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OA47

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Joined: 11/04/2012
Location: Australia
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Posted: 05:42am 11 Sep 2025

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Just spent the last 3-4 days coding a new project on a PicoVGA connected to TeraTerm and powered by the USB cable. I left it running overnight to see if there were any issues and this morning I was greeted by MSOFT telling me the PC needs a restart. Guess what I did ?
Unfortunately, I have been to used to programming mites and forgot to save the code to flash or the PC so when the PC came back the Pico was blank.

OA47

Mixtel90

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Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8080

Posted: 06:34am 11 Sep 2025

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Oh dear. :(

You will stray from the golden path to true enlightenment though! Such futile actions cannot go unpunished in some way. ;)

It's like nudging the ram pack on a ZX81 when you are just entering the last line of the program that you are copying from a magazine. Only this time you have Microsoft to help. :(

Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs

OA47

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Joined: 11/04/2012
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Posted: 07:00am 11 Sep 2025

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You remind me of the days I had my first 8 bit computer where I would delay the saving of the program until the last minute as it took ages to save on cassette. I vividly remember the sound of thunder in the background and the knowledge that a lightning strike even kilometers away was enough to rest the computer.

OA47

Volhout
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Joined: 05/03/2018
Location: Netherlands
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Posted: 07:10am 11 Sep 2025

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OA47,

If you have ever RUN the program on the PicoVGA, then it is still in flash. Simply open teraterm, and type "LIST", or "F2"(edit)
To erase a program from flash you actively have to execute a "NEW", or update the firmware (i.e. from 5.08.00 to 6.00.03). Otherwise the program is still there.

Regards,

Volhout
Edited 2025-09-11 17:10 by Volhout

PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS

atmega8

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Joined: 19/11/2013
Location: Germany
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Posted: 07:10am 11 Sep 2025

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No backup, no mercy

OA47

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Joined: 11/04/2012
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Posted: 07:31am 11 Sep 2025

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Unfortunately if I list from Teraterm I get nothing. The PicoVGA is running ver 5.0704 and memory reports:
Program:
0K ( 0%) Program (0 lines)
108K (100%) Free

RAM:
0K ( 0%) 0 Variables
0K ( 0%) General
140K (100%) Free

OA47

Volhout
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Posted: 08:06am 11 Sep 2025

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Hi OA47,

Maybe this is the time to upgrade to 6.01.00b11. It is simply 1 button press, and a drag and drop.

I think the earliest ports of MMbasic on RP2040 ran the code in RAM. Maybe 5.07.04 was that early version (although I think 5.07.04 was already flash based). Later versions are running from flash, while maintaining similar speed.

Volhout

PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS

OA47

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Posted: 09:58pm 11 Sep 2025

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As an afterthought, I was wondering as Teraterm was still running after the PC re-boot could I have been able to look at the history and got most of the code back ?

OA47

phil99

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Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 2712

Posted: 11:35pm 11 Sep 2025

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Tested with a Windows restart.
Answer:- No not with TeraTerm 5.2. TeraTerm restarted with an empty buffer.

As for the PicoMite (RP2040 V6.01.00b11) it continued to run its program without a hiccup throughout the restart.

Perhaps a Windows Update is different. If it starts the virtual com port at 1200 baud the Pico would go into Firmware Update mode. If Windows sees that as a corrupt USB drive it may try to "repair" it.

phil99

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Posted: 02:00am 13 Sep 2025

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Tested with Windows Update.
Pico connected to TeraTerm and program running then let Windows do the update.
Once again the PicoMite continued to run its program without a hiccup throughout the update.
So what happened to yours remains a mystery.

OA47

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Posted: 02:15am 13 Sep 2025

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Phil, I did notice an error message from mmbasic during both of the re-boots of the PC but they were only visable for a split second and I could not interpret them.

OA47
Edited 2025-09-13 12:16 by OA47

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