ikskuh

Creator here!

Yes, the OS is highly opinionated, as just making another linux is incredibly boring for me!

The 32-bit only constraint is mainly due to my focus on smaller architectures, especially microcontrollers.

x86_64 and aarch64 both have much more complex initialiastion schemes, and also use much more complex page table setups.

Thus, i wanted to keep that out of the system, considering i'm targeting systems with a tiny fraction of the 4 GiB memory limit.

The co-op multitasking is a part of the OS, and the OS doesn't give you preemptive multitasking. I never said i won't implement sanity safeguards! Just killing off a hanging process that doesnt yield for more than 1-5 secs is totally i scope and increases user friendlyness. but considering the system reboots in 1.2 s on target hw right now, the user will maybe just have hit reset by then :D

Module spec should be around 85x28x100 mm size, so we'd have a deep module with around 15mm of "front extrusion" to fit the modules.

It's definitly possible to re-layout the backplane into a different mechanical design, and reduce the number of slots

Final specs will be shared soon, i have to do another revision of the hardware design as i figured mechanical properties like that the "stickyness" of PCIe slots is good enough so you dont actually need mechanical screws to fasten the modules

Creator here!

You're absolutely right! I wasn't there either, and i wouldnt want a terminal-only machine.

My goal is providing means and knowledge to those that want it. The Ashet is more meant for technical schools, apprenticeship and "the interested", and definitly requires an initial spark that will make that project interesting to you.

It's here to fill a (percieved) gap and wants to sit more in the professional education part than the "get the kids to computing".

I'd love to have had such a hands-on device in school instead of the bare theory of circuit operation and basics of programming.

Lua is planned! It's an interpreted language with a lightweight compiler which is one of the next things on the "large scale" todo list!

Creator here!

Wanna hop onto my crazy train and make a second main board?

I wanna make the Ashet Home Computer an open and free platform, so if you implement the backend control interface, you can use all of the environment yourself.

> I am way worse than OP and have no documentation at all.

I confess guilty at the currenr point. I do have planned a large phase in development where i will create entry-level docs for everything, as these are an essential part of the project.

The video is incredibly cool! Ashet started as a SoC in a ECP5, but the RP2350 basically hit all my spec requirements better than i could've done it myself, which made it a no-brainer to ditch the FPGA

Creator here!

I did consider Euro Rack, 19" racks, MiniATX and other case standards. But with any of these options, i wouldnt be able to keep the price low. The case including all parts and assembly cost is roughly at 20€ per device. It's an off-the-shelf part, with only lasercutted parts in two materials, and a single custom component which is yet to be determined what's the cheapest manufacturing option.

I wanted to keep the price low and any of the options above would increase the price by at least 40€, which is a subatantial part of the components

Creator here!

I'm also having ADHD but you can get help with the focus problem ;)

It's incredible to work for many years on the same thing and it's so pleasing to have steady progress.

So: Go, start building a vision for your cyberdeck! Having a clear goal helps you working towards building it, and you cam embrace the ADHD by jumping around between the many aspects of such a project.

sw design, hw design, visual design, mechanical design, handcrafting, soldering, programming, making websites, asking people, ...

Creator here!

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Creator here!

I know, i know! This is what makes me a bit sad. I dont know of any modern compiler i can use on the platform, as most hobby compilers target aarch64 or 32/64 bit x86.

What i need tho is a compiler that targets Arm/Thumb-2.

My research tells me that this confines me to: - A non-complete patch series for TCC (maybe) - LLVM - GCC

As twonof them obviously won't run on 8 MB, my options are stripped down to:

- Evaluate CBE and write my own backend and add 32 bit support - Write my own compiler + backend

Both options don't sound viable before the release as they would increase the scope greatly.

Note taken!

Will add a new "cleaned up" photo that isn't also entangled with kids stuff, and other desk content :D

Sadly, it really looks atrocious and it's currently a 3D build which is hard to photograph.

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

Creator here!

That sounds exactly what i had in mind, and i really wanna do the same when my boy is old enough for computers.

It's a teaching tool and a fun toy to tinker with

If everything goes according to plan, Zig will be the only language that is capable of actually utilizing the AVR 24 bit address space properly, while also allowing you to make nice optimizations with the smaller 16 bit address spaces (Zig has first class address spaces on memory)

Also, RISC-V support is working quite fine, and i don't see much problems with that.

> But I don't think we need more AVR going forward. It's rather proprietary, no?

AVR is Arduino. It would be a bad action to basically say: "well, zig is not going to support the most widespread maker hardware on the market"

Then you definitly should check out MicroZig!

I will push my bugfixes for current master branch tomorrow or later, so you can directly play around!

Zig is not perfect on targeting AVR, but it's capable enough to not be a PITA.

Since we've made microzig supporting AVR targets (currently atmega328p only, feel free to add more), i'm not using anything else.

Oh and: We can target an ATtiny1616 without problems. avr-libc doesn't officially support the Tiny2 family yet.