tulipcc

Tulip CC is the modern C64. The software is mostly fleshed out for audio apps right now, but feature for feature, it's doing the same kinds of thing, with the same eye to budget: https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc

The Tulip Creative Computer[1][2] hits most of your points (I'm just a customer). It is definitely not a retro computer. It uses modern technology (ESP32S3 microcontroller with megabytes of flash memory and RAM, USB ports, wifi, color touch screen etc.) and runs a modern programming language (MicroPython) that also serves as the operating system. This particular product might not be exactly what you want, but it shows that you can use these technologies to build a computer that is much simpler and more malleable than a modern PC in both hardware and software, but is still very capable, and intriguing to use. 1. https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc 2. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41122986

I see there is a desktop version prebuilt for Mac OS 10.15 or higher, or you can build it for Linux: https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc/blob/main/docs/tulip_de...

It doesn't really run an OS like you may be used to. It runs FreeRTOS, which schedules tasks. One of the tasks is running Micropython. (Other tasks are for audio, the display, MIDI, touchscreen, the sequencer, etc). There's no BIOS-level code to use, we have to manage our own screen (including drawing in groups of scanlines at a time to save RAM.) Yes, you can use this to make synths. It's powered by our own AMY under the hood, which is a low level oscillator bank with a LOT of features https://github.com/shorepine/amy . And then you manage them in Python, including MIDI, note stealing, polyphony, sequencer, etc. See more here: https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc/blob/main/docs/music.md You can NOT do audio input effects -- there's no audio input. You can load samples from WAV files and play them back.

I work on this! AMA if you have any questions. I think it's really cool and has been fun to hack on. the main github w/ all the specs and code is at https://github.com/shorepine/tulipcc

> At the risk of being shouted down, this is another one of those products that looks great on impulse buy, but when you try to use that tiny keyboard and screen to do any real work with it, the chore of use becomes apparent. I purchased one on impulse after this HN post, and some notes so far: * Keyboard is a hell of a lot smaller than expected. I have small fingers and even this is a bit of a challenge for me. I very much doubt anybody will be coding on this thing. I am thinking mostly to use it as a way of making brief notes and reading RSS feeds. * The screen is fine, it's something you can live with. * I installed tulipcc on it (micropython), definitely the right choice to getting started on it quickly. * I tried to print a case [2] but my printer is not good enough, I think I will send them off to China to be printed on an SLA print

Gah, I just ordered one on impulse [1]. I've wanted to build out a WiFi PDA for quite some time now and I like this hardware. I'm quite liking the idea of running tulip MicroPython [2] on it, or going back to pure MicroPython [3] and writing some drivers. Apparently something like ampy can be used to upload/download Python files [4]. Threads could be quite exciting for running multiple programs at once [5], although I have no idea what it means for two programs to fight over GPIO! It does seem as though MicroPython can only utilise a single core [6]. [1] https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t-deck?variant=43087936487605 [2] https://github.com/bwhitman/tulipcc/tree/main/tulip/tdeck [3] https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/esp32/tutorial/intro.... [4] https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/maker/projects/micropython-basi... [5] https://docs.micropython.o