Re: Just got a Pi1B. What can you actually do with it these days?

In article <kKm*zLLeA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk>,
Theo  <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Gordon Henderson <gordon+usenet@drogon.net> wrote:

In article <101teqs$1rt4d$2@dont-email.me>,
TronNerd82  <tronnerd82@aol.com> wrote:
 

If you can think of any productive use-cases for an original Pi model B
(not even the B+) let me know, and I'll consider it :-)

 
I have a few (dozen) of these - 1B and 1B+ (40 pin GPIO header). I run an
older Debian Jessie on them for Linux and am experimenting with Devuan,
but I also have my own bare-metal framework under which I run either my
own RTB Basic (a modern basic where line numbers are optional) which
supports high resolution graphics but not (yet) sound. I can also run
my own OS under the same framework which is written in BCPL which allows
local editing and compiling of BCPL programs.

>
If you're going non-Linux, RISC OS runs well on the Pi1.  It was designed

I know what it is and what it was designed for. I was there in the early
days, owned an Arc, have followed it's development over the years, etc.
I'm just not interested in it right now, thanks.

for an 0.5MB 8MHz ARM2, so a 512MB 700MHz Pi1 is ample.  It can't use
multiple cores so the Pi1 being single core is no problem.

I have a scheme for multiple cores in my own system, (it's capable of
pre-emptive multi-tasking) but not got the energy to implement it over
multiple cores for now.

This is it in it's original incarnation on a 16Mhz 65C816 CPU demonstrating
multi-tasking:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZL1VI8ezgYc

The graphics is via a 115K serial link to a "smart" terminal running on
a Linux desktop. It uses Acorn VDU style commands for graphics, etc.

Over recent years I've ported it from the 816 to RISC-V and now to ARM32.

The Pi version has native graphics and works well on the Pi 7" screen
thing (or external HDMI). It boots to Basic or BCPL in under 2 seconds.

Thanks,

-Gordon