29th December 2024
OpenSCAD
I’ve started sketching out a design with actual sizes in OpenSCAD to see if the desired components actually fit into the case:
2024 at Ashet Technologies
About this Devlog
This devlog contains reports about progress in the project. It does not cover everything that has happened, but it’s a heartbeat that shows how the project progresses over time.
This page lists entries for the year 2024, for future entries consult the devlog archive.
Entries
All of these posts were pulled from the Discord server and were converted into the devlog in March 2026.
25th December 2024
Christmas Crafting Days!
I create a cardboard prototype of what i envision the computer to look like. it’s slightly too short on the top-right dimension, but apart from that i’m pretty happy with the overall layout.
Modules left to right:
- Mainboard with display, two buttons, USB-C for programming/debugging and USB-A for devices
- High-end video card with HDMI, VGA and RCA/CVBS
- Stereo audio in/out with audio on pairs of RCA
- 4-port USB card
- 2-port RS-232
- 2-port C64 serial
- DIY board with a perfboard inside
- Digital and analog I/O on pin headers
I wasn’t aware how good of a design this was, and now, two years later, it still holds.
The final design doesn’t derive much from the christmas vision at all.
21st November 2024
Brainstorming a case design
In the last weeks, not much coding was going on, but i’ve sketched out the case for the home computer:
The mug is the IKEA standard mug, for size reference. The computer will get 7 expansion slots, one which can do video, and one which can do audio.
In hindsight, it’s fun to remember that the computer originally was planned vertically like a typical PC system.
Also the merge of the dedicated audio/video slots into the first two generic slots happened in the first two months of the design.
Back then, the system still was intended to use dedicated USB, I²C and SPI per slot instead of using the Propeller 2 as a general purpose interface.
5th September 2024
The beginning of a new era
I was tinkering on the idea of the Ashet Home Computer for a long time, but with the announcement of the Raspberry Pi Pico 2, the project suddenly got a real, exciting chance to get reality.
The RP2350 totally hit my desired target specs:
- 150 MHz RISC-V CPU
- Support for up to 16 MB of RAM
- Video output through PIO and HSTX
One thing led to another and after cooking on the idea for over a month in my head, i’ve started tinkering.
The Ashet Home Computerâ„¢, Mark 4 design idea was born.
This is a rough sketch of the mainboard, and it’s all built around the absent RP2350 Stamp XL, which should be possible to clip into the large hole in the middle:
The initial design featured 9 expansion ports:
- 1 dedicated video expansion card port
- 1 dedicated audio expansion card port
- 7 regular expansion card ports
It also had mountable slots for flash and RAM chips.
Shout-out to Arturo from Solder Party for coming up so quickly with the Stamp XL design!