Something I’d buy, and that the Raspberry Pi almost might have been, is a computer running a “retro OS” (instantly boots, BASIC-like commands, direct access to hardware) on a semi-modern ARM chip with a few megs of RAM and HDMI out. That would be fun to tinker with and program for.

The problem with this is that it’s so incredibly hard to do anything in 8-bit, I can’t imagine many people going to all that trouble if they’re not even getting the badge of honor if running on real retro hardware.