The BANDIT PC32 ColorForth Computer Gets a Raspberry Pi RP2350 Upgrade, Goes Up for Pre-Order
With more power under the hood and a central touchscreen display, the retro-styled BANDIT is now up for pre-order at $170.
Mononymous maker Julian, also known as "DSCF," is in the home stretch of the BANDIT project — revealing an upgraded design for the all-in-one colorForth computer, now powered by a Raspberry Pi RP2350 microcontroller, and opening up pre-orders.
"BANDIT is a computer unlike anything you've used before, simple yet powerful, easy to learn and fast to program," Julian claims of the device. "BANDIT makes tasks such as games programming a breeze and a joy. Programmed in BANDIT's ColorForth the speed will blow you away, with instant compilation and instant resume you will find that BANDIT never sleeps and will never lose your work. BANDIT is completely standalone, no PCs or Macs needed."
Julian unveiled an earlier iteration of the BANDIT back in October last year, with early prototypes based on Raspberry Pi's popular and low-cost RP2040 microcontroller — the same chip as powers the Raspberry Pi Pico. The final version of the design, though, shifts to the newer RP2350 — resulting in a big performance boost thanks to faster and more powerful Arm Cortex-M33 cores overclocked to 250MHz and nearly twice the memory with 520kB of on-chip static RAM (SRAM), expanded further by the inclusion of 8MB of battery-backed pseudo-static RAM (PSRAM) and 4MB of QSPI flash.
The redesigned BANDIT includes the same custom keyboard, a split ortholinear design with a fixed grid, but now uses the central gap to host a 3.2" 480×640 color touchscreen display that can act as a primary display or a secondary display when using the device's on-board VGA and HDMI video outputs. The screen can be used at its full resolution or pixel-doubled at 320×240 — while the hardware is capable of pushing 3,000 8×8 sprites at 60 frames per second or over 400 textured triangles at the same rate. There's six-channel FM synthesis and PCM digital sound, Wi-Fi connectivity courtesy of an Espressif ESP8266 coprocessor, and microSD Card storage.
The firmware implements a custom version of colorForth, Charles H. Moore's 1990s expansion to his earlier Forth language from the 1970s. Dubbed PC32 ColorForth, Julian's take on the software will be immediately accessible to anyone who has programmed in colorForth or Forth before but includes features tailored towards use on microcontrollers in general and the BANDIT specifically. In addition to the keyboard and display, the software has already been used to develop games, animations, and even a 3D engine with built-in editor.
Information on the upgraded BANDIT is available on Julian's website, where pre-orders have opened at $169.99 in transparent green, red, blue, and grey finishes.