The ESP32 XT PC - Wait...what?

[@GordonBraicks]

This Word application loads faster than our Office 365 at work with the many cores and gigabytes hardware.

[@Tetracera.]

ya far too much bloat, sometimes simple is better.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Gordon - this comment made my day! The video isn't sped up, so it's a bit crazy to see that the good ol' days weren't so bad after all :) Have a great christmas time!!

[@etmax1]

That's because Microsoft always develops ahead, the current version of office is designed to provide a good user experience if you have a 1 Tera Hertz i6000. The idea is that you have this encouragement to upgrade your HW every couple of years for the next 10 years and then they introduce the next slow down.

[@LearnElectronicsRepair]

Congratulations on 1K subscribers Det 😁

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Thanks my friend! You helped a lot with that!

[@anno5936]

I was about to tinker on some Commodore core soon as I have time... The ESP32 is a very interesting board and a lot of interesting projects out there. Grüße in die Heimat aus den Tropen

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Anno5936 - welcome to the channel! Yeah, i czurrently found out about the C64 cores - could be handy :)

[@cosmicavatar773]

Nice video, i currently use PCem to emulate old hardware and really like the idea of using baremetal emulation with this little micro single board machines. Look forward to checking out your other content have a good day.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Cosmic Avatar - thanks! And welcome to the channel! If you wanna go wild: There's a Sinclair Spectrum Core and (hold your breath) a C64 core available. Will proably play around ofer on Richards channel a bit with these :)

[@makethingswith5861]

Fascinating - there’s also a Sinclair ZX Spectrum emulator for the same board -

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi MakeThingsWith - welcome to the channel! See - this is what I love about the interaction here: I didn't know about the speccy emulator! Now I need to get the thing back from Richard, and play some old spaccy games :) Thanks for sharing!

[@TheD3cline]

saw this coming for a while, the ESP32 is like double or triple my first PC

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi The D3cline - welcome to the channel! Another great point, that seems so obvious: these little MCU have the nth time more computing power than we hab 40 years ago with a complete desktop! For the fraction of the price. For a teeny tiny energie need. Damn, we live in intersting times :)

[@andymouse]

Congrats on the sub count !!!........cheers.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

AndyMouse! Long time no see :) Thanks, man! This is the richard effect; he helped a lot.

[@darkred1686]

Cool demonstration! I just got mine in the mail a few minuets ago. I think I'll start with the PC emulator first.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Darkred - so you had an early Xmas this year :) Have fun with the little one!

[@jerbear7952]

What interesting to me about this type of thing is two fold. 1. There is a ton of high quality equipment gathering dust that isn't up to todays specs but would work perfectly on something like this. 2. In conjunction with ideas similar to the one child per laptop idea. Many people just need a reliable web appliance that uses low energy.

[@levieux1137]

This is excellent. Last week I looked on the net to see if there was finally a PC emulator on ESP32 and didn't find one. I'll have to give it a try ;-)

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Mornin' Willy - absolutely with you, man! Have fun when you get yours! And of course merry XMas!!

[@mattruddick8919]

Yeah goolge not as good any more

[@levieux1137]

@@mattruddick8919 honestly it's not that, it's that searching for PC and ESP32 combined return so many irrelevant results that it's hard to spot the desired one!

[@kriswillems5661]

The esp32 is very fast and has lots of features for very little money. I love it.

[@dazealex]

Holy Cow! Amazing find! Subbed.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Mornin' DazeAlex - welcome to the channel! Thanks for the sub!

[@PetRatty]

only 4 years out of date but thanks for the video

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi PetRatty - well, it looks like I'm not the only one who didn't get the memo 4 years ago...

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

Great work. I wonder if can emulate old Mac computers like Apple 2 or the first macs

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hey Alejandro - welcome to the Channel! Apple II was an 6502 - right? So if it can emulate an VIC20 (same CPU) the groundwork (CPU emulation) is already done. I'm absolutely no specialist on those old machines, but from the specs this seems doable.

[@AlejandroRodolfoMendez]

@@DetBuildsStuff cool nice to know

[@xTHETRINCHOx]

This IS what i need. I use a HP 95lx But now i But a cardputer esp32 s3 so... THX! Tiny XT idea

[@daisywong-ke1kz]

Sounds like you're really happy. :p

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Daisy - thank you; yes I am :)

[@BRUXXUS]

This is bonkers! So cool. It makes me want to see a demoscene category for ESP32. 😂

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Bruxxus - I had the same thought. With this - defined - hardware and some basic graphics system, one should be able to get a demo going. Sadly - I'm not good enough for a task like that, I'm more the hardware/software-dev. So let's hope that someone picks this up :)

[@BRUXXUS]

@@DetBuildsStuff Same. I've been a huge fan of demoscene for years, but I'm nowhere close to having any skills to pull off that sort of black magic. hehe

[@imensonspionrona2117]

nice find

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi imenson spionrona - welcome to the channel! And thank you: yeah, I really like the little bugger :)

[@VoltageVentures145]

ESP32 is a powerful MCU, With the FabGL library you can generate [VGA, composite video, and another TFT display drivers], and the real magic about this library very easy to convert from composite to VGA, and vice versa, I build small TV using 7" TFT display and ESP32. The FabGL library i very smart and lightweight for esp32 164MHZ.

[@gblargg]

I realize there's probably no OS to gum timing up, just the emulator on bare metal. This is great for emulators.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi gblargg - welcome to the channel! Indeed this has no underlying OS - I'd guess that it uses both cores on the ESP. With you: that's great for any emulator :)

[@frnno967]

I wish the Wifi or serial port worked so that I could call BBS's with it to easily get software on and off of it. But it's a super cool device and software, for sure.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Jay - yeah, this is missing out on a few things. A Serial Over Wifi would be pretty high on my wishlist, too. Not sure about the development status of the project - you may wanna talk to Fabrizzio, if there are plans to expand the XT emulator.

[@bingusbongus9807]

very cool very interesting and very fun, i love using things like the esp 32 for regular computer use when they can, its just very fun and cute with the low power and small size, very awesome to have keyboard and video out on such a small thingy

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Bingus - low power! That's a thing I didn't take into account. I ran the ESP XT from my laptop's USB, so there can't be huge power demands. Thanks for pointing this out! Take care and have a great christmas!

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

I love this, needs isa.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

I think you're missing out some pins for an ISA implementation :D

[@zyxwvutsrqponmlkh]

@@DetBuildsStuff ISA needs only 8 channels at 4mhz, all the irq can be bundled together if you assume one card.

[@amakkos]

What is that paint at the beggining?

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi amakkos - welcome to the channel! I don't get your question; what paint are you talking about?

[@gbondbasic]

i want one wow love it

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Gordon - yeah, the little bugger is fun! Let me know when you get yours! Merry Xmas - see ya in 2024!

[@sohl947]

I got one around six months ago. I thought I still had a PS2 KB and mouse in my old stuff, but alas... I didn't so spent a few days looking around. I was able to use a KB adapter but I got a real PS2 mouse. So far I only have tried a few of Fabrizio's demos, such as some games and BASIC on the VIC20 emulator and the Space Invaders port and the synthesizer demo. I may try to write some native code for it or use it as the graphics board for a custom CPU that I make with an FPGA trainer board I have. The PC emulator looks fairly cool though. Maybe I'll try that soon!

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Mike - welcome to the channel! Yeah, didn't mention this in the video: there are more hidden gems in the demos for the board. I never thought that there was so much demand for a unit like that; if you are going to expand the system, may get in contact with farizzio and add to the existing software pool?

[@jeremygeorgia4943]

There is so much potential there. For one thing, we used to get along with DOS based machines all the time. We even did work on them, without needing a graphical interface. You could potentially have a home office full of networked Win 3.11 workstations. Or, maybe you could rig something up, for a DOS LAN party. However, there are other advantages to using an ESP32 as a computer. It is pretty easy using an ESP32 as a microcontroller. You could use it to control something like a robot. You could also use a Raspberry Pi to control the project and give it some complex instructions. However, what if you could also accomplish that with something smaller. You could even make a cluster of decision making machines. ESP-Now works very well for intercommunication between ESP32 devices. Maybe, a custom OS could be designed, that could use such a cluster & have the ESP32 modules handling different tasks. It's actually a powerful board, and there are probably a few use cases, where the computing power isn't being used nearly to its full potential. Perhaps, you could have one running Turtle Logo, while also having a robotic project mirroring the commands in the real world. What I really wish we had, was maybe a standard for microcontrollers & peripherals, that was as extensive as the early DOS PC market was. There are limited options for sound and graphics, for example. I think the future is potentially smaller devices. What if it was just as simple to create a custom TV box, and program it how we want, as it was to fire up a DOS machine & create a game or spreadsheet with QuickBasic? Why should phones be the microdevices with the most advanced capabilities? Why should SBC's be so far behind that? I know that the idea of Pi was to be affordable. With a bit of modularity, like we had with the PC, we could create our own devices that are as basic as a DOS machine, or as advanced as a NUC style mini computer. All at affordable or extravagant prices, but far cheaper than a top of the line phone with similar capabilities. Single board computers and microcontrollers don't have the constraints of limited space & limited battery capacity. We should have more options.

[@WooShell]

I've bought some of those boards a year ago when they came with the ESP8266 on it, but they're too weak for anything really useful. If they're now available with an ESP32 instead, I have to try it again..

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi WooShell - agree: a version with an ESP8266 will not be powerful enough. But now I'm curious....

[@petergamache5368]

There are tons of aging industrial machines that rely on outdated PC hardware running DOS-based software. This may be an excellent way to keep those systems out of the waste stream and maybe give them a second life in a hackerspace or someone's garage.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Peter - welcome to the channel! And absolutely: this little gem can replace a metric ton of obsolete XT hardware (that will fail). The biggest downside will be that the ESP-system isn't expandable in any way.

[@jerbear7952]

I used to make good money finding and harvesting 286s for an industrial company back in the day. They had cobbled together these Frankenstein machines and needed very specific hardware. I don't recall why but it was a long what you were just suggesting.

[@SirTodd]

any idea if its possible to emulate apple?

[@Clarence_13x]

You do have to wait a few weeks to get one now.

[@charlesdorval394]

Nice! That's pretty cool! Edit: I've noticed a BIG difference in compile times depending on the host OS you're using, windows is a lot slower than linux, no idea why (for ESP32s that is)

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Charles - ESP32 compile times (especially the first run) are pretty long on windows. It looks like the amount of libraries you have installed play a part in there, too. I'm on eof the boring Windows guys, so no data for linux :) Have a great xmas!!

[@charlesdorval394]

@@DetBuildsStuff Ah that makes sense. To be totally honest, the only things it proves is that I have to compile my code WAY too often.. hehehehe :) Merry christmas!

[@DetBuildsStuff]

@@charlesdorval394 Yeah, I'm a compulsive "press the compile button" programmer, too :D

[@evanbarnes9984]

I think there's a way to use Windows Subsystem for Linux to basically do your programming and compilation on Linux for the speed without having to dual boot

[@CircsC]

Yeah the Arduino IDE seems to occasionally suck butt on Windows. Like every 5 updates or so something goes goofy.

[@haukewalden2840]

Well, the XT ran at... like, 4.77 MHz or so? So a 240MHz ESP32 should have no problem ... But seriously, this is amazing. It's nerdy, but it's amazing nonetheless.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hey Hauke - welcome to the Channel! At roughly 1:30 I had CheckIt running; the emulation runs 2.74 times the speed of an original IBM XT. Not sure if you can call this cycle correct in any way, but if this is an indicator, the emulation is more around a 13 MHz XT; more testing required for any real-world data. But it's fun to play around with quirky hardware anyways :)

[@DerGrozen]

this is cool! Great!

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Schnurrbo - welcome to the channel! And yeah, exactly my thought while I was playing around with the thing :)

[@fallingwater]

Fascinating. It needs some extra IO, I think - I can see this used for archiving content from old floppies, if you could get MFM running on it. And of course USB, since by this point you have to be a pretty hardcore retro-nerd to own any PS/2 gear at all. But it's certainly interesting to see a whole computer running on a stamp-sized card, especially for those of us who used those old clunkers back in the day and still remember DOS commands. In modern times I could see this being an interesting distraction-free writing implement. Can't get distracted by notifications, youtube and all the crap we have today when your computer can't run any of that :D

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi FallingWater - welcome to the channel! If I remember right, George R. R. Martin writes his stuff still on hardware like this - because of non-existing distractions. Mey we should get him one of those :)

[@c1ph3rpunk]

Had no idea this was a thing, ordered a board. How far the ESP has come. Anyone tried ethernet? I’m seeing Doom LAN parties in my future. Again. Don’t need an IP stack, just let it do Ethernet_II, all layer 2, no layer 3.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Oh, I remember these LAN Parties; that really would be nice :)

[@Karthor.]

That's really cool!

[@DetBuildsStuff]

I knew this was right along your alley, Karthor :) Hey - have a great time on the hollidays! See ya next year!

[@Karthor.]

@@DetBuildsStuff Yeah :D, yeah you too see ya then :)

[@graydrake6855]

"if I want to emulate an XT, i use my PC" if you want to build a tiny PC with a tiny case looking like a miniature original PC, you will probably NOT use your PC to emulate it, do you :D or you have a original PC thats broken (or maybe just the case), and want to revive it, filling it with a $20 esp32 + board would be fun

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi graydrake6855 - welcome to the channel! Nope, I stick with my statement: if I need to emulate an XT, I'd use DosBOX on recent hardware. For me, there's simply no need to build a tiny PC with a tiny case - yeah, you're right: I'm boring that way :) I don't have the retro-gene (carlos and myself were talking about that yesterday) - for me, the whole shebang is pretty much as rube-goldberg-ish as hardware gets. That doesn't change the fact, that I'm blown away by the technical archivement: I love the idea, that a 15€ piece of hardware can emulate a machine, that back in the days would have cost me an arm and a leg. So - I can love the project at the same time as saying that for me (!) there's no practical usecase. That doesn't mean that you of course can build away to yer hearts content; let me know what you came up with :)

[@chaorrottai]

Quite honestly, when you actually look at what a user wants their computer to do and what modern operating systems are doing in the background and doing when the user is not asking for it you realize very quickly just how bloated and unnecessary most of modern operating systems are. My first computer had a 48 MHz processor in it and the graphics card didn't work because I inherited the computer and I wasn't given the driver disk. Nonetheless, I was able to play Diablo 2 on it. People think that a lot of the complex graphics and everything that the computers put out requires a lot of Ram or a lot of processing power but it's easy to forget just how much was done with the very limited hardware of the 90s. The Nintendo 64, the PlayStation 1, and the Sega Saturn all had less than 8 MB of RAM total for the entire system, and all three systems ran on very slow processors and the hardware acceleration for the graphics was not very advanced and some of the consoles actually did the graphics in software. Really, what is going on is that modern computers are essentially wasting clock cycles doing things that nobody asked for and nobody wants. Worse yet, even when they are doing things that people asked for and that people want, developers insist on using scripting languages to do those things. Now a scripting language might be good for rapid application development, but all scripting languages waste clock cycles in comparison to efficient compiled languages like C, C++, and rust. Furthermore, there is actually a fully functional operating system with a graphical user interface that can be downloaded and used that was coded in assembly and fits on a single floppy disk. It is called MenuetOS. Quite frankly, when I see projects like this it makes me think that modern developers are lazy and wasteful.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Alex - I really enjoyed the rant - you nailed it. Seems like efficiency isn't called for these days. If you wanna see efficient use of code: demos. There's a category that limits the size of the exe to 4k (on x86) and you still can fit in gfx and sound... Absolutely brilliant. We're on the same page when it comes down to scripting languages - to me this is happening b'c web development spilling over to the desktop. Or our MCU - no idea why one would use phython on an esp32 about 20x slower and bloated.

[@georgemaragos2378]

Hi , nice video I will keep my PI3 and PI400 for emulator and pihole Defiantly going to order 2 of these 1 x dos and 1 x CPM , and they can sit next to the digital clock and radio on the shelf - my wife will not mind, she accepts the pi2wzero because it has samba and 32gb shred folder for her music and cooking recipes. My 2 Wyse thin clients can now be upgraded to run win 98 and win XP Yeah that will make about 10cpu's in the house , that should last me out for 2023-2024 :)

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi George - welocme to the channel! Looks like you have your projects for the forseeable future all set up :) And I'm sure the nifty ESP32's will make a nice addition to the family. Happy xmas!

[@curtisnewton895]

no sd/dd floppy support, then quiet useless , at least for me

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hey Curtis - welcome to the channel! The Emulator uses HDD images - that you can modify yourself (WinImage does the trick). So you can drop your software on it.

[@etmax1]

This is excellent, yes totally useless but excellent.

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi EtMax1 - welcome to the channel! Yeah, on my Rube-Goldberg-Scale this is somewhere around 9.5 - but as you say: absolutely brilliant :)

[@etmax1]

@@DetBuildsStuff I'm not entirely sure why I like these things, but the technology excites me, and I'd be really interested in knowing how people that actually use these emulators (for whatever reason) find the timing experience, ie. do they do a faithful time domain translation or just actual visual operation. Anyhow, I loved it.

[@user-Limaa]

nice, can´t emulate a XT BOOT in stand alone

[@AlexejSvirid]

"Meanwhile: Relax, Neo! The matrix still having you..." The problem is Devil runs the world. He is lier and murderer. That's why we've got the Gospel about the God's kingdom. Jehovah would put everything in order. The dead will be resurected and we'll meet our beloved ones again! :-)

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Alexej, welcome to the channel! Abolutely not a religious person here - so I can't confirm nor deny your words. But I'd like to stay on the electronics toppic - religion may be something for other channels but not for me :)

[@AlexejSvirid]

@@DetBuildsStuff Hey, TU. 🙂

[@DamienKoda]

I imaagin you in aan open space.... so boring ^^

[@DetBuildsStuff]

Hi Damien - yeah, belive me: that's boring :D