Bulgarian open {hardware} specialist Olimex is gearing as much as launch a RISC-V single-board laptop that may price round one greenback at retail — and whereas it is primary, it is sufficient to ship a programmable surroundings good for some vintage-style gaming.
“The problem was to create the bottom price working laptop with VGA show, PS/2 keyboard and audio buzzer, which to permit studying [the] RISC-V instruction set on actual {hardware} with [Steve Wozniak’s] WozMon model monitor,” Olimex founder Tsvetan Usunov explains. “The purpose set was the RVPC soldering equipment for $1 to be prepared for Open Fest, the most important open supply know-how occasion in Bulgaria.”
Usunov teased the RVPC again in Could, having been impressed to try a working single-board laptop that could possibly be offered for simply €1 (round $1.11) throughout TuxCon 2024. “I made a lightning discuss it,” Usunov wrote on the time. “Then after the occasion I assumed some extra and determined to make use of SO8 bundle and to drop the SD card which might take an excessive amount of assets.”
The completed design relies on the WCH Electronics CH32V003, a 32-bit RISC-V microcontroller chip which prices as little as $0.10 in hand-solderable SO8 bundle. There is a connector for a VGA monitor as an output, and one for a PS/2 keyboard as an enter — and little or no else.
“The software program was the true problem,” Usunov explains. “Greater than 20 RVPCs had been despatched to potential builders which expressed curiosity to take part with the event, however this activity was near unattainable and one after the other they gave up. Our personal first try at Olimex utilizing bit bang allowed us to show solely 25×25 pixels.”
“Curtis Whitley was one of many few who didn’t surrender,” Usunov continues, “and was [able to] hold attempting totally different approaches. After months of onerous work he acquired [a] end result: the unattainable job accomplished. The CH32V003 efficiently shows VGA with 800×600 pixels decision ([a miracle] of its personal as CH32V003 have solely 2k of RAM) and even [a] small recreation, The Towers of Hanoi, was written for it!”
Olimex plans to provide out RVPC kits forward of a soldering workshop at Open Fest in Bulgaria on November 2nd-Third; these not attending, or not blessed with the endurance to attend, will be capable to purchase the kits on the Olimex internet store for simply €1 (round $1.11) subsequent week.