A game console for $1 https://chrisdell.info/using-rust-to-build-a-1-dollar-handheld-gaming-console/

The Rust part isn't what's interesting to me as much as... 9 cents for a risc-v microcontroller?!

@cwebber yeah there are a handful of extremely cheap but shockingly decently specced microcontrollers out there
padauk makes some dirt cheap arm chips for example

@cwebber this is the only RV32E chip I've ever seen too lmao

@cwebber Well there's also pretty cheap arm microcontrollers and I'd expect riscv to be even cheaper (less/no royalties involved).

@cwebber These days I easily pay more than a dollar on buttons and connectors. It's a difficult world now.

@cwebber I would like to subscribe to the nine cent microcontroller newsletter, please.

@cwebber it even has less RAM than an Apple I or an Altair 8800b, like it's remarkable how low-spec it is... much faster still at 48MHz, if only because of the improved process node and RISC architecture

guess PALs/PLAs/SPLDs are completely dead now, since this is even cheaper, and then there's the ESP32-C3 at the <=$1 range too.... then again, a RISC-V chip for doing a few conditionals seems like overkill

@cwebber thats actually wild

@cwebber
An ARM Cortex was about 50c 10 years ago.

However 9c sounds unlikely.

@lanodan @cwebber Puya PY32 is even cheaper and that's ARM: https://jaycarlson.net/2023/02/04/the-cheapest-flash-microcontroller-you-can-buy-is-actually-an-arm-cortex-m0/

@noisytoot @lanodan 10 cents vs 9, it's one cent more expensive right? must be that ARM tax SMH

@cwebber @lanodan at least on LCSC the PY32F002AL15S6TU seems to actually be the cheapest currently (ranging from $0.1294 each for 5-50 to $0.083 each for 5000+), whereas couldn't find any CH32V003s for 9 cents: the cheapest is the CH32V003J4M6 at $0.2145 each for 5-50 or $0.1035 each for 5000+

maybe it is available for 9 cents elsewhere though, I only looked on LCSC and the article doesn't specify where

@cwebber And there’s even a cheap dev board:

https://aliexpress.com/item/1005009868787155.html

And not too hard to solder chips (1.27 mm pitch, though I read with this one you can’t use hardware SPI because it’s missing the SCK pin):

https://aliexpress.com/item/1005007760594316.html

@cwebber Also, while researching the CH32V003, I found this reddit thread with some interesting opinions about a few cheap microcontrollers.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskElectronics/comments/1ap2kuo/ch32v003_good_choice_for_low_performance_arduino/

@oscherler @cwebber

Doesn't ship to Germany.

But can s/o explain, what's the deal with 32bit CPUs with less memory than a C64?