Meatloaf (C64) / FujiNet (Atari, others)

One of the devices that gets part way to IsacKuo’s inexpensive flash storage solution for Commodores is Jaime Idolpx’s Meatloaf. It’s an impressive use of an ESP32 board to provide an Internet-connected disk drive plus local program storage on µSD card. It requires very little additional hardware as the ESP32 is 5V logic tolerant.

It extends the C64 by adding JSON parsing to the network interface, so there are already several web apps communicating through Commodore BASIC.

The downside that it’s currently serial IEC only, which means that transfers are going to be … unhurried, at best.

FujiNet is a similar project, but with a much larger cross-platform scope (Atari 8-bit, Apple II/III, Tandy CoCo). It’s a bit less DIY than Meatloaf, though.

Maybe it’s worth reimplementing the GPIB/IEEE-488 stack, maybe reusing what’s found on the PET and its parallel implementation? (Meaning, there’s already a solution, which should be widely compatible to BASIC.) A cartridge could override the buil-in ROM…

True, but that’s much more expensive/complicated. I’ve seen Meatloafs that were ESP32 boards soldered directly to half of a Commodore serial cable, plus an SD card and micro-USB cable for power. That’s it.