The ‘pregnant pause’ on the Agon is surely just the monitor synching to the changed screen mode. Changing to mode 2 before running the software (or adding a ‘press a key to start’ routine after the mode change, to give the monitor time to catch up) would be a better approach.

​@The Retro Desk just downloaded your code, assembled it and ran on my agon. Before running it, I changed the video to mode 2 on the command line (VDU 22 2 command) so my lcd would properly sync. After that, ran the assembly code. Took 0.68s according on my timer app and fat fingers :) Please repeat the test by setting vdu to mode 2 prior to running the code so we can get more accurate results.

The EZ80 is actually available in a 50Mhz package, Since the EZ80 executes instructions 3X faster than a stock Z80 this would effectively give us a machine that runs like a 150Mhz Z80. The Agon Light's EZ80 is clocked at about 18Mhz so there's room for improvement.

Didn't realize how fast the CPC and BBC basic really were though Assembly tells a much better story - but then again we didn't get them here in the states. X16 is cool, but part of the charm of the 80's systems were their unique form factors - putting it in a generic PC case just kinda dumbs it down for me in some way. Probably the coolest thing about the Spectrum next is the fresh 80's style industrial design which could have come from that time. X16 needs a smaller board and its own unique case; Amazing effort by David to create your own computer. I can't even imagine what all that took to achieve.

When I first read about the serial link, I considered it to be an odd implementation choice but even without the eZ80 datasheet it was pretty obvious why it was chosen. The ESP32 can turn (virtually) any of its GPIOs into a serial link. So I expected that the eZ80 had a similar feature built into it. Sure enough it does. This simplifies the glue logic between the two units without using a CPLD or FPGA. Thinking about rebuilding this. You could probably use a 65816 and the ESP32 to create a system which communicates via low latency DMA.

Thank you for this wonderful video. It was enjoyable and pleasurable.

Excellent - and fair - comparison. It would be very easy to cheat by focusing on the relative strengths of the machine, but this explains well how the two machines differ.

Vector art makes more sense in 8-bit, because bitmaps are basically bit-banged photos. Vector art can morph and really use the calculating power of the system to create a living art. To have an eZ80 to play with that can do things with vector graphics sounds exciting to me!

An old 2GB micro SD card with RISC-OS installed on it is my ideal retro computer experience. Stick it into a Raspberry-Pi (of any flavour, from Pi Zero up) and you are at a MOS prompt in a couple of seconds. There's BBC BASIC V, with the ability to embed ARM, or via emulation 6502 assembler in that BASIC, network support, SVGA graphics, 8 channel FM sound, ... , just like it was in 1987, when the first Acorn Archimedes launched, along with access to the GPIO pins. Can even emulate the other 8-bit machines of the 1980s. Then when board simply switch the SDcard to some post 1995 ARM Linux distribution, and you have a vanilla Pi.

Really enjoyed watching that thanks for sharing great video interesting

Not sure why there's all this focus on performance. I mean, I get that that's the purpose of this particular video but who's looking to an 8-bit machine for the purpose of maximum performance? I would think, realistically, that's *way* down on the list of priorities. For non-programmers, you're looking for a wide variety of software. For programmers, you're looking for a system that's fun to program for (which is subjective, but usually entails a good instruction set, a good number of registers, a video chip that is powerful and can maybe be hacked to do crazy unintended things, and a sound chip that's also powerful and hackable. And a system that is memory-constrained just enough to present you some challenges to get your game to fit.) I think I can say (with some confidence) that judging systems by the ones that are "fun to program" by the definition I listed above, X16 and Agon would land somewhere near the bottom (for different reasons.)

You have not experienced the true thru-hole experience until you have tried to squeeze a whole bunch of them onto a size limited 2-layer PCB. 40-pin dips are _huge_ Oh the joy :)- Cheers,

Does'nt the inbuilt Z80 assembler of BBC basic work on the Agon ?

Would you please add in the Foenix F256jr to the 8bit battle as well?

Great video! The Agon is of course far ahead in Basic Speed...:)

Is there a Compiler for Basic?

The Agon Firmware is constantly being improved, it will be interesting to see what happens with the graphics over time.

Well done for doing this. There is a bit of needle for some between the X16 and the Agon (which I own!), so prepare for some tetchy comments! :D

Great video! However, isn't the ez80 specced to run at 50 MHz? Both systems have their use case, but I prefer the choise of 65C02 as being a static processor. Much better suited for learning microprocessors since it's easy to single step

That's pretty interesting! I picked up an Agon Light 2 recently when I was already placing an order for some electronic parts, but I still need to find time to really learn how to use it properly. Judging by the games that have been made for the X16 so far (and the quality thereof), I'd sure like to get one of those, too, although my budget tells me "NO" for the time being. They may be aimed roughly at the same community of retro enthusiasts, but they are definitely each their own, distinct machine!

How do you think they'd compare to a 32-bit RP2040 running at 150 MHz running an Arm version of BASIC? I have the Neotron Pico board, I just need to finish porting BASIC.

Reason for your "Pregnant pause is the mode change". In the basic version, delete line 10 and run it as follows (not shouting - just had caps on for the commands lol) MODE 2 - WAIT FOR IT TO CHANGE TO MODE 2 AND THE MONITOR RESYNC CLS:RUN - NO PAUSES IT RUNS STRAIGHT OFF

Did I miss the reason for the startup pause on the Agon?

Can't do pixel resolution for the mandelbrot set ?

so honest question, what is it that makes the CX16 "a dream computer" compared to other 8bit peojects? the only thing that really seems to make any difference is that one is 350$+ and requires you to supply your own original sound chip? Besides that though, it looks like both pretty much do the same thing with the same outcomes?

Just use the plot command for setting a pixel, thats a few chars on the serial line and probably with SPI so no wait

Why isn't it clokked at 50mhz? Why isn't there 16mb of fast dualported video ram as well as 16mb of ram?

Before watching: Why are you comparing apples and oranges? After watching the video: Great video! I wonder what the leaderboard would be if normalised per MHz.

The agon is neat in that it's in stock and you can actually buy the thing but the x16 has a whole emulator running on the web so you can play around without having to buy or download anything.

I really wish I could go to the store and buy one of these like back in the 80's.

32:28: 16×16=256, not 64. Or I got something wrong? 4 bytes is 32 bits. What is the connection between these numbers in context of pixels?

Saying the 8Mhz 65c02 in the commander x16 was "unimageable" back in the day isn't quite right. The PC Engine used a 7Mhz 65c02, so the chip - and speed were around, just never used in a home machine.

I think the Agon Light looks like a pretty cool machine and it is relatively inexpensive and available right now - though it is a shame about what you mentioned regarding tile and sprite maps seems to be a bit hamstrung.. I was also considering the Feonix 256k or 256jr but cant really justify the cost. The basic on the feonix might be better than the Agon? But again pinch of salt stuff as i don't have that machine. Im also looking forward to the RM800XL when that gets released, I might buy that or the feonix 256k. I don't really have any interest in the X16 is just maybe too expensive at this point. I wish them well of course with that machine. Retro community seems to be very tribal

My understanding is the video display processor is a ESP32-PICO-D4 - which you could program independently. What you could do is do all the "bitblt" operations on the ESP32-PICO-D4, and use the EZ80 to send "protocol" to the ESP32-PICO-D4. Which would give you some very fast processing. For example, writing a "Mario" type program, you could do the "screen scrolling" logic on the ESP32-PICO-D4, and the EZ80 would merely send a "scroll left" command to the ESP32-PICO-D4. In a full-on, head-to-head battle, I have no doubt the Agon Light will outperform the X16 in just about any test.

Please cover the Uzebox. The Uzebox has a PS2 keyboard adapter which you can use run CP/M and UzeboxUI. Uze ported your mandelbrot program to the Uzebox and it is faster than the Agon Light, even whilst its using its MCU to provide graphics. When graphics are disabled, it computes it in a fraction of the time of the Agon light so it seems to be fastest 8 bit platform. Unlike the Agon, it also has decent sound - better than a beeper anyway.

A neat comparison would be BBC BASIC vs. MICRO$OFT BASIC, such as the AGON 2 and TRS80 Level 2...

BBC BASIC can take assembler as you would type it in and it would run for passes to build the program something like... 10 PRINT "THIS IS BASIC" 15 DIM GAP% 20 16 P%=GAP% 20 [ 30 JSR &FFE7 40 ] 50 PRINT "AND THIS IS BASIC TOO"

I wonder if spending just a little more and maybe replacing the ESP32 with something like the FT800 embedded display, audio (and touch) graphics controller IC would be a better fit? ::shrug::

It's a pain to find out the Agon doesn't have direct access to videoram, if one wanted to do fast update of pixels for bitmap demoscene effects. I come from the CPC where you could optimize some classic pixel effects like rotozoomer or plasma and still have them running ok on some 64x64 pixel buffer, so my hope was since ez80 is much faster, I could port things for bigger screen sizes, that would be fun. I quickly realize when I tried coding on Agon, that everything has to go through the VDP. There is a function to copy bitmap, I tried with 32x32 or 64x64, haha. It's barely 2 fps. But then I should look further, there might be a lot of other tricks with buffers I read about, however I can mimic certain demoscene effects with the text/sprite/vector drawing I believe. It's more of a challenge now, make something good that moves. Maybe I can just do lowres buffer too with simply chars, hehe.. but there are some docs on attaching buffers, however not obvious what to do with them. And possibly still a pain.

A good video, but Spectrum Next Assembly needs to not be 'hidden' in your figures.

Yes, the 65C02 and 65C816 can go to the 20s in speed, but yes, they are rated at 14 MHz.

Let's ignore the question of meaning. The problem is that there was a rumor about the The design of the X16 is a real machine that could have been built in 1986. The argon uses two highly integrated chips, which of course makes things cheaper. It would definitely be even cheaper if you ported the basic directly to the ESP32. With the ESP-VGA bibliotek you could build a computer that would cost about 10 USD. The X16 simply disappointed too many who were hoping for an acceptable price.

Personally i would buy both if i had the money. I think David gets too much hate. He did say on his last video that his team are trying to get the cost down in future versions. Bernard is a 8 bit wizard. The Agon is amazing. He's a professional computer design engineer whereas Davids team are enthusiasts who wanted to create their dream 8 bit computer. It does feel a little like the playground wars with the C64 and the Speccy back in the day. Hey nerds will be nerds.

Cool! I came from FB.

Would it have been better to have written in the Z80A rebuild of BBC BASIC.

New Agon8 out

X16 Commander for the win.

Ok, so I'm not sure the 1.5s is accurate because most of the time is for switching the video mode on your LCD. You should repeat that test by first changing the screen to the mode you are using on your basic program and only then run it.

Fantastic video Matt! Just keep in mind that the Agon is switching video mode in the beginning. In a truly fair comparison that would be left out. But it's so much faster anyway, it may be immaterial to make such a correction...

In the 2023 update video David is talking about how the X16 might be used in competitive gaming. What the heck was he talking about? I've heard no more about it since that video. He talks about it at 25:50 in the Commander X16 2023 update video. He says the game cartridge will have a TPM and an encrypted serial number that is unique to that cartridge. He says there will be a network interface and you can compete for bounties and other things to win if you had the high score. It sounds batshat insane! lol. First it was to be used in competitive gaming, now he thinks he will be used in the educational market. In the next video he'll probably be saying it can be used as a business machine. Ha!

I think these are like comparing apples and oranges because their design priorities were very different. Both are cool though in their own right.

Surprised C64 is so slow compared to all the rest, 2x slower than ZX Spectrum? I thought Spectrum was a budget-optimized device...

There is an ez80 that runs 2.5 times faster than the one in the Agon that is only $6 more. If they want to be the fastest 8bit then they should have used it. The graphics for the Agon lets it down with its limiting 2bits per colour channel. As for the X16, it was bizarre that they ditched the 65816. I think they have realised their mistake of making such an expensive machine with plans to a cost reduced version. It will be interesting to see Olimex's 6502 based machine when it is released.

Though much faster, with a more modern design, seems the Agon would be trickier to program a game on

You also loaded the binary version. So its a bit more like loading a compiled program.

Is the AgonLight really 8-bit tho? I'd consider it 24-bit. Hey, You should make a video about how bit counts work, and about how it's one part technical and one part marketing.

you should look at the zeal 8 bit computer nobody is giving it the attention it deserves

So, the best computer to buy is an Agon, I wonder if my favourite games are available.

Get a c256 jr and add that to your leaderboard. I think your defense of the x16 will be blown skyhigh and completely out of the water.

Hey maybe the X16 may be worth it in 15 years when they manage to just barely get the 3rd gen out

It looks like you do not realize on LCD you have mode switch and it is slower than mode switch happens on CRT monitor

This is a ridiculous comparison. With retro computing, it’s not about speed and which is fastest. If speed was your primary concern, you may as well use a modern PC. Retro 8-bit computing is about playing with a system that runs code on a genuine 8-bit processor, and seeing what you can get it to do with the limited computing power that was available to you at the time. Each system has its pros and cons.

agon is the best

they are not 8bit they are 8bit controlling amiga :) this is insane, because amiga does not need 8bit appendicitis

I think whether this one or that winning I think the david murray's one is the phenomenon and it certainly will be updated and optimized in the future .because sometimes aesthetics rule baby. we live inside of these machines and they are making our hearts feeling more opened and they have spatial qualities in their own construction .

considering the fact that the agon was designed by 1 guy and costs roughly 50 euro... I just can't take the Commander X16 project seriously anymore... 3 years of development, several people and the price increases from 50 to 350-500..... sry, but that's ridiculous

Spectrum Next or the Mister actually make sense, as they can use the existing libraries of software and allow for expanding upon them within some expectation of compatibility. I wanted tot like the Commander X16 project from the very start, but if people were honest, then it is only a gimmick. On paper, the CX16 is a very impressive 8bit micro, but in reality is less useful than an Arduino. Even the nostalgia factor is disconnected from reality. My friends and I wish we had better systems, or maxed-out systems since the early 80's to the late 2000's (and we achieved that in adulthood), we also look at all sorts of microcontrollers and gimmicky computers such as the CX16 and think that those would have been cool in the 80's. However, the reality is that these never existed in the 80's and just as nobody can claim nostalgia for the Arduino, there's none for the CX16 either. You have a bunch of enthusiasts following someone's dream, and that's nice, that each write some demos and try out other's, but that's the whole novelty. I guess that what bothers me is the direct comparison to machines that already did all of these (admitedly much slower) 40 years ago, machines that have taught generations of users and prorgramers, machines that through their vast libraries of software and wide spread deployment have shaped the present and future of technology. I am all in on whatever suits someone's needs and nostalgia: emulation, fpga-s, vintage hardware, especially modern extensions for vintage hardware (gotek-s, accelerators, ram expansions, etc.), as that has profound cultural and educational implications, but these modern incompatibles don't highlight any appeal to me. The rality is that I can have extremely fast basic on a modern machine, I can have extremely fast "retro machines" in emulation, fpga-s or accelerators on real hardware, I can have dedicated machines that do both (like the Speccy Next). Yes, I do get it that it's not for everyone, and is definitely not for me, but I find the amplitude of the hype surrounding these gimmicks as almost insulting to the history of computing.

Are you suggesting that the Spectrum Next is not an actual 8-bit processor just because it uses an FPGA chip? If you are then you are sorely mistaken. FPGA chips reproduce hardware logic exactly, they do not "emulate" computers like most people say. So, they are actual 8-bit processors when reproducing reproducing the logic of 8-bit processors! You can consider FPGA chips to be like custom made consolidated chips like the ULA chip of the original Spectrums, the SID chip of the C64, and all the custom named chips like Paula or Agnus of the Amiga. The only difference between FPGA and consolidated custom chips is that the FPGA is just temporarily configured and custom chips are hard wired to stay that way. Also, using a BASIC version of the routine on the Next and then comparing it with an assembly version is not a fair test as you know using assembly on the next at 28MHz would blow your test out of the water 😛

1st

X16 sucks.

This is the most pointless test/comparison in the history of head to head benchmarks. Both are the vanity projects of a youtuber, most of which are insufferable narcissists. Neither have any mainstream appeal and most importantly, don't even fix the problem they intend to fix. In 5 years, neither of these machines will be available. That is the point. These are made to create new hardware purchasable today. But these will not withstand the test of time. 99% of the software available will be 1/2 finished demos. There will be a hand full of games worth playing a maybe a few hundred shovelware BS titles nobody will be interested in. But even if this wasn't true, it's still pointless. Nobody who is buying either machine is interested in buying the fastest. If they were, they'd buy a modern computer. One being Z80 based and beeb basic based and one being 6502 and C64 based means they are different machines appealing to different people. The z80 machine will see more popularity in Britain while the other will see more in the US.

You are not buying a super performance high power computer here. You are buying a super well designed effective 8-bt modern computer and becoming part of a tight nit high quality community too. With Agon it's the opposite you're only charged for the basic product but there is no value in the community as far as I can see. _For that reason I much prefer CX16 the Agon is not for me at this point._ tl;dr : Agon Lite seemed to be a cool little machine, but before I had a chance to get involved the community had already totally put me off. I am still awaiting my CX16 as I was not an early backer, and was more interested in the second edition which is super annoying, and I don't use social media so there is no way I will ever be told when it's released. But at least the community were really cool and polite, and didn't use shady strategies which negatively affect the channels the Agon guys were flooding with Marketing and anti-competitive slander on other products and people. Made me feel like Agon would be better off if somebody better bought the whole thing and it was no longer an Agon project. God knows why they behave that way - that is the reason I went totally off the idea of them! I actually stopped making BASIC and CX16 / Agon Lite content as a result of that treatment, considering it's total strangers to me and my channel is not a tech channel at all. They had no right behaving that way or treating my channel that way!! Meanwhile CX16 community is as you might expect and is the opposite. Nobody there wants to hack your channel or trick you into making content that favours their machine in the sales rather than the one you actually prefer in practical use. So I don't complain about the fact it is expensive, I recognise that you get exactly what you pay for and NO MORE THAN THIS. So I pay more for the better experience and nicer product and I 100% will be avoiding this Agon because of how the fans I never even had any dealings with behaved toward me. Not good. David on the other hand is totally trusthworthy and I have always thought this since I started buying things from the man and his company. I have all the stuff he sells already and it's all amazing super value super quality super everything. Agon needs to catch up in terms of all those areas. I think they probably will if somebody better at customer communication gets hold of Agon the company. Otherwise it's just gonna remain niche.