Good luck doing all that with a 65816.


I saw the sad tale of what happened with wiringPi. That's why when I released some code a while back I made sure the email address in the git repo was set to "roundfile@mailinator.com". Take the code, use it, modify it, do what you like with it - but don't expect me to be at your beck and call. As it says in the readme, it's provided as-is with no support and no warranty.

your mobile phone was envisioned by Tesla, and it is first and foremost a screen connected to a radio for instant communication and access to the internet. In some years it will be replaced by a watch and smart glass or holograms. it is an unrepairable device with many megabytes and gigabytes of libraries and support code. creating software for it may be as easy as using a website app builder, or require gigabytes of downloads, knowledge of several languages, an interpreter, byte code and .... you get the point, coding for an android phone (much less an apple) can be a huge undertaking, and may end up being bloat ware. My phone uses more battery running radios, than anything else, hands down. My phone has a 6.xx inch screen, and a stylus. It can take dictation!

The Integrity is not a phone, or an android tablet. It is a computer. It is much closer to a switch, or a surface.
You phone does not have a lot of modules that turn it into a quality MIDI device, an oscilloscope or allow you to program industrial devices. The Integrity will. If you want radios for it, you will get a wifi link, and packet radio via HAM. I have an ARRL handbook too. WØEEE . Go miners. In my toolbox, I have vise-grips, and pliers, and socket wrenches. The cellular smartphone and the Integrity are different tools, for different purposes. Think of a smart phone as your impact driver or cordless drill, and the Integrity as an oscillating multi-tool. I used to scoff at those and call them fancy point sanders. I am building a house out on my farm, and I use that multi-tool as much or more than any other saw. I just got a sanding attachment for it, so now its also a nice point sander in addition to being a really nice adjustable plunge cut saw. Not everyone needs one, if you need one, you need one. Most everyone has a cell phone, and a cordless drill. Some people that need it, will have a multi-tool, and the Integrity.


Totally agree. Ive been looking into the existing projects for awhile.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

you describe a Wise Phone, not a Smart Phone.
Invent one and be a millionaire!

You may be missing the point - for me at least -

I do not want that. I do not want a hand held device that I can write code on, use as an oscilloscope, midi controller, etc.. My hand held computing device may be primarily a communicator but it's also a multi function computer and you should not underestimate what Android and Apple phones are capable of.


As for Android coding? It's not that hard these days. Downloading GB of libraries? So-what. It's 2023 and SSDs are affordable and unmetered Internet is cheap. I've been doing the computing thing since 1978 and sometimes - just sometimes, I get fed-up of the same old "scoffing" of "oh, we did that in 10 bytes in page 3". Sod it. I know I can use a 555 as a timer, but an 8-pin microcontroller is cheaper and uses less battery. Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. We're a dying breed.

https://hackaday.com/2021/12/15/you-can ... -of-a-555/

As for what an Android phone can do... I think you need to re-evaluate their capabilities. My android phone can:

• Play Doom.
• There are over 100 Android MIDI controller and player apps on Google Play Store should I need them.
• Dozens of Oscilloscope and Spectrum analyser apps.
• Any number of graphing/analytical calculators.
• Programming Industrial controllers? Well, there are serial terminals, there are PLC programmer apps. That handle ladder logic, etc. even have some 3D modelling software that will talk to 3D printers and other CNC devices.
• I don't particularly want a stylus as I have nice multi-touch screen that lets me pinch and zoom, however I do have one of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Monteverde-Tou ... B00EYNN0UG it has 2 screwdrivers, spirit level and a ruler on it too. Oh and it also writes, but I don't care for that. Wet ink and dead tree technology. Eww.
• For dictation, I have a nice recorder app. too. It also records the phone calls I make. Very handy.

I'm looking forward to my holograms.

I know this doesn't help your case, but I have concerns - the same as myself and others have posted about grand projects that have appeared here in the past; It's too big. Start small. Get some basic working hardware first. Write some code for it to get a feel for it all yourself before you commit to those 1000 units.... I really would like to see some working hardware, but I fear this is just going to end up too complex a project to manage or even write code for.

And just for fun, I thought I'd look at one app. to see how it might fare on pure '816 hardware: The dictation machine. Lets do the sums for good old "Telephone quality" audio. 8 bits, 8000 times a second. That will fill a 64KB bank of RAM in 8 seconds. 2 minutes per megabyte. We can compress it - but the '816 doesn't have enough CPU for that - not in real-time, anyway.

And as part of my afternoons fun, I decided to see how fast my BCPL system could fill 64K of RAM... Well I was impressed - to fill 64000 bytes, reading and writing byte at a time took 3.5 seconds, so not too bad - at least it could keep up, but that's literally reading a byte, storing and increment the pointer. In reality you'd do this under interrupt from assembly though, but you'll run out of RAM quite quickly. Bear in-mind my system runs at 16Mhz - your target is slower.



However it does raise an interesting point: Your comments above imply that you want a device that is self-hosting. ie. it can edit, compile and run code directly on the device. That was my goal when I set out to make my own '816 device after I made my own 65C02 device - which was self hosting with BASIC and 16-bit BCPL. (And Forth, Comal, etc.)

Forth is do-able for those who like Forth. Finding anyone proficient in Prolog may be a challenge. There are no C compilers (that I know of) that will currently run on 6502/65816 hardware (there were in the past but no-one has to my knowledge ported them to an independent platform). Same for Pascal - we have UCSD but do we have the ability to port it to a new '816 system? So that leaves just two; BASIC and BCPL. We know we can write an operating system in either - Acorn did it with their BBC Basic on the Acorn Communicator (65816) and the Acorn Archimedes (the Arthur OS running on the original ARM based system), and I've written a BCPL operating for the '816 but what else?

Anyway, that's it from me. I look forward to seeing working hardware and when I do, I may look at porting my BCPL OS to it if it's suitable.

-Gordon

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--
Gordon Henderson.
See my Ruby 6502 and 65816 SBC projects here: https://projects.drogon.net/ruby/

In fact the reverse is usually true - they are good at removing any common sense which might once have been present. Such as when people nearly get run over because they're so engrossed in whatever is on their phone screen that they just walk into a road without looking. And believing all sorts of garbage which pops up on twitter or whatever their favourite social media app is without asking themselves whether it's remotely plausible.

Karma was 14. Her mother, Heather was my age, they were friends of my dad's, from his side of town.
Karma was struck by a train at high speeds, she walked in front of it not seeing it while playing minecraft on her phone.
This was about, 3-4 years ago now. I remember helping them dig up their yard for a spring garden.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

oof, BDD sounding like a stereotypical old person going "kids these days...". the previous generations always complain about the current one, that's pretty much a constant in history.
also, don't be like that man, we young(er) people are nice i swear.
i didn't even have a phone until i was like 16, and i only got it because i moved out and needed a way to communicate with my parents.
and honestly, please don't blame kids for their behavior, blame the parents that are supposed to raise them. or don't, because i'd imagine raising kids is really damn difficult as everything is constantly changing. so it's pretty much impossible to always be aware of any potential pitfalls that your kids might fall into as those didn't exist when you were a kid yourself.

anyways, i think i gotta agree with the consensus that this project seems a bit too ambitious for how small/nieche the target community is.
then also having the whole thing self contained is a lot of extra work that you pretty much have to do alone to kickstart the community around it, and even then it's not guaranteed that people will actually buy into the platform...

I really don't wish for you to put a lot of time, money, and effort into a project like this only for it to end up dying immediately after relase...

It does feel very strongly to me, wayfarer, given what you've said in this thread and in several others in the few weeks since you showed up, that you don't have the expertise or the experience for a project that's so ambitious. It also seems like you don't realise this, although several people have hinted at it.

There's nothing wrong or unusual about lacking expertise or experience - we all have to start somewhere - but when there's a journey, there might be a choice of routes, and in this case, it's well understood that it's best to start simple. If you start out with the assumption that there's a lot to learn, you can feel positive about starting from basics and building up your knowledge.

This applies to anyone - we see a fair number of ambitious paper designs as first attempts, and generally speaking things don't go well. Building up from a solid foundation is a much better idea, and accepting that your first build won't be your final build, and your first design should come after your first build, would be a great start.

In your case, I think this all applies even more, because your stated aim is not just to build an ambitious system, and not just to build it in quantity, but to crowdfund it. You should ask who might crowdfund such an offering, and what questions they might ask themselves before putting up money. For myself, I put money in when the person or people have some solid credibility and I have reasons for thinking they might well succeed. But unfortunately your writings here have shown - in my view - that you don't really know much and you don't even realise how much you don't know. That's fine, but it's not great for crowdfunding.

I seriously suggest you start from basics: specifically, build a known-good simple design, such as Grant Searle's, or any of several others, and write some software for it. Even getting as far as blinking an LED is in fact a substantial step forward.

I don't mean anything negative by any of this, and I do apologise if I seem to be negative, or if I have somehow entirely misunderstood your experience and expertise.

wayfarer, I've been reluctant to speak up, and I do wish you well. But Ed has said what I was already thinking. Every paragraph of his post makes a solid point.

It's possible he & I are both misguided, but if so then by now you should be experiencing a surge of endorsement and support from those eager to participate in your massively comprehensive project.

I do encourage you to continue on your journey, but you'll find it best to progress by steps, not leaps. This'll be a better strategy for harnessing your apparently boundless energy! So, consider what's been said, do have fun, and please keep us posted!

-- Jeff

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In 1988 my 65C02 got six new registers and 44 new full-speed instructions!
https://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/ ... mmary.html

Without having read the thread, how many of the building blocks have you done before?

In my experience combining 'known working' design building blocks massively increase the chance of success or decrease development time. I've seen people try to get more than they can swallow and the projects failed.

Don't get me wrong this is an impressive design and I wish I could see it working (maybe when I finish the thread

Edit: after reading the thread I see my technical concerns have been said already, and I can only agree with the advice to start simple.

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Author of the GeckOS multitasking operating system, the usb65 stack, designer of the Micro-PET and many more 6502 content: http://6502.org/users/andre/

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!