Will emulators be able to compensate retro-hardware thinning?

[Otto]

As a huge senior retro fan I'm happy to see such an highly active CPC scene in 2020 (and other old home-computers). Since a few years the CPC scene even grows, I think? Or at least the number of new software titles increases.

However, over time, hardware tends to break, in particular older hardware like the CPC or other machines. And unfortunately many users can't repair it for themselves. So over time we'll run out of real hardware.

And what will this hardware thinning mean for our CPC scene, including for people willing to program games or other programs for our retro-machines?

Will the CPC scene suffer, or will it be able to compensate it with emulators or little retro-hardware boxes like an ARM SoC running some emulator? (I think there's one for the C64, which looks like a mini C64.)

What is your speculation on this topic? Will emulators be able to make our retro-machines to "live forever" as virtual machines?

-

Personally, for my family and me, our enthusiasm for retro things lives undimmed with emulators since decades, since over time and moving around we unfortunately lost one retro-machine after the other, and therefore I have always some spare "modern" machines like the Raspberry Pi, "armed" with maintained emulators, so family members can run old and new software on the beloved "virtual retro-machine" (emulator) with a mouse-click.

But maybe for other people, when their real retro-hardware dies, they could lose interest?

[Bryce]

Hi Otto,
     I currently repair around 10 computers per week, so I hope I'm doing my bit to counteract the thinning. The Amstrad fans are quite lucky though, the machine is extremely robust and the most common components to fail are the RAM, the AY and the CPU which are all still easy to find. Fans of computers such as the BBC Master or MSX have the problem that the weakest components are custom chips that are now impossible to find. C64 fans also have the problem of finding some rarer chips, but the sheer volume of C64's produced, means that there will still be spares for quite a while (can someone tell that to the people on ebay asking €50 for a SID chip!)

As for the scene itself, I think the scene members will thin out before the machines do. The majority of members are people who grew up with the machine, not many completely new or younger people. Some will move to other hobbies, some just leave the scene and others will leave the planet (R.I.P. Johnim), but once we have passed that peak, it's unlikely that the scene will continue growing.

That's my take on it.

Bryce.

[dragon]

Yeah that's right. For example arnoldemu have disappeared. . It not connect to cpcwiki from March.

[Carnivius]

     I currently repair around 10 computers per week, so I hope I'm doing my bit to counteract the thinning. The Amstrad fans are quite lucky though, the machine is extremely robust.

They really are. Have had my 464 for 35 years and it still works absolutely perfectly. Outlived many of my other machines.

[Otto]

Greetings fellow retro-friends, and thanks for your thoughts.

As for the scene itself, I think the scene members will thin out before the machines do. The majority of members are people who grew up with the machine, not many completely new or younger people

That's an interesting aspect you mention there. When we get older we maybe indeed age "more intensively" than the CPC hardware does.

But why does the number of released CPC software titles increase then? (Also for other well-known retro machines, but in particular on the CPC.)   Why are we, who grew up with the CPC, more willing today to create some CPC title than we were during the last decade(s) ?
Because of the Spaniards and their CPC university with its Cpctelera? ;-)

The more I learned the modern hardware and software with their over-complexity during the last decades, the more I started to appreciate the relatively simplicity of the old retro machines where we started. From friends the same age I hear similar thoughts. So today we dream more than ever to program a little CPC game in the near future.

Yes, let's hope everbody of us can do his bit to counteract the thinning of hardware and software-titles/people.
 

[norecess464]

No worries. According to Wikipedia, Amstrad sold 3 million units. I believe you will always be able to find the real machine. But yes, prices will get crazy. Eventually, the bare minimum for an Amstrad CPC will cost 1000 euros in 10 or 20 years.

Keyboards (faulty RAMs, etc) can be easily repaired nowadays (it's only a matter of knowing the right persons, thank you guys !!). Disc drives will be ok (belt replacement) but working 3" discs will be a real challenge to find, but nowadays most of people are using a Gotek as external drive anyway. In the long term, CTM monitors will be problematic and people will probably have to use some more modern replacement.

There are some initiative to replace parts of CPC (the X-MEM can be used to override the original 64Kb hardwired in a CPC, the Gotek..).

On my side, I use emulators all the time, then turn on the real machines only for development testing or for a good unique experience (cf. enjoy my 20 minutes playing a good game, etc.).
That's why it's so critical to get an open emulator that become the standard for the community, for years. Amiga has WinUAE, C64 has VICE, but we (the Amstrad community) have too many emulators right now, all being problematic at some point (deprecated OS dependencies, poor UI, no cross-platform, missing development tools, incomplete emulation accuracy, you named it).

But why does the number of released CPC software titles increase then?

I think you are focusing on the wrong heuristic. Don't look at numbers, look at quality instead.

[reidrac]

On my side, I use emulators all the time, then turn on the real machines only for development testing or for a good unique experience (cf. enjoy my 20 minutes playing a good game, etc.).
That's why it's so critical to get an open emulator that become the standard for the community, for years. Amiga has WinUAE, C64 has VICE, but we (the Amstrad community) have too many emulators right now, all being problematic at some point (deprecated OS dependencies, poor UI, no cross-platform, missing development tools, incomplete emulation accuracy, you named it).
I think you are focusing on the wrong heuristic. Don't look at numbers, look at quality instead.

That's interesting. Perhaps a few years ago this was true (and I made few games in Linux using WINE with CPC emulators for Windows), but now we have Retro Virtual Machine 2 that fully supports Windows, Linux and Mac. IMHO we finally got there thanks to RVM2.

I still have a working 464 that I use every now and then to play few games (and test my own, of course!), but I think emulators are essential. I know people on Twitter that have tried my games without zero experience using a CPC, and for those cases it has to be an emulator. Sure, more hardcore retro fans will buy the real hardware (I know some people in the USA that have a CPC and they blame me and my games!), but it's going to get harder and harder.

Regarding the original post; I have to agree with Bryce; the machines may have some life yet, but it'll be the community what goes dry first. We had a few good years recently with high quality new games, but it is hard to tell how long will it last. I think some people will move on, and we may not have new people contributing time.

Anyway, my two cents. I'm still here, for now

[norecess464]

but now we have Retro Virtual Machine 2 that fully supports Windows, Linux and Mac.

I love using RVM for quick testing DSKs, the UI is handy and practical for this.
Unfortunately, as a developer it lacks advanced development tools (WinAPE still have the best workflow for this); plus, it's not open-source, which does not guarantee you will still get updates in 5,10, 20 years.

[reidrac]

I love using RVM for quick testing DSKs, the UI is handy and practical for this.
Unfortunately, as a developer it lacks advanced development tools (WinAPE still have the best workflow for this).

Yes, but as I understood your original comment, that's a different thing. I still fire WineAPE with WINE every now and then, but we are special, isn't it?

For the regular folk, RVM2 is perfect and helps to expand the CPC user base a little bit. As I see it, it is "the CPC emulator" to recommend.

RE: OSS; I agree 100%. But then, we don't have anything similar. CLK isn't bad, but no dev support at all. So yep, RVM2 is not as good as VICE or openMSX, I agree on that.

[norecess464]

I still fire WineAPE with WINE every now and then, but we are special, isn't it?

I believe we are different users for sure, but that does not mean we should be assigned to a second class.
We need more native, mature emulators on Linux / MacOS.
Look at MacOS Catalina, the OS does not allow 32-bit applications anymore (which means, no WinAPE under WINE on that OS). Those days there are rumors about ARM-based Macs in the future, most emulators will require to get recompiled there.. etc.
I personally use WinAPE for development, but the WINE requirement is a hard sell for me. It forces me to pollute my clean Debian install with 400Mb of packages required for it. Plus, I would prefer a native UI (but it's a detail).

[Otto]

On my side, That's why it's so critical to get an open emulator that become the standard for the community, for years. Amiga has WinUAE, C64 has VICE, but we (the Amstrad community) have too many emulators right now, all being problematic at some point (deprecated OS dependencies, poor UI, no cross-platform, missing development tools, incomplete emulation accuracy, you named it).

Yes, a decent open-source CPC emulator for all platforms would be important, indeed.

Since all my computers run Linux, I like the open-source MAME a lot, which since several versions emulates basically all CPC titles I tested. But its not so much for retro developers I guess. (Albeit with MAME's "-autoboot_command" parameter it should be possible to integrate it into, for example, a Cpctelera workflow which after compiling produces a .dsk image file which you can start MAME with?)

Recently I noticed on Steam a new commercial game for the Megadrive console. IIRC it comes as a hardware module/cardridge, but for those not owning the console it comes as software bundle, too, consisting of an emulator and a cardridge image file,  so that people without a console can still buy and play the game on a modern PC. Thanks to emulators. I think this is a very nice idea for retro stuff to reach many people from both camps, the retro-hardware and the emulator camp.

(I don't know which emulator it was, but there are some decent open-source platform-neutral Megadrive emulators anyway, like Mednafen.)

[reidrac]

You can integrate with most emulators using the CLI (WinAPE, CPCEC with WINE, RVM2 and CLK Linux native).

I don't think I would ever bundle one of my games with an emulator, but if I was doing that, I think I would use CLK. CPCTelera has some support for Android I think with RVM2.

May be CLK needs dev support; may be not.

CLK here: https://github.com/TomHarte/CLK

[Bryce]

But why does the number of released CPC software titles increase then? (Also for other well-known retro machines, but in particular on the CPC.)   Why are we, who grew up with the CPC, more willing today to create some CPC title than we were during the last decade(s) ?
Because of the Spaniards and their CPC university with its Cpctelera? ;-)

Look at the age of the average game writer: Kids have grown up or don't need as much attention. More time for hobbies. More nostalgic? There are many factors outside just the "person with retro computer".

Bryce.

[villain]

Look at the age of the average game writer: Kids have grown up or don't need as much attention. More time for hobbies. More nostalgic? There are many factors outside just the "person with retro computer".

Bryce.

Only a few years until the first oldschool-sceners can retire from their jobs... ;-) Maybe this will be the beginning of the last wave...

[tjohnson]

I don't think hardware supply will ever be an issue, as Brcye says the machine seems well made a robust, I think the "scene" has 30-40 years max left until anyone who lived it dies then it's probably gone forever.  I also don't think price will rise much more as we could already be near peak of interest and is more likely to decline than grow as the original people get bored and move out for good.

[arkive]

The original machines will eventually die out, it's the law of entropy, but I think it will be a very long time before it happens. Eventually new wave of cheap 3D printing/chip making will be also possible so I'm pretty sure fully 1:1 clones will appear too.

In the meantime you have numerous FPGA solutions available, apart from emulation. They are getting more and more popular, MiSTer project leading the way here, so hopefully the CPC  cores will receive more care and attention and we will see more replica projects based on these FPGAs.

As for the scene itself I'm not as pessimistic as others, I believe that as long as the information is preserved and popularised there will always be some youngblood enthusiasts willing to pick up the mantle. There is already a new generation of kids, who never had the original hardware, using and coding for the old 8-bit systems.

Even far into the future, I belive people will always look into the dawn of computing and videogaming, where the originators such as CPC & co have the advantage of being the first, and also easier to understand, than the latter machines.

[Sykobee (Briggsy)]

What would be nice for the FPGA boards is to have a nice CPC styled keyboard to go with them, with the correct layout.


Something like [size=78%]

from r/MechanicalKeyboards

https://www.reddit.com/r/MechanicalKeyboards/comments/aqfxva/cpc_464_style/[/size] but without the unneeded keys, and with the correct font styling on the keys themselves, and layout changes (punctuation). And not an expensive Das Keyboard underneath it either!


Although I guess most people would be running multiple different cores on the FPGA board, and they all have slightly different layouts, so maybe just a CPC specific one for us is good