ESPPC

v0.8

An IBM PC/XT on the ESP32: CGA, EGA or Tandy 1000 video on a VGA monitor, Tandy sound and an AdLib, disk images on the SD card or downloaded over Wi-Fi.

Your browser cannot flash from the web. Use a current Firefox, Chrome or Edge on a desktop computer. Flashing needs a secure connection (https).

Older ESP32, before revision 3?

The first install offers to erase the board. Do that when it ran other firmware before. When updating ESPPC, leave it unticked: your Wi-Fi and settings are kept. The flash file system is always rewritten, so a rescue disk you put there yourself has to be uploaded again.

You need

An ESP32 board with PSRAM, an SD card slot, VGA and PS/2, such as the Olimex ESP32-SBC-FabGL (tested) or a TTGO VGA32 v1.4.
A current Firefox, Chrome or Edge on a desktop computer. Safari cannot talk to serial ports.
A USB cable that carries data, not only power.

Which build?

The main build is for ESP32s of revision 3 and later, which have the PSRAM bug of the earlier ones fixed in the chip: WROVER-E modules and nearly everything sold since 2020. Older chips, such as on WROVER-B modules, need the build with the workaround, which is a little slower. If the board stays dark after installing the main build, it is an older chip. esptool.py chip_id tells the revision too.

How it goes

Plug the board into the computer.
Click Install ESPPC and choose the board's serial port (on Linux ttyUSB0 or ttyACM0).
Wait for the flashing to finish, about a minute.
Connect the monitor and keyboard, put in an SD card and reset the board. It asks for your Wi-Fi on the first start. F6 on the machine list adds ready made machines from a repository, for example http://lionscade.de/pcimages.

On Linux, if the port does not show up or cannot be opened, add yourself to the dialout group (on Arch: uucp) and log in again.