Indeed, 264KB is super luxurious for a M0 class device. For measure, I recently fit an IPv4 stack (UDP, IP, DHCP, AutoIP), USB MIDI device stack and audio processing threads with 35ms audio buffer in ~90KiB RAM (M4 class device).

RAM for microcontrollers is another name for cache on our modern processors, and even today we only measure that in megabytes since it takes up a ton of silicon area.

This device doesn’t do video but for a computer like device you’d want it to drive a 1920x1080 display, which is about 6 mb of framebuffer already. And then you need content to put on it.

While your point in general stands, I do want to point out that 1080p video from a RP2040 has actually been done, and is mind-blowing.

https://youtu.be/mjFwR3feyV0

This definitely isn't the sort of programming where you can just wastefully allocate ram for a full uncompressed frame buffer, but that also opens the door to sub-frame latencies.

I don't have the need for a FHD display driven by a MCU, but 'racing-the-beam' seems feasible with a RP2040.

(which would allow using the screen at high resolution for, say, game graphics -- actual video is a different story)

the chip can do some video, but low res:

- https://excamera.com/sphinx/store.html#gameduino-3x-dazzler-... - https://www.adafruit.com/product/4984

Nah, for C64 or SAM coupé class hardware would be quite alright.