There’s something to be said about an independent system you can understand and expand. What I think will be next frontier in home computing is truly understanding and owning the systems that run a smart home and that comes with understanding the environment (sensor data, presence detection, etc.). We live in an interesting time where embedded development has become so accessible and powerful that we can interface with multiple wireless protocols and state of the art sensors with not a lot of capital investment. If we think what can come beyond screens and imagine more ambient computing systems - maybe we’ll see new and interesting innovations
Ashet Home Computer
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Re: Ashet Home Computer
#12i've been thinking about how to build a retro-style computer without any of the engineering compromises that made old machines so weird. lots of ideas, no progress. perhaps some sort of small riscv machine and a separate processor to manage the system (esp32) remotely, so you can always modify the filesystem or whatever from a bigger machine?
Re: Ashet Home Computer
#13Not ragging on the author, but I'm always confused whenever I see a "make your own computer" project like this that doesn't start with hardware first. I mean, there's already seems to be a quite advanced OS for it and some detailed docs, but no physical "computer" to speak of, just a lot of mockups.
Why a hardware project at that point and not a virtual machine like pico-8?
I'm just saying, its kinda the opposite approach a hardware person would take.
Re: Ashet Home Computer
#14I love the general backplane architecture, which gives it a look similar to Apple's canceled Jonathan project [0]
[0]: https://512pixels.net/2024/03/apple-jonathan-modular-concept/Re: Ashet Home Computer
#15He's still too young for something like this but I've been searching for something to use when we more properly introduce my son to computers. Using modern components to make something useful that still exposes the electronics side, encourages tinkering and exploration over media consumption, etc and it seems like a project like this could fit the bill nicely!
No doubt you've already looked into Ben Eater's various offerings (?).
I came across them (and they seem very cool!) but my working theory is that, in addition to more electronics heavy projects like those, I also want something that can fill the role of the apple ii plus that was the "family computer" when I was a kid without going straight to giving him access to a modern desktop/computer which feel so hermetic.
I'm somehow very confident in this while also being sure that people probably thought very similar things about home radios destroying the youth in the 1920s :D
Re: Ashet Home Computer
#16Not ragging on the author, but I'm always confused whenever I see a "make your own computer" project like this that doesn't start with hardware first. I mean, there's already seems to be a quite advanced OS for it and some detailed docs, but no physical "computer" to speak of, just a lot of mockups. Why a hardware project at that point and not a virtual machine like pico-8? I'm just saying, its kinda the opposite app…
https://ashet.computer/hardware/ looks like hardware to me. While not all the manufacturing considerations have been addressed, there's a "functional cable clutter prototype", and you can build your own Ashet-compatible.
Re: Ashet Home Computer
#17Not ragging on the author, but I'm always confused whenever I see a "make your own computer" project like this that doesn't start with hardware first. I mean, there's already seems to be a quite advanced OS for it and some detailed docs, but no physical "computer" to speak of, just a lot of mockups. Why a hardware project at that point and not a virtual machine like pico-8? I'm just saying, its kinda the opposite app…
Creator here.
Please take a look at the gallery, where there are photos of the actual electronics setups!
Also don't the mechanical mockups count as hardware? A pile of jumperwires, breadboards and devices don't make a good hero image, but physical hardware mockups do.
Also the electronics design in its current form is actually iteration 5 of the system, while the OS development started with iteration 2.
The OS does boot on the electrical prototype
Re: Ashet Home Computer
#18Got an Amiga and Trumpcard you can have cheap.
Re: Ashet Home Computer
#19Not ragging on the author, but I'm always confused whenever I see a "make your own computer" project like this that doesn't start with hardware first. I mean, there's already seems to be a quite advanced OS for it and some detailed docs, but no physical "computer" to speak of, just a lot of mockups. Why a hardware project at that point and not a virtual machine like pico-8? I'm just saying, its kinda the opposite app…
Creator here. Please take a look at the gallery, where there are photos of the actual electronics setups! Also don't the mechanical mockups count as hardware? A pile of jumperwires, breadboards and devices don't make a good hero image, but physical hardware mockups do. Also the electronics design in its current form is actually iteration 5 of the system, while the OS development started with iteration 2. The OS does…
>A pile of jumperwires, breadboards and devices don't make a good hero image
I strongly disagree! Hardware people love seeing that sort of thing - the more guts you show, the better. It means you've gotten something to work and probably know what you're talking about. Take pride in what you have accomplished so far! Ideas and concepts are a dime a dozen; working hardware is a worthy milestone.
Re: Ashet Home Computer
#20> an expandable and hackable computer in the spirit of the 80's home computers cool! > Dual Core CPU hm that will make for some interesting first steps in learning
The Parallax P8X32A Propeller (2006) did multi-core processing in a very beginner friendly way.
It can be done - if you take a holistic approach to hardware + runtime + development environment.
The Propeller probably failed because of the custom language, the custom assembly syntax, the custom ISA, the custom IDE font (!) etc. It was a very neat system though.