PasocomMini will come with SmileBASIC

Took a look at the SmileBASIC Japanese site earlier and found http://smilebasic.com/pcmini/ which refers to https://www.pcmini.jp/ It looks like HAL Laboratories (the same people that brought you Kirby) are making a mini-computer based on the Raspberry Pi Model A, which will run SmileBASIC and a MZ-80C emulator. This means that we'll finally have a better way to figure out SmileBASIC's internals, since it's not as difficult to decompile a Linux ELF as SmileBASIC's .code.bin. Maybe we'll finally be able to crack the SmileBASIC file format's footer.

Ooh, it will run on Linux? Now I'm curious. Though, it's very possible this will be a different/tweaked version of SB, or the internals will at least be different (different hardware, after all.) Taking a cursory glance at the manual tells me this is the case. Nothing short of a miracle if this leaves Japan though.

I'm guessing it's mostly identical to SB, with a few extra features.

Looks like it will come out in the middle of the 10th month of 2017.

https://twitter.com/notohoho/status/920152057264226305 Its finally out in the land of Rising Sun. Looks pretty neat if impractical for programming. (want to see if cassette deck works mostly)

The cassette deck is just for looks, according to reviews. It looks like you can actually open it and take the little plastic cassette out if you want, though, which is kinda fun.

I hope this is released outside of Japan...

https://twitter.com/notohoho/status/920152057264226305 Its finally out in the land of Rising Sun. Looks pretty neat if impractical for programming. (want to see if cassette deck works mostly)

It would be really interesting if someone hacked a microcassette deck into one of these things. Doesn't it have GPIO?

Man, I want one of these so bad. A product made by HAL *and* SmileBOOM? Yes please!

Dang! If anyone figures out how to buy one of these things let me know. It looks like the only way to get international shipping is to call them and I doubt they have a press two for English.

I found a Japanese article that claims "The emulator (microcomputer mini) saved in microSD is licensed only to Raspberry Pi set in the product. (It seems that it will not start on other Raspberry Pi)". Apparently, it will require work to get the image to boot on your own Pi, which sucks. It also looks like it has a Raspberry Pi 1.1 Model A+, which is a $25 board. And given the price their charging for this thing, it's pretty much a rip-off.

Well that's a bummer. Still pretty cool that they designed a version of Smilebasic for an FPGA and threw in the ability to play with the IO pins. If anyone else wants to throw away a bunch of money, I managed to order one using whiterabbitexpress.com as a proxy for the shipping.

How much does it cost anyway?

$175

Oh, that's not THAT bad. EDIT: Does that include shipping costs?

Well that's a bummer. Still pretty cool that they designed a version of Smilebasic for an FPGA and threw in the ability to play with the IO pins. If anyone else wants to throw away a bunch of money, I managed to order one using whiterabbitexpress.com as a proxy for the shipping.

The RPi isn't an FPGA though, it's an ARM based computer

I spent an extra $20 on the white rabbit express service and another $20 on expedited shipping. I don't mean to belittle the PI. I just see GPIO and label it an FPGA.

I spent an extra $20 on the white rabbit express service and another $20 on expedited shipping. I don't mean to belittle the PI. I just see GPIO and label it an FPGA.

An FPGA is an integrated circuit that contains programmable logic gates, if you want anything to run in an FPGA you usually would code it in a hardware description language and load that into the FPGA. Essentially, an FPGA is used for developing hardware since it acts as an actual integrated circuit would using your specifications. The Raspberry Pi is not this. It is simply a personal computer. It has an ARM microprocessor, video and audio ports, USB ports, WiFi and Bluetooth, etc. The code ran on a Pi is software. You typically, at least to my knowledge, wouldn't distribute hardware with an FPGA in it. FPGAs are used for designing hardware that you then get manufactured as a real chip. While Raspberry Pis can just be reprogrammed at your leisure since it's all software.

I'm glad you nerds are having fun with this lol. Just saying, that's pretty nifty that you can program the GPIO from inside Smilebasic.