I've got one of these boards kicking around:

https://core-electronics.com.au/realtek-ameba-board.html

ARM Cortex-M3 CPU, wifi, my board has the NFC, there is one that looks like
a NodeMCU, it has basic features. I've not used the smaller board.

I'm using an Arduino bootloader on my Ameba for now, its able to have the
flash ROM mounted, and the Arduino toolchain copies the compiled firmware
file over, a bit like the Freescale Kinetis "Freedom" boards I was using in
2013. There is a JTAG port, non-populated, I don't have the JTAG programmer
- of course.

This board with an Inferno system on it, and perhaps an SPI LCD driver,
would be awesome. I see now the Nextion HMI LCDs are a serial port
controlled affair, you upload your graphics and all that to the micro SD
card as *another* compiled firmware. I was going to source a Nextion HMI
along with a Cytron motor driver late next week from Western Australia, no
holding my breath on when it'll turn up however.

The board and screen assembly is meant to go into a control head project
for a potentially remotely controlled ride in locomotive, a grid operating
system would be perfect for what I'm trying to accomplish. It will have CAN
Bus, RS485, Dallas One Wire, et al, all embedded type communications
standards, and be a rather souped up PLC type affair.

Except I have little idea of how to port anything. I guess I could go back
to the work done on Lynxline, and try to replicate it somehow, I believe I
read Charles report done for him on Vita Nuova about the Styx on a Brick,
I'd gotten rid of my Lego RIS2.0 many years before I saw that report,
shame. The "Brick" was quite limited, so is 9Pea on ATMega, iirc...

My $0.02 likely not worth $0.02 due to inflation. Happy New Year all!

On Mon, Jan 1, 2018 at 8:05 AM, hiro <23hiro@gmail.com> wrote:

> > I started porting a 9p library and writing an fs for esp8266 using
> > espressif sdk, but stopped once I found out tls1.2 isn't supported (not
> > fixable; bug in firmware).
> > I think esp32 is a better choice, but then, why not use rpi-zero or other
> > ARM, MIPS devices. Arguments for esp32 for power budget reasons might be
> > exaggerated a little (see
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDpuBJYFJ7Y&t=131s
> > )
> > there is also proprietary firmware involved.
> >
> > In my opinion, esp8266 should be categorized as an "attractive nuisance".
>
> what about esp8266's power usage? is *that* lower? why does it take 4!
> seconds to send data?!
>
>