ESP 8266

Processor: L106 32-bit RISC microprocessor core based on the Tensilica Xtensa Diamond Standard 106Micro running at 80 MHz†
64 KiB of instruction RAM, 96 KiB of data RAM
External QSPI flash: up to 16 MiB is supported (512 KiB to 4 MiB typically included)
IEEE 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
Integrated TR switch, balun, LNA, power amplifier and matching network
WEP or WPA/WPA2 authentication, or open networks

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP8266

That's some gibberish, so I'll sum up.

The ESP8266 is a microcontroller like the Arduino, but with built in wifi.

You can get it pretty cheaply in bulk (as low as $2??), or you can pick up a dev kit for about $7

The dev kit is neat. I have a bunch of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NodeMCU

I was originally looking at building some kind of modem based around the ESP8266 to serve as a way to modernize vintage computers, but the more I think about it, the more I want an ESP8266 based computer with the formfactor of a Compact Macintosh or an Apple IIc or a c64.

Now, it's not an apples to apples comparison between something like the ESP8266 or an Arduino and a vintage 8/16bit microcomputer. I know that.

But these little $2 boards come close to many of the specs of the ol' micros.

(if you ignore the video output, and disk drives and stuff of that nature.)

Basically, I'm imagining a vintage micro built using modern hardware, with modern (low) power requirements and modern io and strict single tasking with carefully written software very close to the bare metal.

I want to be able to send emails and SSH or Telnet and browse gopher or even a text mode web browser, and do IRC and edit plaintext/markdown files (and mastodon), and I want to be able to do all that on a computer that is spiritually a 1980s micro computer.

And I can't see a good reason not to do this, or why this wouldn't work.

I mean, I see a couple of reasons (it's kinda dumb, honestly) but I'm amazed that we don't have more devices designed like this already in use!

So #DIY / #Maker / #retrocomputer community, what am I overlooking? Why couldn't this work? Has it already been done? Do you want to do it? (I don't think I have the knowledge or the room in my schedule to lead a project like this, but I'd contribute emotionally/financially.)

@ajroach42 would have to have a video output subsystem of some sort, yeah?

@djsundog Indeed.

I was bit-banging video output to a Nokia cellphone screen from one of these boards a few years ago. Worked pretty well, but it's a far cry from composite or VGA or HDMI.

But when the base hardware starts at $2...

@ajroach42 but by the time you've got video out and audio out added in as (say) daughterboards over i2c you might as well just build the software you want on a pi3 (or more open hardware equivalent) because the BOM cost will end up being pretty close to the pi3 cost

@ajroach42 it's the limited scope of functionality that most intrigues me tbh. the functionality you want should scream on baremetal raspi3 without any additional complexity but also without preventing that additional functionality from being added in the future in similar sparse techniques.

@djsundog If I knew how!

I'm a scripter though sundog. I write janky little hacks in bash and PHP.

I could hack together a real limited linux distribution and build some of the functionality I want with curses or similar, but that's not at all the same thing.

@ajroach42 I feel ya.

how do you feel about learning pascal?

https://ultibo.org

@djsundog I mean, it's not on my to-do list...

@ajroach42 lol only reason I mention it is (a) pascal is generally considered pretty approachable / a good learning language and (b) the ultibo.org stack basically gives you a baremetal pi pascal toolkit that would let you write a gopher client and an email client and so on

@djsundog I was looking through it, and it honestly looks really neat!

I undersell myself as a programmer. I'm not bad. If I had the time, that would be a perfect starting point for what I'm looking for.

Maybe when the rest of everything (moving, saving english language media, rescuing myself and my friends from capitalism) slows down, I can start looking in to that.

@ajroach42 I feel ya - I dream of a multi year sabbatical to just work on this one thing tbh

@djsundog Okay, so I watched the ultibo demo and it is both less and WAAAY more than I expected in alternating turns.

This is as close to an early home computer as I could experience today, but also probably about four conceptual years too early for my tastes, unless I'm missing something.,

@ajroach42 right - this is a possible base foundation on which one could build what you want

@ajroach42 my target is my own home computer platform around this hardware plus a rechargeable battery/ups and a case around the bits (minus the display).

I want it to be my primary personal computer, for all my personal communications and use, and I want it to run software I wrote initially.

I figure I'm five years out.