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Comment by Inviz | Hacker News Reader

A single 1$ STM32 blue pill (or one 4$ STM32F4, or god forbid esp32) could do so much more than a NES at lower energy consumption.

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There's definitely some tension between their constraints and desires. I love that they are able to productively use hardware that is usually considered obsolete. But they also have a pretty severe power and space budget. If I were asked to advise on a small, low power computing setup, it would be hard to beat a modern phone of some type. But that choice violates so many of their stated objectives it's a non-starter.

The old TRS-80 Model 100 fits some of the goals. It runs for a long time on just four AA batteries. But it's text only and perhaps even too limited even for 100R. I'd love to see a modern version of that machine with a bitmapped display, running a minimal (not Linux) OS, that can run for months on four AA batteries. Maybe something like a somewhat upgraded Psion 5. I think much of the Psion software is available so maybe it's actually a possibility.

In my opinion mid-level STM32F4 or high level STM34H7 would be pretty great machines for people who'd like to self-constrain themselves. Very capable, and with a lot of freedom to improvise unorthodox solutions. There're so many modes of operations, sub-systems (i.e. creative use of DMA to emulate extra UARTs), ability to drive LCD if needed, all the GPIOs, ability to add external RAM, etc.

In fact i've been working on and off on implementing operating system that uses CANOpen framework (a higher-level system based on CAN bus) for super-reliable wired networking. I want to follow similar path of travelling on expedition truck and doing programming for the truck sub-systems on the go.

The AlphaSmart Dana has a similar form factor to the TRS-80 Model 100. It runs Palm OS and can easily be converted to run off of standard rechargeable AA batteries. The downside is that the batteries only last for 20-25 hours of screen on time.

Those are getting hard to find. There are still new similar machines being made.

The Pomera DM250 is one that looks pretty interesting to me. Occasionally I check for any progress on hacking the thing to run other software but I haven't found much so far.

> Maybe something like a somewhat upgraded Psion 5. I think much of the Psion

The Psion 5 (and 3) keep popping up (and deservedly so) all over the place. They are such great little machines. Particularly as some sort of "baseline" for computing.-

What do you have against the Linux Kernel?

Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and/or flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

sorry dang! I'll try harder.

...need a way to stop myself from posting while high.

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