I am a subscriber to the
8-Bit Guy's YouTube channel, and a big project of his over the last few years has been the Commander X16, a re-imagining of the Commodore 64; more specifically, he has a vision of beginners new to programming be able to program easily because of the 8-bit user interface (See
here for the complete rundown of all things that are happening in the Commander X16 community).
The reason I think this is applicable to Slackware is because of its similarity in purpose to the vice emulator, and because it is relatively unknown to the wider world, I would, as a passionate believer in David's project, like to be a key player in introducing its emulator to the Slackware community.
This came about because back in 2023, David talked about pre-orders, and he urged everybody interested in purchasing the development board (quite a nice and tidy design, if I do say so myself!) to get their pre-orders in soon. At that time, I had done just that; I had even set aside the necessary funds for when the projected release of the Commander X16 would occur, specifically February 29, 2024. However, due to subsequent financial constraints, I had to re-allocate the funds to other bills, and therefore had to cancel my pre-order, much to my chagrin! As a consolation prize to myself, I purchased an inexpensive 11" Thinkpad off eBay for quite a good price (~$70). It has an anemic Intel Atom processor, but it is quite sufficient to run the X16 emulator.
I have taken the liberty of downloading the emulator off the
github website, and creating a SlackBuild for it, using a derivative of the armcord SlackBuild I maintain on SBo.
If anyone is interested in playing around with the X16 emulator, I have the files ready for upload to SBo. Thanks!
NOTE: After thinking about it overnight, I have decided to take the liberty of uploading the files to SBo. If you are so inclined, please try it out and let me know what you think of it. Thanks!
Happy Slacking!
Matt