One Step Closer To The Finish

In the last year or so I consistently get involved more and more into the 8-bit scene. As a young coder I cut my teeth on the Commodore128 and the 8-bit computers of time, mostly based on a 6502 processor, were my playground. Yet, it is a fact that the best selling machine of that time (and, possibly, of all times) was the C64. Following the breadcrumbs I so stepped into the MEGA65 project, which I already introduced with this article HERE.

For those new to the scene, the MEGA65 is the attempt to relive the Commodore65 computer, a machine that was meant to be the last and most powerful of the entire Commodore’s 8-bit range but that never saw the light, let aside for a handful of prototypes. A few year ago, thanks to the guys at MEGA (Museum of Electronic Games and Art) the project restarted as a new implementation of the original prototype, now built around a FPGA-based computer. As any project of this kind, that heavily relies on the direct support of the fans, even this one had a moment of stop, specifically when the found-raising campaign to buy the injection-moulding tooling to build the cases for the MEGA65 was launched. Such a machine is very expensive and even though the community donated over 20.000Eu, the 66K goal seemed nearly unreacheable, until …

… well, until the day over 40K where raised in a week end, as THIS article points out. Other useful informations can be directly retrieved from the following tweet. Enjoy the read.

Wow! more than 40,000€ in donations to the MEGA65 case injection mould tooling in the last few days! We’re past the 90% point now: https://t.co/dfDWd3FIbp

— Paul Gardner-Stephen (@servalpaul) January 25, 2020