Transfering Commodore 128 Core

[rhester72]

OK - ran LCP from move-in onwards for close to an hour without issue, exercising all the commands and games.

Not going to bother testing any of the others on the list...I think you can sense a trend here. LOL

[rhester72]

There are systems FAR more obscure and unknown that have their own core, so why we should "ditch" a fairly popular and interesting system like the C128 with unique features like a more advanced Basic, a 2nd Z80 for CP/M, a dual display with 80 columns mode, JUST because back in the day most users just play C64 games ?

You hit the nail on the head.

It feels like 1986 to me all over again, with misinformation spreading and ignorance abound regarding the greatest 8-bit of all time. It failed then because of that, not technology, and it seems not much has changed in the intervening years.

Don't believe what you read. You literally have the opportunity to see and experience it for yourself, which is rather the point. And if it doesn't interest you at all, that's fine too - but leave it to those of who it does, thank you very much.

[dmckean]

There is one think i don't really like and i'm not sure what to do: Now we have C64 and C128 cores where later one is basically absorbed the whole C64.
While C64 is iconic computer, C128 is niche one. So giving up C64 core into favour of C128 is wrong by all means. It would be better to have/continue C64 core with extra C128 functionality.

Please keep both C64 and C128 cores, on real machines, C128 is not really 100% compatible with C64 games because presence of MMU and other things so i think it would better to have 2 different cores.

Minor differences between the two systems can be implemented in the core if they exist.

[rhester72]

I actually agree with not having two cores, only because of the dual-maintenance problem (and the likelihood that at least one of them will slowly decay into being completely unmaintained over time, as has been the case so many times before).

It's FPGA. There's literally nothing preventing the 'incompatible' changes for the C128 functionality being selectively disabled at startup if a "pure" C64 core is desired...except it hasn't been done yet. I'm therefore having a great deal of trouble understanding the consternation. More effort has been expended in this thread, I suspect, than it would take to just address the technical concern.

[Xbytez]

I have cleaned this thread up somewhat, a number of posts have been deleted as verbal abuse towards other forum users is not acceptable behaviour. On topic discussion please. Thanks.

[TheGMan143]

I'm new to the MiSTer stuff, but fairly old to the PC world - I date back to the late 70s/early 80s using a "home computer". Far as the discussion at hand - it would seem to me that memory is cheap anymore - what's the big deal if there is one more folder on the SD card marked C128, right next to the one that's marked "C64"? If the 128 core can be maintained as a completely separate entity - whether built on the foundation of another core or not - why shouldn't it be? I had both a C64 and a C128D at the same time... and because of that, I rarely if ever typed "GO64"... I simply turned my chair to the other machine.

Here, I don't see much about that keeping both (esp. since it's two different devs) virtually "turning your chair" by loading the 64 core or loading the 128 core is anything more than a matter of preference. Each core runs in it's own sandbox when loaded, so it's not like one is somehow going to "contaminate" the other just because they exist. HEck - even if a core is released and it's buggy, that's the beauty of open source - someone else can hop in and try to make it better - they may not succeed, and maybe they will. The same thing goes on internally at every hardware and software manufacturer... just that usually no one sees it behind closed doors until it's "ready" for release and beta testing.

So the long and short of it, I agree - the 64 and the 128 were separate, distinct machines... so in the vein of 'preservation' - if there can be 2 distinct, separate cores, why shouldn't there be? I see a lot of "arcade" cores on there... and having a bit of experience maintaining arcade equipment - there were quite a few of those that didn't differ all that much either - but there's a separate core for each.