[exged]

Almost everything has at least an 8-bit MCU now. 32-bit MCUs are also extremely common now, and even simple ones like the ARM Cortex-M0 are competitive with a 286/386 (albeit with less memory / no MMU).

A rather surprising number of devices run very powerful application processors. An amusing example is Apple's Lightning to HDMI adapter, which has an ARM SoC with 256MB of RAM and boots a Darwin kernel in order to decode a H.264 compressed video protocol. Depending on what exactly they put into it (wouldn't be surprised if they borrowed the Apple TV chip for a relatively low-volume product like this) it may be more powerful than a fairly recent computer.

[daniellarusso]

The first time I saw that adapter and realized it was basically an external video card, not a pin breakout, very eye-opening.

[pabs3]

Has anyone tried to run Linux on that Apple adapter?

[sunpazed]

Obligatory “can it run DOOM?”

[sunpazed]

Looks like this dev has patched the HW and has shell access https://twitter.com/nyan_satan/status/1322329047779713024?s=...

[buildbot]

That’s delightful!

Anyone want to buy a few and make the first cluster of HDMI adapters?

[reaperducer]

Obligatory “can it run DOOM?”

Imagine a beowulf cluster of them.