Hacker News Reader

Comment by jagger27 | Hacker News Reader

The keyboard assembly is really cool and I personally appreciate the effort, but I bet all that custom plastic really adds onto the price. Custom double shot keycaps are not cheap. I wonder if there could be a much cheaper option with a simpler case and a PS/2 keyboard adapter instead. Perhaps even USB could work, but that feels wrong for this project.

View on HN

But it's part and parcel to the experience, right? It's a tactile thing.

It's a stand alone, one piece computer, like the old days.

I mean, you don't restore a Chevy Bel-Air and put bucket seats in the front, right?

Even down to the floppy. You get to thumb through the floppy case to find a copy of "Burgertime", shove it in the slot, plug in your joystick, hear the "whirr tick tick tick" of the floppy, and then MUSIC! CRESCENDO! ATTRACT MODE! AWAY WE GO! In all it's one channel, 8 bit splendor.

Pretty sure the market isn't folks looking for a bare board with cables strewn about. There is a lot of effort out there, and many folks, trying to replicate this "retro" experience. And others willing to support it.

Otherwise, yea, run a simulator on...well, anything. "Whee".

It's not my cup of tea, mind, but I'm not the one buying it either.

Well, where do you draw the line? Eventually you arrive at just running an emulator without bothering with hardware at all.

I would draw the line at €200. A lot of people can justify €200 for nostalgia. If you can run the old software and the hardware has the right look and feel, people won't mind the details too much. Far fewer people can justify nearly €800.

And there are lots of options that already fall into that bucket. If you want a beautifully designed, professional product with a mechanical keyboard, then nope. The case moulds alone cost a fortune (and years) to produce. This project has been going on for at least 6 years, and it's only a couple of months away from putting these computers in (some) people's homes.

But don't worry. The C65 core is already being ported to MiSTer from what I've heard. So a small metal box with a USB keyboard experience isn't far away for many others to enjoy.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com