“So back to this £3.80 RPi Pico microcontroller board: The RP2040’s 264KB of RAM gives a lot to play with after carving out the Mac’s 128KB”
In 1984 the Mac cost roughly a third of a VW Golf. Now a £3.80 Pico emulates the whole thing, drives VGA, takes a USB keyboard and mouse, and holds the OS and apps in 2MB of flash. It runs MacDraw, MacWrite and MacPaint at the speed of the real machine. Forty years of progress fits in a part you can lose in your pocket.