This sort of thing is not uncommon in the embedded space. Lots of devices basically built on a DSP with a tiny arm core tacked on the handle application logic
There were many X terminals running off nothing but a Texas 34010, which was a very DSP-like CPU that ended up in a lot of high-end graphics acceleration boards for PCs and Macs (and Unix workstations).
The fact it could boot up an X server is quite extraordinary.
I wonder what the VideoCore looks like to the programmer.
> Since it was designed explicitly to serve that purpose,
I never imagined that. Now I'm surprised there were no desktop computers based on it. I knew the Intel 860 and 960 were designed as computers and got some usage as that, but I never knew the 34010 and 34020 were like that.
Sidebar but it’s very annoying how it now takes me a moment to think if people are talking about a social media website or an open source graphical server when I see “X” being discussed in a tech context.
There were many X terminals running off nothing but a Texas 34010, which was a very DSP-like CPU that ended up in a lot of high-end graphics acceleration boards for PCs and Macs (and Unix workstations).
The fact it could boot up an X server is quite extraordinary.
I wonder what the VideoCore looks like to the programmer.