Acorn R140 ran BSD Unix with an X11 desktop on an ARM2 at 8MHz with 4Mb RAM. Admittedly it ran like a dog because 4Mb was barely enough and the disc controller was rubbish for swapping, but the later R260 ran it very nicely with ARM3 at 30MHz (Memory at 12MHz) and 16Mb RAM.Running a UI or desktop apps is going to be a stretch, but basic RP2350 boards are probably enough for a lot of Defcon-type computer security tricks. It helps that a lot of security tools is already instantly available as long as it fits into the memory and flash -- no need to write those code from scratch.
Or mid 1990's FreeBSD on a 486 (maybe 33 or 66 MHz) would install in 4Mb RAM, though it probably needed a bit extra to run Netscape.
So in terms of CPU and memory, both size and bandwidth, these PSRAM-equipped RP2350 machines are a match for machines that used to run a graphical desktop.
Main impediment is that I can't see a reasonable way of doing VM. Since there's CPU to spare (not to mention two of them) maybe setting up the memory protection unit with a very narrow range and taking a lot of page faults could get you there? There's also the remapping facility in the XIP. But I can't see either of those giving you a big virtual address space.
Maybe emulating a CPU is the way to go.
Statistics: Posted by arg001 — Wed Aug 28, 2024 10:30 pm