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A story about a '386 '486 Pentium and X16 comparison, involving Second Reality

voidstar78

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What started out as an equipment comparison video/discussion, got morphed into a Second Reality demo tribute after the X16 presentation at the September VCF last month.

Enable the cc caption to read the dialog between the systems.



"To breaking all the emulators." (be sure to use good speakers, not those twangy laptop or phone ones :p you probably won't hear the "gong" background and other subtle things with those, or it will just "puff" the low frequencies )

A '386-20 was about the "weakest" system I could find to play SR (but I admit to selfishly wanting to stick with a DX and avoid an SX). I thought the 150MHz Pentium would blow that out of the water, but put a little twist to spice things up. I suppose with a bit more effort, a 386-16 might be out there (and QEMM running on DOS 4.X or maybe even 3.X?).

But also hopes this inspires other to think about what a humble fan-less low power X16 could do. Like we learned in Maverick, "It's Not the Plane, It's the Pilot" :)
 
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But also hopes this inspires other to think about what a humble fan-less low power X16 could do. Like we learned in Maverick, "It's Not the Plane, It's the Pilot" :)

FWIW, in any comparison of the X16 to real olden times computers it’s always worth keeping in mind that the X16’s FPGA video processor is a huge cheatcode. The X16 only has a 6502 as the main CPU, but said CPU is ordering around a video processor roughly as-or-more powerful than an early 90’s video game console, not single-handedly stuffing bits into a dumb VGA framebuffer.

Or to put it another way, the X16 is very much in the same “total power” bracket as a Super Nintendo, that’s probably a fairer basis for judging its capabilities.
 
Yep, fully aware. I put the X16 VERA on par with the Sega Genesis. I also view the X16 as what a hypothetical CoCo4 could have been (ignoring the lone prototype). The CoCo3 introduced the GIME video chip, but the system overall lacked multi-voice audio (the legacy 6-bit DAC just wasn't the most approachable audio solution). Technicals aside, it's more about the talent of the programmers (applied Trig blended into a visual/audio experience) and their fortitude at creating something interesting.
 
Yep, fully aware. I put the X16 VERA on par with the Sega Genesis. I also view the X16 as what a hypothetical CoCo4 could have been (ignoring the lone prototype). The CoCo3 introduced the GIME video chip, but the system overall lacked multi-voice audio (the legacy 6-bit DAC just wasn't the most approachable audio solution).

The GIME chip is a pretty bad example to compare to the VERA, given there's absolutely *nothing* hardware accelerated about it. (The CoCo actually really stands out among its home computer peers in terms of being the machine that put all its eggs in the CPU basket.) A while back I fell down a rabbit hole reading up about the guts of the GIME, and it's actually pretty suspicious how much DNA appears to be shared between the GIME and the "Big Blue" chip in the second gen Tandy 1000s. Both of those chips represent Peak Tandy in terms of in-house ASIC production, and while they're both good products neither one has even a trace of sprite support.

I guess there's a book out there that claims to have some pictures of a "real" Tandy Coco4 prototype; digging into that it was apparently just a goofy looking case with no guts inside. I wonder if they were even remotely serious about this idea and when it happened because my recollection of the CoCo3's introduction was Tandy basically did very little in terms of pretending it wasn't going to be the last hurrah.
 
Right, and an actual CoCo4 would (likely) have had improvements on all that. That's the tangent here, if MS-DOS/Win hadn't essentially steamrolled the industry c. 1993, what might the last of the "boot to BASIC" era systems might have churned out. Yes, pure nostalgia though. But there is something appealing to the pace of this style of systems, a simpler time. I kind of view it like skateboarding - not very practical for transport (small wheels, high RPM, etc), but still fun tricks.

GIME-X is a project that is reverse engineering the original and trying to figure out how to manufacturer new drop-in replacements - I haven't followed up on how far along they've gotten.

That said CoCo4 was presented at the Dallas VCF.
 
Yep, fully aware. I put the X16 VERA on par with the Sega Genesis.

Paper specs alone on the VERA curb stomp the VDP in the Genesis, it can do things you could never hope to do on a Genesis. The reason that the Genesis can do some impressive things is because of the grunt of the 68000 can make up for the weak VDP. All of the really good looking games on the console had to do lots of creative programming tricks to make complex effects work.

It's probably closer to a Super ACan. That console can best be described as the bastard offspring of a Neo Geo and a Super Nintendo. It has a 12 MHz 68000, 256 KB of RAM and a custom VDP that's on par with the Super Nintendo PPU.

It'd be interesting to see what could be made with such powerful 2D hardware, and maybe hot rodding the X16 with a 65C816.
 
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