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tgerbic
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Joined: 25/07/2019
Location: United States
Posts: 115

Posted: 06:41am 30 May 2026

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I do not have the hardware right now but hopefully a simple question.

If I boot up a PIC or Pico running MMBasic I will get to the command line. Could I display graphics by just sending immediate commands in sequence to the command line to execute. So in this case I am not actually writing a program and having it render based on commands as usual. I would like to use another program running with another OS to be able to send strings to MMBasic running on a PIC or Pico, such as with an Explore 100 or Picomite card and have the card draw the graphics. Wondering if there is a restriction related to remembering the configuration and not doing something like clearing the screen between commands.

Might seem like an odd question but I think I have an application that could use this. I have never tried this, I would normally write a program to draw some graphics, and don't have hardware immediately available to try this out. If it should work I have some hardware at another location I could get next week.

Touch capability does not have to work, it is just drawing on the LCD.

Thanks

JohnS
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Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4331

Posted: 07:16am 30 May 2026

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The usual (?) way would be for that slave PIC/Pico run a small program reading commands from the master and doing the desired graphics (or other) things.

John

robert.rozee
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Joined: 31/12/2012
Location: New Zealand
Posts: 2526

Posted: 07:57am 30 May 2026

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i believe that some years back there were one or two forum members doing almost exactly what you describe - they were using an MX170 an an I/O expander that accepted text commands to control pin states, set up PWM signals, query switch states, etc.

i can't be 100% sure, but i also think some were doing the same for graphics commands to draw on an attached LCD screen - this was before the days of driving VGA or DVI.

Geoff and others who were around back then may remember better than me.

cheers,
rob :-)
Edited 2026-05-30 17:57 by robert.rozee

phil99

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Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 3248

Posted: 08:04am 30 May 2026

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On the Pico I think someone did something similar.
Had a quick search but didn't find it.
Perhaps the slave received commands as serial strings then used Execute to implement them.

Edit
Another possibility is Peter wrote a program to emulate a PS/2 keyboard.
That could be used to send console commands to another. here
Edited 2026-05-30 18:12 by phil99

robert.rozee
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Posted: 09:19am 30 May 2026

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phil99 said On the Pico I think someone did something similar.
[...] a program to emulate a PS/2 keyboard. That could be used to send console commands to another [...]

just configure it to use a serial/RS232 console and send ascii strings directly to that. the MX170 only had a serial console, with no other options. later pic32 based ones supported PS/2 keyboards and onboard USB (although this was of limited usefulness as the MX470 et al had less-than-reliable onboard USB).

cheers,
rob :-)

PhenixRising
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Joined: 07/11/2023
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1931

Posted: 09:44am 30 May 2026

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Agreed. The PicoMite + display becomes a MMBasic version of a Nextion HMI

lizby
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Joined: 17/05/2016
Location: United States
Posts: 3762

Posted: 12:20pm 30 May 2026

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tgerbic said If I boot up a PIC or Pico running MMBasic I will get to the command line. Could I display graphics by just sending immediate commands in sequence to the command line to execute.

Here are several different instances: Serial control of Picomite

I have a number of applications where one PicoMite talks to another over serial (or some other device uses serial to talk to a PicoMite. It can be a bare PicoMite which just accepts normal commands, or it can run a program to execute an expected set of commands, or, if a line begins with "!", execute the command which follows on the line.

So sending "! pin(GP3)=1" would result in the receiving program doing:
EXECUTE "pin(GP3)=1"

It's a really handy way to set pins or variables without having to load a new program.

There are complications if the sender needs to receive back a confirmation or other response. Some of that is addressed in the link above.

PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on FOTS

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