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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : New PicoMiteVGA design
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Mixtel90 Guru  Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7938 |
Oh, it's certainly not an Olde Worlde BASIC. :) I tend to think of it being more like BBC BASIC on steroids. To a large extent it's outgrown it's GW-BASIC roots, particularly when it comes to interfacing. I know what you mean about documentation. I think I spend as much time doing the docs for a PCB as as I do designing it. Still, I think it's worth it. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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Plasmamac Guru Joined: 31/01/2019 Location: GermanyPosts: 579 |
Isnt micropython a byte code compiler ? Plasma |
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| Tinine Guru Joined: 30/03/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1646 |
A fairer comparison would be QuickBasic 4.5 which is a threaded p-code interpreter and has an "Immediate mode". The best product ever to come out of M$. No need to ever use a GOSUB or GOTO. My setup was pretty darned cool; I wrote an ISR which basically hijacked the RTC interrupt. Boosted it from 55ms to close to 1ms and then compensated to preserve time-keeping. Granted, I had to use MASM but I could be testing code in the QB45 environment, single stepping while the critical code kept running on the 1ms timer interrupt. Variables were shared between the ISR and QB....Talk about rapid development  Craig |
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| Tinine Guru Joined: 30/03/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1646 |
BASIC ain't going away and I get a little irritated when it's regarded "a toy language". If you look at megabuck industrial controllers, they tend to have an interpreter on the front-end and BASIC or a derivative thereof, is the language of choice. Even the so-called "structured text" in the PLC world is closer to BASIC than anything else. Craig |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7938 |
It's the "Beginner's" bit that gets me. The "All-purpose" bit is still relevant though. :) Modern BASIC actually has very little in common with the early implementations used to teach programming fundamentals. Some historic commands like GOTO and GOSUB are really only there for compatibility now, although you can still use them if you want to. Also, programming in BASIC hasn't been a way to test the programmer's ability to increment line numbers for many years now. :) I see it more as a cross between C and Python now, especially in compiled versions like GCBASIC, where the resulting code is every bit as good as many non or partially-optimizing compilers yet the development time can be far shorter. Unless time is of the essence there's nothing wrong with an interpreter. You just don't need to loop round wait loops as many times. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| Tinine Guru Joined: 30/03/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 1646 |
Aka: Waiting faster  Craig |
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| LandBoardsLLC Newbie  Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: United StatesPosts: 19 |
It was interesting to read the comments section in the Hackaday page when they featured the MMBASIC. Hackaday PicoMite |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7938 |
Yeah... I was hoping that something else had appeared since I last looked, but it hasn't. Maybe they just either a) got fed up of Lizby and myself or b) were suffering from severe language snobbery. :) MMBasic has moved on quite a bit since too. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| LandBoardsLLC Newbie Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: United StatesPosts: 19 |
It's unfortunate that the project didn't get more traction on Hackaday but just being on there has to help. MMBASIC PicoMite definitely deserves better attention. I think Hackaday was where I first discovered the project. For me, it started with "I've got a couple of these Picos I bought last year, wonder what I can do with them? I'll take a look at Hackaday and see what people are doing with their Picos." PicoMite seemed like a natural choice after failing multiple times to get the C+ SDK working (finally got it working off some obscure page) and then playing with MicroPython. then CircuitPython. For me, dealing with unmounting the File system just to work with the SD card under the Python(s) was a real pain. Hunting down the right library was not fun. The development environment (built-in editor) for MMBASIC is a real game changer. I really don't care how fast something runs since I most write test station code and anything just takes a second or two to run. Having standalone (no PC needed for dev or running code) and very fast build-test-build times matters much more. Just the "simple" feature of the built-in editor opening up to the error line with the error is huge. No need to scroll to my error in Thonny correlating line numbers on the error window to the source file makes my day. I've shifted towards the Pico largely due to RP2040 part availability. It's about the only microprocessor out there at the moment with any availability. And, I don't see any end in the next year to the Global Supply Chain(tm) issues. I'm not sure which comments were yours but there was a healthy discussion going on there. Since it's the "landing spot" for some people making solid points in there matters. - Doug at Land Boards LLC |
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| LandBoardsLLC Newbie Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: United StatesPosts: 19 |
I re-read the comments and took note of your contributions. You posted very nice support of the project with solid points. I'm tempted to add a comment on the things I like about PicoMiteVGA. |
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| LandBoardsLLC Newbie Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: United StatesPosts: 19 |
I put up a long-winded comment. My comment on the Hackaday Feature |
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