Show HN: EndBOX DIY Kit – A Basic Microcomputer

1. Introduction
2. DIY Hardware
   1. The standard model
   2. The micro model
3. Preparing the EndBOX OS disk image
   1. Windows
   2. macOS
   3. Linux, BSDs, and more
4. System configuration
   1. CONFIG.BAS: Console configuration
   2. CONFIG.BAS: WiFi networks
   3. AUTOEXEC.BAS: Autorun
5. Backing up your data
6. What about x86?
7. Telemetry

The EndBOX is a retro minicomputer designed to run EndBASIC. There are no prebuilt machines for sale at this point, but you can build your own with the DIY instructions in this page.

The standard model

The EndBOX I is a tablet-like device with a full 7" 1024x600 HDMI display, USB and GPIO ports, and Ethernet and WiFi connectivity for optional cloud access.

A custom-built EndBOX I.

You need the following parts for this build:

• Raspberry Pi 3 B+
• CanaKit 5V 2.5A Power Supply
• microSD card of at least 1 GB
• Micro USB splitter
• 1024x600 7-inch HDMI display

You can optionally replace the Raspberry Pi 3 B+ with the Pi Zero 2 WH listed in the micro model below.

As for the case, you can contact me and I might be able to get one 3D-printed and shipped to you. Details to be arranged.

The micro model

The EndBOX I Micro is a pocket-size device with an SPI-attached 1.44" 128x128 LCD display, a micro-USB port, and WiFi connectivity for optional cloud access.

A custom-built EndBOX I Micro.

You need the following parts for this build:

• Raspberry Pi Zero 2 WH (WiFi + pre-soldered GPIO headers!)
• CanaKit 5V 2.5A Power Supply
• microSD card of at least 1 GB
• waveshare 1.44inch LCD Display HAT 128x128
• Micro USB to USB A adapter (optional)
• Mini HDMI to HDMI adapter (optional)

As for the case, you can contact me and I might be able to get one 3D-printed and shipped to you. Details to be arranged.

First of all:

Download the EndBOX OS evbarm-aarch64 image

One you have the image, perform the following steps depending on your host system.

Windows

Use Rufus to write the EndBOX OS disk image to the microSD card. Once you have downloaded and installed Rufus, insert the microSD card into your computer, launch Rufus, and:

1. Select the microSD card from the Device dropdown menu.
2. Click SELECT and locate the EndBOX OS disk image you downloaded earlier.
3. Click START and wait for the process to complete.

Select the downloaded image and the target device in Rufus.

After writing the image, Windows will auto-mount the boot partition of the device as a drive with the label ENDBOX. If you open the drive in Explorer, you should see something like this:

After writing the image, you will see an ENDBOX drive.

Within the ENDBOX drive, you will find a home directory where you can tweak configuration files before the first boot. See the System configuration section below for details. This directory will also contain any .BAS files you create from within EndBASIC.

The home directory contains configuration files you can edit as well as any programs you create.

macOS

Writing the image on macOS requires using the command line because the Disk Utility does not recognize the raw disk image format.

First, insert the microSD card and open the Disk Utility application to find the name of the disk. If you select the disk, the device name you’ll see is what you need to use; if you select a volume within the disk, you will need to strip its “slice number”. For example, the screenshot below shows that I selected a volume and that its name is disk2s1, so the corresponding disk is disk2.

Use Disk Utility to find the device name for the microSD card.

Second, unmount all volumes from the disk so that you can write to it. You can do this from Disk Utility or by running sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/diskN in the Terminal, replacing diskN with the name you found above.

Third, write the image to the disk using dd. In a Terminal, run: sudo dd if=path/to/endbox-os.img of=/dev/rdiskN bs=1m. Replace diskN with the disk name you found before. The dd command will not show any progress, so be patient.

WARNING: This command is very dangerous. If you specify the wrong of= parameter, you will lose data.

Sample sequence of commands to write the disk image to the microSD card from the terminal.

Finally, once dd completes, you can remove and reinsert the microSD card. The disk will mount automatically and you will be able to tweak configuration files inside the home directory. See the System configuration section below for details. This directory will also contain any .BAS files you create from within EndBASIC.

The home directory contains configuration files you can edit as well as any programs you create.

Linux, BSDs, and more

The process on Linux and BSDs is analogous to the one on macOS.

First, find the device name for your microSD card. You can typically do this by inspecting the output of dmesg after you plug the card in or by looking at the output of lsblk on Linux.

Second, make sure the device is unmounted. For example, if the card is /dev/sdc and it was automounted as /dev/sdc1, run sudo umount /dev/sdc1.

Third, write the image using dd: sudo dd if=path/to/endbox-os.img of=/dev/sdN bs=1M.

WARNING: This command is very dangerous. If you specify the wrong of= parameter, you will lose data.

Finally, once dd completes, you can mount the first partition on the device to access the home directory and tweak configuration files. See the System configuration section below for details.

The EndBOX OS reads two configuration files during startup:

• LOCAL:/CONFIG.BAS: Sets system configuration properties. These include details on which console to use and which WiFi networks to connect to.
• LOCAL:/AUTOEXEC.BAS: Commands to run once the system is up.

Both of these files can be edited from within the EndBOX, but they can also be edited from the system you use to write the SD card—including Windows and macOS machines. You’ll find these files under the home directory, and you can choose to edit them before EndBOX’s first boot to customize settings.

CONFIG.BAS: Console configuration

The console string variable specifies which console device to use and any optional parameters you may want to pass to configure the device.

Here are some examples:

• console = "wscons": Configures the graphical console on the HDMI output. This is the default setting.
• console = "wscons:fg_color=11,bg_color=4,font=16x16: Configures the graphical console on the HDMI output and changes the default color scheme to be yellow-on-blue and the font to be larger. This makes the console look like the one in the Amstrad CPC 6128.
• console = "st7735s": Configures the graphical console on the ST7735S 1.44" LCD display. You need to set this value for the EndBOX I Micro build.

Beware that any mistakes in this configuration setting could render the system unusable. Should that happen, attach the SD card to your desktop or laptop and modify the CONFIG.BAS file from there to restore service.

CONFIG.BAS: WiFi networks

The wifi_networks array determines which WiFi networks are available for connection. You’ll need to set this up if you want to use cloud-based file sharing.

Each entry in wifi_networks is a pair of the network’s SSID name and the password. If the password is left unset, then the network is assumed to not require authentication.

Here is an example of how to configure both a public and a private network:

WiFi networks with captive login portals are not supported.

AUTOEXEC.BAS: Autorun

If you are building an “appliance-like” device intended to run just one EndBASIC program, you can leverage AUTOEXEC.BAS to do so: simply add RUN "THE-PROGRAM.BAS" at the end of the file to automatically launch such program.

To back up any programs you create on an EndBOX device, you have two choices.

The first and easiest option is to leverage the cloud file sharing service, which requires setting up WiFi access as described earlier. When the WiFi is configured, you can simply save your programs to the CLOUD: drive and they will be off-device.

The second option is to attach the SD card to your desktop or laptop machine. Any files you have to the LOCAL: drive within the EndBOX will be available in the home directory of the SD card.

If you have made it this far and are wondering if you can run the EndBOX OS on an Intel/AMD x86-64 machine, well, you can! There is a build that should work on most hardware, although this is only generally tested within QEMU.

If you want to try it out:

Download the EndBOX OS amd64 image

Then follow similar steps to the ones above to write the image to a USB stick and… figure out how to get your BIOS/EFI to boot from it.

If connected to the Internet, the EndBOX OS generates a unique and random identifier for the system and emits a few anonymous metrics. These are:

• The EndBOX OS release in use.
• The architecture of the machine.
• The console subsystem selected in CONFIG.BAS.
• A periodic ping to calculate uptime.