Mega65

[tokra]

If enough of those people share the same dream, they could pool their money and offer it to someone who can programm Mega65 full-time. Somehow like a reverse kickstarter. I remember some years ago there was a project called "Commdore Bounty" that worked on a similar concept. As I remember GEOS-support for SD2IEC came out of that.

[groepaz]

yeah but that was a trivial job compared to what those people are dreaming of (a graphical OS, a web browser, a IDE with a compiler, etc)

[RobertBe]

The C128 was already the computer designed to be the swan-song for the 8-bit-area. Bil Herd once mentioned that Commodore thought it would be sold for about a year.

Two years. In Brian Bagnall's book, Bil mentioned that he fully expected the Amiga was the way to go.

Production was stopped only because it cost more to produce a C128 than an Amiga at that time and the C128 had to be sold for less.

Dave Haynie's 1986 follow-up project, the C256, was essentially cancelled, because it was its pricing was too close to the B52 (which became the Amiga 500).

So, in this 1985-1986 time span, CBM had four platforms for consideration... with only a limited amount of money to devote for full production. Those computers were the C128, the C900, the Commodore LCD, and the Amiga. The C128 and the Amiga won out, CBM thinking those computers would make the most immediate profit. The C900 and the Commodore LCD would linger in development hell and were eventually cancelled.

There may be a handful of demos for it (like for the C64DTV and C128)...

The C128 does have a respectable amount of business software.

...people shouldn't project all their hopes for fantastic software to it, they will be disappointed.

The talk on the Mega65 forum is currently on porting over GEOS (among other topics). http://mega65.net/

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
June 9-10 Pacific Commodore Expo NW 2018 - http://www.portcommodore.com/pacommex
Aug. 11-12 Commodore Vegas Expo v14 2018 - http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex

[Commodorianen]

If enough of those people share the same dream, they could pool their money and offer it to someone who can programm Mega65 full-time. Somehow like a reverse kickstarter. I remember some years ago there was a project called "Commdore Bounty" that worked on a similar concept. As I remember GEOS-support for SD2IEC came out of that.

I think it will be better in 20-25 years or so because then many Commodore fans will be retired and will probably have a lot of spare time to sit and program as a hobby .

[groepaz]

The C128 does have a respectable amount of business software.

and as we all know, spreadsheets and wordprocessors is what people are using on 8bit computers in 2018

[RobertBe]

The C128 does have a respectable amount of business software.

As to amount of C128 software (commercial, not homebrew), see

http://retro-link.com/smf/index.php?PHP ... pic=1366.0

Oh-oh, moving off-topic,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group - http://www.dickestel.com/fcug.htm
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network - http://www.portcommodore.com/sccan
June 9-10 Pacific Commodore Expo NW 2018 - http://www.portcommodore.com/pacommex
Aug. 11-12 Commodore Vegas Expo v14 2018 - http://www.portcommodore.com/commvex