Xous security focused open source on 22nm custom silicon

After two quiet years, the Xous team just pulled a rabbit out of a chip: a custom, security‑minded processor (Baochip‑1x) and a $9 “Dabao” board built to run it. The community is buzzing less about specs and more about trust. The chip’s package is polished so you can literally peek inside using IRIS‑style inspection—think “don’t just trust, verify.” Fans cheered the move away from pricey hardware (Precursor was ~$600), and the release notes scream “no drama” for existing users, but the comment section said otherwise.

One user discovered the concept of a warrant canary—a public “we have not been gagged” signal—and shared baochip.com and the Wikipedia page, fueling a whole mini‑lesson in privacy. Another commenter dropped a beginner’s guide: Baochip is an open RISC‑V (an open chip design) with a memory manager, “hitchhiked” on another company’s system‑on‑chip, with extra parts disabled—plus Xous is the OS and Precursor was the earlier, DIY‑friendly gadget. A linked YouTube talk kept the nerds fed. Then the drama: skeptics dunked on 22nm manufacturing and modest cores, asking “is this slow?” while defenders shot back that speed isn’t the point—security and transparency are. Meanwhile, makers are hyped about the open “BIO” programmable IO (like Raspberry Pi’s PIO, but open) and a VS Code plugin (“baochip”) that screams “plug in and play.” Jokes flew: “my toaster has more nanometers,” “can I pay in canaries?” and “$9? Take my money.”