Re: Easy way to use contemporary machine as fileserver for C64

Following your note, I looked at the BB, but the normal unit is somewhat 
expensive, and the cheapest option I could find (a Pocket Beagle), is 
still USD$24 in singles.  Not horrible, but not awesome.

However, the PRU idea is a good one.  I have a small itch to scratch 
here that demands something more than the Arduino/AVR solutions can 
handle, and I've been playing with the Espressif ESP32, successor to the 
ESP8266.  Initial efforts to do real time stuff in the ESP32, while 
continuing to have FreeRTOS available and such, have been hit/miss, but 
I thought about tying a MEGA168 to the ESP32 in the same manner as the 
BB and the PRUs.  In that way, you'd have the flexibility of the ESP32 
(Wifi, Bluetooth, 3 serial ports, etc.) at a cheap price, but also have 
the 5V IO, large code library, and real time low level functionality of 
the Arduino or raw AVR.

Jim