Cheap but RISC-y

If you need a reminder of just how fast things move in the tech world, look no further than the TinyBasRV microcomputer created by GitHub user Stan6314. In terms of raw computing power, TinyBasRV may look more like an 8-bit machine from the early days of personal computing than anything modern, but you won’t need to lay out the thousands of dollars it once cost for that level of performance. In fact, just a few dollars is enough to buy one of these fully-functional, standalone computers.

The computer is built around the super-cheap 32-bit, RISC-V CH32V003 microcontroller. User programs are stored in a serial EEPROM chip accessed via I2C. Thanks to a PS/2 connector for a keyboard and a VGA connector for a monitor, you will not need to access the machine from another computer through UART — it can operate completely independently. A tiny speaker even allows the TinyBasRV to play some simple musical tones.

The computer gets its name from the operating system that Stan6314 has loaded onto it — Tiny BASIC. The BASIC programming language may have been dethroned long ago, but it is still a great way to quickly code up some simple programs, especially if you are in the mood for some retro computing.

Aside from the components previously mentioned, you will also need to have a small PCB manufactured that will need a handful of passive components sprinkled around on it. The computer also requires a 5V power supply as well as a WCHLinkE programmer for programming the microcontroller.

Between the low cost and the simplicity of the design, just about anyone interested in electronics should be able to build their own TinyBasRV without too much trouble. Stan6314 has provided plenty of documentation to make the process as simple as possible, and the entire project has been released under a permissive GPL-3.0 license. Perhaps the best part of all is that Tiny BASIC versions of the snake game and Tetris have been included in an image that can be flashed to the EEPROM.