Have you been following the Commander X-16 saga by David Murray? Or the Commodore-65? These are 2 modern-day reimagined 8-bit computers with modern bells and whistles, with the goal of being more performing than their historical inspirations, while still attempting to capture the age of personal computing discovery that the 80's brought to the masses (still a minority of people in the general population!).

Enter the Foenix 256 ECOSYSTEM, designed by Stefany Allaire, a silicon valley computer architecture engineer who has been working on several machines (some already defunct, some being sold now, some pending) using a slew of processors: WDC65C02, MC68040V, 6809

If you're like TL;DR, then immediately check out this 3-player game demo from one leading programming star Norman Yen, who is showcasing many abilities of the current flagship machine that is buyable now:



I've been following this on and off for a few years before I decided to take the plunge and ordered a unit, set to be shipped to me in a few weeks from now (full disclosure!).
Some dust has settled and the massive effort has coalesced more or less on a few machines for now:

The modern-day 6502 8-bit platforms (think of it as a mutant turbo charged "C64-like" machines)

The Foenix 256 Junior (F256Jr)

is a low-cost, develop-and-play-on-it-NOW single-board computer, bring your own ps/2 keyboard, BYO ATX power supply, connect NES/SNES controllers (optional), FPGA for video, PSG SN76489 for audio, BYO optional dual SID chips as well, IEC for connecting a disk drive or else.

The Foenix 256K (F256K)

is MOSTLY the same, but comes with its case-with-keyboard as was popular with the C64, amiga of Olde Times. 100% compatible with the F256Jr.
The K actually is planned to have more advanced audio options with an OPL3
Substantially more expensive but look at what it looks like (this was my purchase back in December).




there's a 2nd sales run right now from April 15h to end of May. I'm not affiliated with them, I just find the design and general idea of it really neat and I'd rather fiddle away in assembly for this machine rather than a stock C64. The sales are in limited runs and may ramp up or down depending on what's happening. The Jr will keep selling from what I understand.


(both of these machines shown at VCFEast 2023)

On hold:
there are Amiga-like machines with modern 68040 processors that make a bit less sense and/or appeal less to me, some people have the A2560K on hand and are plugging away with them, trying to make content for it. I'm not sure of the exact state of all their efforts, but I definitely know that by mid 2022 up to today, the energy has been concentrating a LOT more on the 256Jr and 256K. Check out the details here if you like:


I've just started to dip my toes into trying out the emulation for the 256Jr but it's still early days and the most accurate, most up to date information is hard to get all in one sitting session.

There's a junior-emulator meant for using superbasic or running compiled asm .hex files that's supposed to target the 256Jr directly, but I haven't had any luck with it so far (more my fault than anything, other people report using it just fine).

There's a C256 Foenix Emulator that targeted an earlier abandoned ancestor ***
****(Technically the C256 lineup isn't abandoned (one could argue that it even will get a new member with the Gen X) and the U is technically still "on hold" because atm the production doesn't make much sense with the current prices for the FPGA used in it.)

to the F256Jr, but that still runs a compatible architecture/software basis. ***
***the F256 lineup is not compatible with the C256. Neither the architecture nor the software. It is possible to rewrite programs so they run on the F256.
The F256 currently features certain vicky features that aren't present in any other product lineup, but also is more limited in other regards

(vicky = graphics capability FPGA chip)

The last commits on github are dated in early 2022, simply because its dev has been busy with life. It has just been forked by someone else just yesterday who had many improvements in mind. I've been able to compile ASM code for it just fine and the memory map window and cpu tracing/monitor capabilities are *CHEFF KISS*





edit - a few corrections from more seasoned veterans of the ecosystem have been marked in Italicized BOLD.

The old but proven emulator

There's the old abandoned-but-still-best emulator targeting the discontinued C256 Foenix FMX (which is put on hold as new platforms rise). It still runs code that's easily portable to the upcoming 6502 based machines that just came out or will come out (F256Jr and F256K).
It's the one I used to make screenshots at the end of the first post of this thread. You find it here and it contains an executable in /releases/ to run it straight away in Windows.

Here's a project it can run as is (File/open executable and find tetris.hex):

Here's another:



hex is a convenient format when you want to test your assembly code in executable format, perfect for this emulator with debugging feature, stepping, peeking at specific memory addresses. It isn't mean as a friendly release format for users on the eventual real machines.

Drawbacks:
-it will get deprecated in time
-it doesn't directly target the "active" F256Jr, F256K and the A2560 machines without a bit of work

The new fork of the emulator:


taken up a few days ago by user HaydenKale, her plans are:

- Clean up .gitignore - Fix crashes when no listing file loaded - Fix build to be warning clean - Fix package dependency on FastColoredTextBox, this was improperly set up - User's choice of SD card gets remembered - (the big one) 'transcript-style' debugger mode, can be toggled between with the normal debugger What I'm doing now: - CPU logging option. basically have the option of logging every executed instruction to a file. I use this in other debuggers a lot Click to expand...

However, it did not come with an executable, so I had to compile it to test it out. Also, a good idea if I want to follow an active project that's being improved upon in the next months.

I find out you need Visual Studio 2019 Community Edition to match what it was made with, so I get its legacy download there, under multiple layers of forceful Microsoft pushy ads for Azure services:


Later down the road, I find that an optional download should have been ticked on as well (UNSURE):



In order to compile a brand new program in assembly, this is a good video to follow, by Daniel Tremblay (seems to be yet another fellow Quebecer! Stefany Allaire is also one! and I'm one!). All of Daniel's project have a nifty asm.bat with the switches already taken care of in those batch files. 64tass has to be installed first to compile and link these .asm files. The following video also explains how to get a good formatted view of these .asm files so that your stuff looks like this:



However, after all these steps, I could not get the newer emulator to compile and run.
I kept getting these errors on resx files (resources)

Severity Code Description Project File Line Suppression State Error Invalid Resx file. Could not load type FastColoredTextBoxNS.ServiceColors, Click to expand...

FastColoredTextBox, Version=2.16.28.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=fb8aa12b994ef61b which is used in the .RESX file. Ensure that the necessary references have been added to your project. Line 137, position 5. FoenixIDE m:\Repos\fnxide\Main\UI\GameGeneratorForm.resx 137 Click to expand...

So, after some discussion + googling + youtubing, I found that some dependencies get linked properly on a developper machine. But if you transport the project (the emulator project) to another, there's an encoded string that becomes invalid for who knows what obscure reason and has to be "repaired". Thing is, Visual Studio *DOES* offer a button for repairing that stuff, but you get *ANOTHER ERROR*. After hours of fiddling with this issue across a couple of days, I found the way to solve it:

Tools/NuGet Package Manager/Pacakage Manager Settings (in the menu of Visual Studio 2019 Community)
Nuget Package Manager section, Package Source

I deleted a malformed 'packagesource' entry and put this one instead:

With Name: nuget.org
Source: https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json

Next, I did a Clean Solution here under Build Menu:


Then was able to build and run the emulator!

What works:
Fraggy works just like it could in the old emulator
Tracker (no sound in the emulator though, it's meant to use the real hardware sound chips) https://github.com/dtremblay/c256-tracker
My own counting up asm code seen above

What doesn't work:
Tetris (however, HaydenKale reports her emulator can run it...)

Here's a great overview/"already unboxed unboxing"/look over/initial boot of the F256K and as a side note, I can't believe how long he talks before he hits a key! The KeyFeel is superb on these machines!

BTW, I got my unit this week and I fired it up for some quick tests. I tried to do something 1 tick cooler than the typical goto 10 basic program everyone does:

• I opened the manual and started going through random sections
• something about LED control memory bytes caught my eye so I made this:

I can absolutely confirm the case is top notch work high above the typical retro project case. Structure wise, texture, solid feel, colors.
Can't wait to end my teaching semester and dig in more into this machine!

more casual fun with basic with: loading a sprite, adjusting its palette, moving it with a joystick, cycling through its frames, restricting its bounds, changing the background color.




I started a github page for these:

F256K just got some attention from none other than Jan Beta, who got a demo system. Here's part 1 of him checking out mostly the hardware, but a bit of basic and kernel functions:

Come watch superbasic generate a fractal LIVE on my #F256K (it might bug!) RIGHT NOW

I recently updated my F256K's fpga to get the latest and greatest, with the hopes to squash a bug I was encountering in superbasic programs and it worked! I documented the process in a video:

New guide from yours truly - how to configure, solder and prep an ESP8266 Feather module to add wifi functionality to the F256K

Perifractic released a video 2 days ago on the F256K, framing its whole situation very well- chicken and the egg syndrome with devs and amount of programs made for it. He loves the machine and wants to increase exposure to it to alleviate the unfair advantage of the Commander X-16

It took me almost 2 years of experience with coding and playing with it, finding the right words, but I finally condensed it into a 15 minute video of why I got a F256K back in 2023.

I also got a F256K2 back in late 2024, but that's a story for another day.