The People’s Permacomputer Project is, speaking practically, an attempt to distribute BASIC type-in programs that are intended to be printed on paper.
The project has had a meandering pace and direction of research.
Phase one of the project began with an exploration of minimalistic hardware.
Phase two declared that the project had settled on a model piece of hardware to distribute as a preferred platform for software distribution.
Phase three turned to software. The project needed some sort of user operating environment. Idiomatic type-in BASIC from the early days of digital computing became the solution.
Phase four combined the previous phases.