I love the spirit of this so believe me I’m not here to denigrate it. Just sharing anecdote of building one of those “retro style” Linux/pi kits with my kids some years ago. I thought having a bare metal style machine would get them entranced by computers like it did in the early 80s. But you can’t roll back the clock. Kids today live saturated in a computerized and digital world no matter how much we may try to shelter them from it. When I saw a bare DOS prompt at age 7 it felt like all the magic in the world at my fingertips. But not for my kids. What once was science fiction to me is no more amazing to them then the fact that we have 24 hour indoor electric lighting at the touch of a switch. It’s just a different world today.

Creator here!

You're absolutely right! I wasn't there either, and i wouldnt want a terminal-only machine.

My goal is providing means and knowledge to those that want it. The Ashet is more meant for technical schools, apprenticeship and "the interested", and definitly requires an initial spark that will make that project interesting to you.

It's here to fill a (percieved) gap and wants to sit more in the professional education part than the "get the kids to computing".

I'd love to have had such a hands-on device in school instead of the bare theory of circuit operation and basics of programming.