The Commander X16 Is a Brand-New Computer Built From 1980s Technology

The Commander X16 is a microATX computer developed over the last few years and modeled on the 8-bit computers of the 1980s, specifically the Commodore 16. This computer is manufactured of all-new parts but runs on a version of the 6502 microprocessor that powered so many of the 8-bit devices of the eighties, from the Nintendo Entertainment System to the Atari 800 and many more in between.
The CommanderX16 is the "dream" computer of "The 8-bit Guy" David Murray, a KZbinr, game designer, and arcade owner. Murray's love of vintage computer hardware led him to develop a modern computer with the same functionality as those classic beige boxes of yore.
With no formal training in computer science or engineering, Murray created the CommanderX16 with the help of a passionate community of like-minded vintage computing enthusiasts. The result is a throwback experience that brings users closer to the code than you can possibly get on today's modern and infinitely more complex systems.

[@djstyles97]

After all these years it's great to see The 8-Bit Guy finally get more mainstream recognition.

[@vivastar2231]

oh yea its great, been watching him for a few years now :).. was interested in his restoration videos at first, but now anything goes :)

[@GimmeTOKYO]

Right? Been loving his videos for 7 or 8 years now and it’s just been amazing seeing the recognition that he deserves.

[@claytonjones6127]

If you don't know "the 8 bit guy" channel, you are really missing out! this guy has such a deep and interesting base of knowledge. Basically - interesting and smart people are interesting! thanks for spotlighting 8 bit guy - its a great resource to learn more about computers, software, game design, retro tech, history, restoration, video games etc.

[@jonathanarras1281]

8 bit guy is the real OG, so cool to see this

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

This computer has been many years in the making. The end goal, not mentioned, is to get the price down to as little as possible, perhaps even less than $100 eventually. But these first few iterations will be around $400 or so. One thing that was really cool about those old 8 bit computers like the VIC-20 and C64 (and Atari 400/800/etc) were that they came with a spiral-bound user manual that showed you how to program in BASIC so you could start making your own games right away. Many legendary programmers got their feet wet doing just that.

[@endwigast5212]

Less than $100? Yeah, won't happen... not even close.

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

@@endwigast5212 In large enough volume and with custom ASICs, possibly. Certainly less than $200 is possible. After all, the mini systems that were released over the last several years were around $100. The X16 could probably be software emulated on a very low cost ARM processor (less than $10 in volume).

[@endwigast5212]

@@JustWasted3HoursHere Why are you talking volume when you know full well this is a very niche retrocomputing item catering to a very small market? And why compare to mini devices when the X16 is not trying to be a SoC machine? Wanna talk emulation, eh? OK, the X16 can be emulated on your existing PC for no extra cost except the price of electricity, so it certainly beats the $100 cost you projected - congrats.

[@jsmythib]

@@endwigast5212 Not sure what currency they are pricing in, but $400 will be the new $100 before ya know it.

[@LordXsi]

Programming was anything but “basic” in those times. You had to actually know the hardware and really understand a lot of algorithms to get anywhere serious. And there were very few (if any) prebuilt libraries. And no stackoverflow or anything like that. Real programming was an art back then.

[@doltBmB]

no, that stuff is simple, it's having 100 million lines of code on top that nobody can understand that makes it hard

[@c0d3warrior]

Blindly typing in a listing from a print magazine was a thing back then, too. Understanding what that listing did was an entirely different thing however.

[@calledout4437]

Atari 800 here. It was magical haha. Nostalgia from those days.

[@johntilghman]

Wish you could still find them

[@TalynWuff]

Proud of David getting mainstream eyeballs.

[@DavidGalich77]

What a throwback to the day.

[@Elibbb-sx3kg]

But can it run crysis ?

[@batterypwrlow]

I'd be surprised if it could run Doom

[@Jos3phIVIasucci]

Some men just wanna watch the world burn.

[@TheLastLineLive]

It would be great if they could convince Crytek to make a Commodore 64 version of Crysis (probably a top down run and gun shooter like Commando would be appropriate) so they could say yes, it runs Crysis!

[@uziel900able]

😂😂😂 that's rich!​@@TheLastLineLive

[@mikeuk666]

​@batterypwrlow there are toothbrushes that can run doom

[@TheRafaelRamos]

THE 8-BIT GUY MENTIONED, LET'S GOOOOO

[@mrsupertash]

If you say dream computer I'm thinking about the one in Weird Science.

[@endwigast5212]

You've got no pickup skills?

[@greatwhiteretro]

The Commodore 16 wasn't the inspiration, rather the VIC 20 was. The C16 and its TED counterparts took a very different direction.

[@benbreeck3363]

For follows up, you should next profile the C256 Foenix series by Stefanie Allaire and the MEGA65.

[@gabor222]

Yeah, both has beautiful and more retro design and the Mega has the C64 compatibility too.

[@cucho69]

¡David es un genio!, me gustaría poder comprarla en Argentina

[@mikeuk666]

Congratulations to the 8bit Guy & the team 🕹 👍

[@DougDingus]

Thanks IGN. This project deserves a little mainstream recognition and it's great to see.

[@eduardoADSL]

Congratulations David, nice to see you here.

[@TheMitoSan]

It's awesome to see David on IGN. Amazing! 💜

[@trippg3261]

Just FYI folks, learning to program on this, or learning how this relatively simple CPU works will actually let you understand a lot about the current hardware. In my opinion more people learning to code on this will be the breakthrough needed for the US to excel in hardware design.

[@RaymondHulha]

Thank you for this great video! ❤

[@_yatte]

The parallels with synthesizers and music studio/mixing gear 😂 you have no idea yall 😅

[@sherekhangamedev]

One of the magnum opus from 8-bit guy. A really solid "what if" system.

[@markododa]

What is the game at the beginning of the video, Shadow something?

[@mrelba9176]

WAIT...This was an unexpected feature. Go The 8-Bit Guy!

[@Tarodenaro]

Can you guys please pass this to the IGN France: "Back then, in the 80's, you can connect up two IDE devices, with either "primary" or "slave" in one ribbon connectors"

[@jc33353]

Love to see this. It can be really fun trying to figure out how far you can take a system with intentionally limited capabilities like this one. Plus it has those big chonky chips!

[@Khaostheory1980]

2:49 was not actually screwing any screws...

[@sn0n]

^ this

So Great to see the 8 bit guy in IGN.

[@neuralwarp]

A desktop VAX cluster please.

[@jengelenm]

Great video guys, alongside David’s supergreat project, there’s also Stefany Allaire’s Phoenix Systems 16bit retro computers. Surely deserves a spotlight as well !!! Cheers

[@johnmckown1267]

Ah, my TRS-80 model 1 with 56K and an 80 track single sided 5.25 inch floppy powered by a Z-80 processor.

[@edminchau811]

You had 80 tracks? Luxury!

[@DarkZenith]

pretty sure the wood grain veneer reached its height in the 70s. 80s people started wanting to go black/silver/etc

[@DaftRebel]

the 8 bit guy is the best!

[@mkolt]

Computer deisgned by a guy, who famously burned an IBM prototype by shorting the powersupply with a paperclip? Irony.

[@BlackGymkhana]

...and cutting security screws with a dremel...

[@stuartleckie]

Seth the right guy to bring this to the IGN audience! Awesome.

[@scottiepal3029]

How to purchase it. How much? For a complete system

[@Bobbias]

Currently they're selling the developer edition, which is about 400 USD. They hope to reduce prices over time, as the intended price is 100 USD, but the price of electronics has overseen a fair bit since the project began development making that price point quite difficult to hit.

[@AnnatarTheMaia]

1970's technology had wood veneer; in the 1980's plastic was the new cool.

[@HumanityAsCode]

Is this thing really $350?

[@fenrirwolfy1848]

Yes and no. David is working on ways to make other X16 boards that are cheaper. You can expect smaller boards for $100, but if you want something more sophisticated and high quality, you can buy a bigger board for a bigger price.

[@alexbedel6320]

Can it run dwarf fortress

[@SpaceGringos3D]

8-Bit guy!!!!!!!

[@toplist4944]

nice...

[@kingshadow8782]

Nice.

[@AS-oz6ep]

For what it is.. the price is much too high for me to consider buying one at this time.

[@the_otamatone]

They hope to reduce the price, and there is a clone called the otter, which is about half the price right now

[@throwaway6478]

@@the_otamatone They throw a fair bit away to hit that price point though. 512KB RAM instead of 2MB, a single expansion slot instead of four, and several of the chips aren't genuine parts - they're emulations based on modern microcontrollers/FPGAs, which would upset some of the target demographic for a machine like the X16. Having said that, from what I've seen, the Otter is pretty close to what 8-Bit Guy envisages for the "cost reduced" second version of the X16, plus he wants to go surface-mount to reduce cost even more.

[@EvelynRamos2]

Interesting

[@TGAProMKM]

wow!!

[@COMATRON.]

dope! MiSTer core would be even more dope

[@awedelen1]

Nice

[@ignaciosalia1952]

I'm not crying you are crying

[@valentinoesposito3614]

8 bit guy

[@hi2chan]

My dream PC is a Mac Pro

[@toma01001]

Keep dreaming

[@juniorxranger]

My mind is blown right now. IGN!!

[@jazzlover10000]

The Commander X16 made so many of us very very sad. This project could have been really great but because of the stubbornness and the way it rolled out, it's only interesting to a very small group of people. Needs a modular design with the backplane on a daughterboard so that it can be small and forged into a laptop with a display. Think Model 100 / NEC PC8201a if ANYONE had listened this could be selling a million. A real lost opportunity it's just sad, really. Also needs to be open-source instead of this ridiculous cagey "we mock you with our non-openness" kind of bzi.

[@darksword1]

You do it then. They are not obligated to make your dream computer

[@Adam-jw3uz]

I'm already a longtime fan of 8BG and his work, I'm just here to read the normie reactions to the video and laugh at the ignoramuses.

[@claudioexplica]

The 8-bit guy boss

[@johnhunt1725]

But, WHY?!?

[@retrotechnerd]

The X16 is way overpriced and has virtually no game development being done for it making it essentially an expensive paperweight.

[@fenrirwolfy1848]

Have you even watched the update videos on the X16? It's still in infancy, they're still trying to find game developers and ways to bring the price down. You can't hate on something that's not even close to being done.

[@The10021k-guy]

At VCFMW he was demoing the system and it's amazing 🤩

[@mrsupertash]

A vibrant facebook (!!1!1!1??9) community? first of all this makes no sense, second of all, it clearly says 11 members. why lie about his?

[@MS-eb8cf]

Yeah but.. why though?

[@novh4ck]

Why not? It's fun.

[@mikeuk666]

If you have to ask you will never understand 😂

[@Wythaneye]

Because there is a huge community of enthusiasts who want such a thing to exist.

[@bbuggediffy]

Uhhh its been ready for a year already

[@moe47988]

Did you just say that one SSD has to be dedicated to games? People still do this crap? Why?

[@Iamallwaysright1]

Cool concept but idk how useful it is. Can't this just be emulated?

[@batterypwrlow]

​@DanteS-119correct. Some games heavily depended on the cpu clock speed for the game speed. Goof example is if you get the OG Xbox and did an overclock on the cpu, some games will go faster like the speed of characters, npcs, attacks, ect. Can cause game breaking glitches sometimes too. It's kind of interesting.

[@jc33353]

There is already an emulator, which is how X16 games can be played on Steam. This is all discussed in the video.

[@gormondprecursor3525]

@DanteS-119 Even on something like a MiSTer?

[@novh4ck]

It's like asking why somebody would want a simple car build like in the old times when they can buy a Tesla. Some people just want to drive cars from the 60's because it's fun.

[@mikeuk666]

Clueless

[@crescentmoon256]

somepeople will stay in the past forever

[@TheSulross]

Teenagers (and even younger) can master the assembly language of the 6502 CPU and learn to write games for a computer such as the Commander X16. Look at game development for modern hardware - no place for the single individual - producing modern games is more akin to producing films. The coolness factor here is that its entirely possible to get in there and learn to program the video and the sound hardware and do nifty things. David's games (The 8-Bit Guy) are proof of what can be done.

[@tical2399]

8 bit guy gets an auto thumbs down on the vid for me.

[@youtub-fj8mu]

why

[@Andrew_Thrift]

Some people love drama

[@BlackGymkhana]

Putting a modern board into a modern case is not a "retro experience".