Show HN: Instant-on tiny ESP32 PC with an editor, compiler, and apps installer

7 points

4 months ago

This started as a "cyberdeck" style crafts project using ESP32-S3, for some retro coding. Then I got carried away and wrote a self-hosted mini C compiler for it. Now I published the whole system that runs it. The core reusable parts are also packaged in Espressif Components Registry as "BreezyBox".

So far, this platform lives up to my dreams: instant on, snappy when optimized, flexible with resource allocation.

I upgraded to a bigger screeen: Waveshare ESP32-S3-Touch-LCD-7B, 7", 1024x600. It takes some effort to drive it with good speed on the S3, but this sort of challenge is exactly why I started this project, so I am having fun.

It captures a lot of the old school DOS era coding experience. I created a custom fast text mode driver, plan to add VGA-like graphics next. ANSI text demos run smooth, as you can see in the demo video featured in the Readme.

App installs also work smoothly. The first time it installed 6 apps from my git repo with one command, felt like, "OMG, I got homebrew to run on a toaster!" And best of all, it can install from any repo, no approvals or waiting, you just publish a compatible ELF file in your release.

It is something like Raspberry Pi, but without the overhead of a full server-grade OS.

Repo: [https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo/](https://github.com/valdanylchuk/breezydemo/)

If you like small elegant systems that punch above their weight, consider trying this sort of setup! It is surprisingly capable.