____ FRST Public Alpha ________________________________________________

                        Released April 2026
                         Version 1.0.0-alpha

The FRST Computer Public Alpha is the first public release of the
FRST CyberTerminal firmware.  It was shown at VCF East 2026 and is
now available as source and prebuilt binaries for anyone who wants
to build one.


What's in the Alpha
-------------------

  ZRC shell          rc-flavoured shell, ~60 builtins, pipes,
                     functions, glob, if/while/for/switch
  9P namespace       mount, bind, unmount — local and remote
                     filesystems under one tree
  E-ink terminal     800x480 partial-refresh rendering, 3 fonts,
                     full CP437 character set
  Editors            ed, sam, vi, se (structural), inline sed
  Networking         gopher (PBM images inline), telnet, finger,
                     raw TCP/serial via con
  Data crystal       BLE 9P server for WiFi bridge, time sync,
                     BBS hosting
  Games              Zork, Lost Pig (Z-machine), Apple 1 (65C02),
                     Tetris, Chess, Blackjack, ZZT, Snake, and more
  pForth             Forth interpreter with filesystem I/O
  Job control        Ctrl-Z / fg for suspending full-screen apps
  Aether Chat        LoRa mesh messaging between decks
  Boot time          ~4 seconds cold


Getting the Source
------------------

The source tarball is available at:

  gopher://frstcomputer.com/  (this gopher hole)
  https://frstcomputer.com/downloads/

The tarball includes:

  - Full source code (MIT licensed, except Frotz which is GPL)
  - Prebuilt Model 4 binaries (Waveshare ESP32-S3-DEV-KIT-N8R8)
  - Build instructions (BUILDING.md)
  - Hardware reference (docs/MODEL4.md, docs/WIRING_GUIDE.md)
  - Release notes (CHANGELOG.md)
  - Roadmap (ROADMAP.md)

If you have a Waveshare N8R8 devkit, a 7.5" Gooddisplay e-ink
panel, and a Waveshare SX1262 LoRa module, you can build a deck.
See docs/MODEL4.md for the full BOM.


Known Issues
------------

  - Internal RAM (DRAM) is completely full.  Adding features
    requires moving things to external PSRAM first.
  - Multiple BLE 9P peripherals in range can slow keyboard
    discovery.  A session-level blacklist helps but the real
    fix requires advertising-layer changes.
  - The e-ink display can wedge after a warm reset if an SPI
    transfer was interrupted.  Full power cycle clears it.
  - Full display refresh takes ~2.5 seconds; partial refresh
    (~200ms) is used for most interactive work.


What's Next
-----------

See ROADMAP.md in the source tarball, or type `p /roadmap` on
your deck if you have one.

Short version: VT100 terminal emulator, regex engine, JPEG in
gopher, wired keyboard support, and — eventually — a proper PCB.


Contact
-------

  BBS       bbs.frstcomputer.net
  Gopher    gopher://frstcomputer.com/
  Web       https://frstcomputer.com
  GitHub    https://github.com/jrsharp/frst


                          See you on the mesh.
