$200 will not be possible. If you take a look at the specs page, there's already the new target price of 249,- EUR. That includes German VAT of 16% (the C-One will be made in Germany). This is only a target price, it may still change as development goes on.
Jens Schönfeld
individual Computers - we're bringing the C-One to the market.
This is a hobby-computer. One nice thing about the good old 8-bit days was that we could control any selfmade hardware, say, through the userport. The geek port of the C-One has some freely programmable lines, some clocks, and the possibility to map periphal chips into the computer's memory without having to be a PCI expert. Be honst, what computer gives this opportunity?
The C-One website has not been updated since a few weeks. Many changes have been made in the past, especially changes that make the board a lot more versatile.
First there's to mention the SD-Ram socket. The board is not limited to 32 megs of memory, but it can take any 3.3V SD-Ram up to 1GB. Video/multimedia memory is also expandable to up to 128megs with a SIMM module.
We have added a CPU slot. The board is no longer limited to a 65816 at 20Mhz. We can supply all kinds of different CPUs that have been used on all the classic homecomputers.
Of course, the "glue logic" of the thing must be different for every CPU. This is achieved with completely re-configurable logic. As opposed to mainstream computers where each chip has it's dedicated task, the C-One's two main chips have programmable behaviour. That means we can not only clone the C-64, but also a VIC-20, C-16, Atari 2600, Sinclair ZX81, Spectrum, Ohio Scientific Challenger, and we've even looked into the Super Nintendo. The possibilities are infinite. Get us the documentation of your favourite 8-bit machine, and with a little luck, you'll be able to download a core file for the mainboard that turns the C-One into a clone of that computer.
So please - do not see the C-One as a Commodore 64 replica. It's a giant leap in computer technology, having the opportunity to change the behaviour of the hardware on the fly, to adapt it's behaviour to the needs of the application that currnetly runs. This adaption is dynamic, the computer does not have to be restarted. Think of it as loading a sub-program, it's just that loading this sub-program equals installing a new add-on card on the board.
The C-One aims at those who are into computer nostalgia, as well as those who want it for educational purpose. We'll supply all kinds of material for you to start VHDL programming, and instantly try it out on this board. Start modifying the board without soldering, extend the capabilities of your video output, or even switch to a completely different computer on the fly.
This computer is not for the usual point-and-click user. It's going back to the times where each and every bit of the machine was documented, and forward to a new kind of computer technology: Re-configurable hardware.
As for emulators, they're out of the question. Since the hardware is re-configurable, it would have to be emulated at the gate level. To do this in real-time, we calculated that it would take a 24THz (24000 GHz) computer to emulate the smaller FPGA with 30.000 gates in realtime. The bigger of the two chips has 100.000 gates. I think it'll take a few years until the C-One becomes obsolete.
Jens Schönfeld
(individual Computers, we're bringing the C-One to the market)
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$200 will not be possible. If you take a look at the specs page, there's already the new target price of 249,- EUR. That includes German VAT of 16% (the C-One will be made in Germany). This is only a target price, it may still change as development goes on.
Jens Schönfeld
individual Computers - we're bringing the C-One to the market.
This is a hobby-computer. One nice thing about the good old 8-bit days was that we could control any selfmade hardware, say, through the userport. The geek port of the C-One has some freely programmable lines, some clocks, and the possibility to map periphal chips into the computer's memory without having to be a PCI expert. Be honst, what computer gives this opportunity?
Jens Schönfeld
The C-One website has not been updated since a few weeks. Many changes have been made in the past, especially changes that make the board a lot more versatile.
First there's to mention the SD-Ram socket. The board is not limited to 32 megs of memory, but it can take any 3.3V SD-Ram up to 1GB. Video/multimedia memory is also expandable to up to 128megs with a SIMM module.
We have added a CPU slot. The board is no longer limited to a 65816 at 20Mhz. We can supply all kinds of different CPUs that have been used on all the classic homecomputers.
Of course, the "glue logic" of the thing must be different for every CPU. This is achieved with completely re-configurable logic. As opposed to mainstream computers where each chip has it's dedicated task, the C-One's two main chips have programmable behaviour. That means we can not only clone the C-64, but also a VIC-20, C-16, Atari 2600, Sinclair ZX81, Spectrum, Ohio Scientific Challenger, and we've even looked into the Super Nintendo. The possibilities are infinite. Get us the documentation of your favourite 8-bit machine, and with a little luck, you'll be able to download a core file for the mainboard that turns the C-One into a clone of that computer.
So please - do not see the C-One as a Commodore 64 replica. It's a giant leap in computer technology, having the opportunity to change the behaviour of the hardware on the fly, to adapt it's behaviour to the needs of the application that currnetly runs. This adaption is dynamic, the computer does not have to be restarted. Think of it as loading a sub-program, it's just that loading this sub-program equals installing a new add-on card on the board.
The C-One aims at those who are into computer nostalgia, as well as those who want it for educational purpose. We'll supply all kinds of material for you to start VHDL programming, and instantly try it out on this board. Start modifying the board without soldering, extend the capabilities of your video output, or even switch to a completely different computer on the fly.
This computer is not for the usual point-and-click user. It's going back to the times where each and every bit of the machine was documented, and forward to a new kind of computer technology: Re-configurable hardware.
As for emulators, they're out of the question. Since the hardware is re-configurable, it would have to be emulated at the gate level. To do this in real-time, we calculated that it would take a 24THz (24000 GHz) computer to emulate the smaller FPGA with 30.000 gates in realtime. The bigger of the two chips has 100.000 gates. I think it'll take a few years until the C-One becomes obsolete.
Jens Schönfeld
(individual Computers, we're bringing the C-One to the market)