing). Nondeterminism aside, you could pretty much make one. SID is a different issue, it's a highly analog device, it e.g. uses anlog multiplication for volume (2 times - each voice and the voice sum) and filters, involving distortions, that all is difficult to emulate and probably nearly impossible to do with modern manufacturing equipment.
Quick! Somebody get lft on this!
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Umm.... no. Because what's actually happening is that people are using phones and tablets to do the stuff they used to do on a PC. They're not buying many new PCs as a result, and they're not using the PCs they still have as much.
That's actually because there hasn't been a notable technology advancement as far as architectures are concerned. Sure, you can shrink SOI and increase clock rate and add more cores, but it's getting saturated, so there's no reason for anyone to buy a new PC at this point if the ROI isn't worth it. But that doesn't mean people stopped using them, it just means they're not buying new ones.
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They still have PCs. Evne if they don't buy new ones as much, or don't use them as much, they still have them, and these PCs still run Windows. Phones and tablets don't replace PCs, they just allow you to do some of the things you needed a PC for, while being on the move.
So you should be saying 'yes' rather than 'no'.
By that reasoning, there is still a typewriter market, where some typewriter maker (which perhaps disappeared years ago :) still dominates the market. Because those typewriters still exist :D
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No it isn't, you just admitted that yourself.
The "traditional PC" market where people use windows is shrinking. The bigger market, where most devices no longer run windows, is growing.
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Problem is, nobody takes Valve seriously. "Look we ported a game with 2003 technology to lunix!" <sound of crickets chirping>
Linux may be used for dev work, by misguided souls (just as most open source software is developed by misguided souls). Real developers use Windows and Visual Studio. Nothing on linux comes close to Visual Studio and the plugins available for it.
We'll have to see how they do with it. I know if I was looking at what platforms to target just now I wouldn't consider linux (it'd be windows (desktop, not phone), android, iOS - but in reality the stuff I write isn't suited for desktops so windows is out, and fragmentation on iOS is already painful as hell so android is out too, for now at least).
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By that reasoning, there is still a typewriter market, where some typewriter maker (which perhaps disappeared years ago :) still dominates the market. Because those typewriters still exist :D
No, because people still use PCs, just not as much as they used to perhaps. People don't use typewriters anymore.
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The "traditional PC" market where people use windows is shrinking.
No, some people just claim it is, based on sales figures. Gargaj already answered that.
It's the same with cars. Because of the crisis, people buy less new cars. Instead, they use their current car longer before buying new. It does not mean that people use cars less.
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(it'd be windows (desktop, not phone)
If you're talking about demos... It's trivial to target both desktop and phone, since you can use the same D3D11 code on both, as long as you keep your shaders simple enough so that the average phone hardware supports it (generally DX9-level).
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Question 2: Depends. VIC is reasonably well understood (though there are a few details that many people don't yet know, so beware, e.g. the "2 bits set at once in column shift register due to VSP" bugs involving nondeterministic behaviour on real hardware - it's not the VSP crash bug, it's a different thing). Nondeterminism aside, you could pretty much make one. SID is a different issue, it's a highly analog device, it e.g. uses anlog multiplication for volume (2 times - each voice and the voice sum) and filters, involving distortions, that all is difficult to emulate and probably nearly impossible to do with modern manufacturing equipment.
On that note, were the diagrams for it ever released? Is it known who owns the manufacturing rights?
as long as you still need a PC to conveniently make stuff for handheld devices, the PC wont die ;)
The difference between oldskool and mainstream demoscenes is: the "market" for oldskool machines is stable.
By the way, it's still easy and cheap to get a Commodore 64, even if you buy bells and whistles like 1541 Ultimate to go with it. Go get a couple while you still can. The thing that is alarmingly expensive is 8580 SID chips, because they burn so easily, and people have started using them for other purposes. Surprisingly, the older and more "vintage" 6581 version seems to be cheaper, because there's less demand for it.
By the way, it's still easy and cheap to get a Commodore 64, even if you buy bells and whistles like 1541 Ultimate to go with it. Go get a couple while you still can. The thing that is alarmingly expensive is 8580 SID chips, because they burn so easily, and people have started using them for other purposes. Surprisingly, the older and more "vintage" 6581 version seems to be cheaper, because there's less demand for it.
and who on earth would wanna waste his sparetime writing a proper VIC emulator? porting the linux kernel to mexican electronic toilets even has a higher priority among most coders!