The latest Commander X16 update by The 8-Bit Guy arrives as a clear-eyed review of where the project stands. The team has raised over $51,000 through crowdfunding and direct donations. That kind of backing showed the project attracted plenty of interest and enthusiasm. Fueled by that, the team expanded its original goal: instead of building 50 units, they aimed for 100. The article uses this update to examine what building those units involves — and what’s still in flux.
The Commander X16 update grounds expectations in facts.
What Goes Into Building Each Unit
The parts pile includes PCBs, daughterboards, chips, and ports. The PCBs for the first batch came from a PCB manufacturer who offered them for free to support the project. They assembled 100 Vera daughter boards and 100 development cards to accompany the first ~100 machines.
Putting together each machine is labor-intensive. Assembling the Vera boards (with surface-mount parts) takes about 30 minutes each. But the main board takes much longer — roughly six hours of work per board. Keyboards were a bottleneck too. While custom keyboards are on the way, they are using off-the-shelf keyboards in the meantime. Applying custom label-sheets took an hour per keyboard early on, but the process improved to roughly 20 minutes each.
Add testing, packaging, and shipping and producing a single Commander X16 took nine to ten hours. That level of effort, combined with rising parts costs, made the team realize that hitting the originally anticipated $300 retail price would be unrealistic.
Considering Kits — And Automation
One idea was to sell kits, allowing hobbyists to solder their own units. That could have lowered cost. But the team rejected that path because many buyers might need support if things went wrong — and there was not enough bandwidth to offer robust support.
Instead, the team invested donation money into tools that could speed up manufacturing. They purchased an axial-lead bender (to cut and bend component leads) and a pick-and-place machine (paid for by a team member personally). In addition, they bought a solder-dipping station, which in theory could solder the bottom-side joints all at once. Early test boards worked at about 90%, but problems such as warping and incomplete solder joints remain under investigation. The hope is that automation will cut production time dramatically, but they still need to iron out the process.
The Chip Shortage and Sound Hardware Worries
The original plan for the Commander X16 included a genuine Yamaha YM2151 sound chip — the heart of the audio system. Unfortunately, the YM2151 chips they ordered turned out to be counterfeit. Every one of them failed: when installed, the boards shorted and wouldn’t power up. These fake chips are a symptom of a broader problem that has been affecting retro-hardware projects.
Faced with this, the team developed alternative plans.
- Plan B: An FPGA-based replacement implemented on a daughter board. It works, but costs about $11 in parts alone (not counting labor).
- Plan C: Use an expansion board containing two OPL3 (YMf-262) chips — the same used in old PC SoundBlaster cards. That board worked in tests, but it would break compatibility with existing software written for the X16’s original sound chip. Also, OPL3 chips are themselves out of production.
The audio issue highlighted how precarious supply of obsolete parts can be. The team seems willing to support alternate sound paths, but it remains a compromise.
The Case, Extras, and Cartridge Support
On the hardware front, the team showed a prototype case — a low-profile enclosure designed for the standard ATX-sized X16 board. The case comes with two tops: one transparent (useful for demos at conventions), and one opaque. It remains optional. Future planned revisions may be slightly smaller and include a cartridge slot at a corner using a right-angled connector.
Cartridges are not redundant. While the X16 supports SD-card storage, cartridges provide ROM or RAM directly accessible to the CPU. This suits games or software needing fast access to large assets, or even extra hardware (e.g. co-processors). The early dev cartridges held up to 3.5 MB and supported battery-backed RAM for save data or high scores. A more compact surface-mount cartridge design is in the works for final production.
What’s Included in the First Batch — And the Price
Because of the cost and complexity, the first run of dev-boards will ship not for $300, but at about $500. That includes the full RAM expansion, a mouse, a keyboard, power supply, and a development cartridge — not just the bare board. The team hopes that once manufacturing stabilizes, they may be able to reduce the price by $100–$150.
They also plan a second generation version — a game-console–style X16 that will be simpler, likely with fewer features and a lower price point. The existing board will remain available alongside the future version, making the current dev/everyday board a good choice for power users or developers.
What This Means for the Community
The Commander X16 update doesn’t sugarcoat the difficulties. Producing real hardware — especially a retro-inspired machine using partly discontinued components — brings significant challenges. But the update shows the creators still believe in the project.
For retro-enthusiasts, this means there’s a real chance to own a new, hardware-based 8-bit style computer with modern convenience. For developers or hobbyists like the author of this article, it shows that the X16 remains more than vaporware: hardware exists, machines are being built, and there’s a path forward — even if it’s slower and more expensive than initially hoped.
If you want to see what the actual build-table looks like, what parts are piling up, what solder-jigs are being set up, and hear the full story from the person building it, watch the video. It gives a sense of scale and reality that static specs never do.
