Olimex Unveils the RP2350pc, a Retro-Styled Single-Board Computer Powered by Raspberry Pi's RP2350B
Released, as always, under an open source license, the new machine includes work-in-progress emulators and a BIOS-like API.
Bulgarian open hardware specialist Olimex has launched a new single-board computer, built with emulation and education firmly in mind: the RP2350pc, powered by Raspberry Pi's RP2350B microcontroller.
"RP2350pc is perfect to build [a] retro-like Arm/RISC-V computer with keyboard and TV for games and education," says Olimex's Tsvetan Usunov of his latest board design. "Veselin Sladkov’s Reload emulator support for RP2350pc is [a] work in progress and will allow Apple ][, Oric Atmos, and Puldin 601 [a Bulgarian home computer] emulation. Paul Robson works on [an] RP2350pc API [Application Programming Interface] which will allow compilers and OS [Operating Systems] to be created with [a] unified PI (BIOS [Basic Input/Output System])."
The new board is similar in concept to Usunov's earlier RVPC, a RISC-V single-board computer built around the ultra-low-cost WCH Electronics CH32V003 microcontroller. Where the RVPC has a relatively limited feature set, in order to keep its price to just €1 (around $1.18), the RP2350pc is a more powerful machine — thanks in no small part to its Raspberry Pi RP2350B microcontroller which includes the user's choice of any two cores from a pair of Arm Cortex-M33s or a pair of free and open source RISC-V Hazard3s, all running at a stock up-to-150MHz.
The RP2350B also includes digital signal processing (DSP) and cryptographic acceleration for the Arm cores and 520kB of static RAM (SRAM), to which Olimex has added a generous 8MB of pseudo-static RAM (PSRAM) plus 16MB of off-chip flash memory. The board brings out four USB Type-A ports, an HDMI-compatible DVI video and audio output, analog audio in and out with an integrated amplifier, microSD Card storage, and two of the company's in-house UEXT connectors for solderless expansion. There's also support for an optional lithium-polymer battery, which runs as an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) — recharged by a USB Type-C power input, which also doubles as a programming port.
Olimex has launched the RP2350pc on its official web store at just €24.95 (around $29.50); as with Usunov's other creations, the RP2350pc is open hardware with KiCad project files available on GitHub under the strongly reciprocal version of the CERN Open Hardware License Version 2.