World’s tiniest Mac Plus has ESP32 inside

Steve's voyage to Lilliput may not be exactly the kind of applications for which the ESP-32 SoC was designed, but it deserves two minutes of your attention. A 5-cm-high fully-functional Macintosh Plus computer runs on an Espressif ESP-32 Wrover module, and is housed in a 3D-printed exact scale model of the original case.

ESP32 Wrover Macintosh Plus Elektor This may not be exactly the kind of applications for which the ESP32 SoC was designed, but it deserves two minutes of your attention. A 5-cm-high fully-functional Macintosh Plus computer runs on an Espressif ESP32 Wrover module, and is housed in a 3D-printed exact scale model of the original case. Master of the (Playing) Cards is Jeroen Domburg.

Steve's voyage to Lilliput

If there is a universal and inexpensive circuit for the Internet of Things applications, it must be the ESP32, or a look-alike. But IoT is just one side of the world that the powerful assets of ESP32 (3,50€!) make available to you. The latest avatars of this system-on-chip (SOC) are the ESP-Wroom-32 and the ESP-Wrover kit, where the W reminds us of the importance of both the web (www) and wireless communication (Wi-Fi & Bluetooth).

The ESP-WROOM-32 (25 x 18 mm) combines on a tiny board a ESP32 SoC, flash memory, discrete precision components and a printed radio antenna. The hardware is open and the radio circuit is certified for commercial applications. Here it emulates the 68000 microprocessor used during the 80's in Apple's Macintosh Plus, Sinclair's QL or Commodore's Amiga. Oh, I almost forgot to mention the Atari ST and a few more...

Fast, smart and versatile

The ESP-WROVER-KIT complements the ESP32 characteristics by offering an on-board high-speed Micro-SD card interface, VGA camera interface, as well as a 3.2” SPI LCD panel and I/O expansion capabilities. It integrates a USB debugger, as well. This makes debugging and tracing complex applications very easy, without the need for any additional hardware. For the above application, the only thing missing is the magnifier, indispensable to read the lilliputian monitor.

Built-in USB-JTAG Debugger

ESP-WROVER-Kit targets the high performance requirements with 4.5 MB of RAM and a dual core 240 MHz CPU. Create Internet cameras, smart displays or Internet radios with this highly integrated ultra low power module by connecting LCDs, cameras, microphones and codecs to it.