Puppy for Makers

[Volhout]

2 or 3 decades ago (yes I am that old) there was a very driven Maker Scene. That is at least how you would call it in now-adays terms.
People with IBM PC's (running DOS or early windows) or with Commodore 64's where making their projects by controlling external hardware through serial port, parallel port, or even developed IO cards.

I was similar involved at that time, and some of my friends where. But these simple hardware interfaces have disappeared. I even hear people paying gold money for old 386 and 486 computers because their model railway software (and the zillion hours spend to create it) won't run on modern hardware.

The "modern" Maker Scene uses raspberry pi's, and arduino's for projects. They are cheap, but not always the best solution.
- arduino: you still need a PC to write code, memory limitted, IDE = arduino.
- raspberry PI: before you are up and running, you have a desktop full of cables.

I am envisioning a project where a small ive distribution (read "Puppy Linux") can transform any PC or laptop in a Maker Station.
All you need is an IO board (in simplest form this can be a $3 Arduino connected to the USB port, running some code that translates serial commands into IO).

I can even imagine IO through ethernet, maybe using a MODBUS TCP alike protocol.

You only need a develoment environment that is relatively simple (BaCon ? C ?) and can be expanded by IO drivers (as mentioned above).

Can we transform the Maker Scene by creating a Puppy that does this ?

Remarks
1/ For Raspberry PI there is something like "Return to Basic" that uses a "wiringPi" library to talk to an Arduino for IO. But again...Raspberry PI starts out with a desk full of cables. I picture this in a laptop.
2/ I am aware there was a Python puppy developed 3 years ago. Python could also be an option.