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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Clockwork-Pi: PicoCalc

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CtrlAltSockPuppet
Newbie

Joined: 05/01/2024
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 15
Posted: 08:00pm 28 Apr 2025
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  Geoffg said  I think that I know who is behind this.  He is a brilliant engineer who designs innovative stuff (for profit) but, for some reason, believes that software (particularly MMBasic) involves zero effort and therefore should be free to use without acknowledgement.

We have had disputes in the past as he seems to like designing stuff around MMBasic - which makes it all the more strange that he views it as worthless. If he simply acknowledged the authors of the firmware then all would be good, but based on past performance, I doubt that will happen - in fact he will probably remove all reference to Peter and myself.

If you are planning on buying one of his gadgets, be aware that, in the past, he has not regarded after sales support as very important.  It might look like a big enterprise, but assuming that he is who I think he is, it is just one guy who will inevitably move on to a new gadget with a different company name.

Geoff


I was considering buying a PicoCalc, especially when I saw that I thought it might be associated with Geoff and Peter (from the copyright message on the boot screen). I came here to check out if there were any genuine links. I'm sorry to read about the lack of respect. I really appreciate all the work that's gone into MMBASIC etc. I think I will perhaps more likely build my own device now.
If it's of any help I saw this video recently, and the screen does show mention of Geoff and Peter - but I don't know how current it is. I hope the efforts I've just read about here, are successful in increasing the respect shown for the work done.

https://youtu.be/-d8Hj0SEFR0?t=225

Kind Regards
 
Frank N. Furter
Guru

Joined: 28/05/2012
Location: Germany
Posts: 935
Posted: 06:38am 29 Apr 2025
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A Hal Liu seems to be behind the company:

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/clockwork-tech-inc

Clockwork Tech LLC

Frank
 
matherp
Guru

Joined: 11/12/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 10000
Posted: 10:19am 30 Apr 2025
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If people are to re-use/modify MMbasic - I wish they would do it properly like this
This H/W scrolling functionality will be in the next RC and supports all SPI displays in portrait mode. The video is a special case where a ILI9488 is used in 320x320 resolution.
 
thwill

Guru

Joined: 16/09/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4244
Posted: 10:23am 30 Apr 2025
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  matherp said  If people are to re-use/modify MMbasic - I wish they would do it properly like this
This H/W scrolling functionality will be in the next RC and supports all SPI displays in portrait mode. The video is a special case where a ILI9488 is used in 320x320 resolution.


Well done Peter.

Not everyone is as invested or skilled as you are.

Best wishes,

Tom
Edited 2025-04-30 20:24 by thwill
MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures
 
matherp
Guru

Joined: 11/12/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 10000
Posted: 10:36am 30 Apr 2025
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Sorry, but if someone is selling a product based on MMbasic and isn't good enough to modify the software properly then perhaps they shouldn't bother rather than making a hack job of it
 
thwill

Guru

Joined: 16/09/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4244
Posted: 10:40am 30 Apr 2025
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  matherp said  Sorry, but if someone is selling a product based on MMbasic and isn't good enough to modify the software properly then perhaps they shouldn't bother rather than making a hack job of it


I prefer not to argue with you Peter and I know that ClockworkPi should have done better in many ways, but they could have put uPython or something else on it as the default firmware. As it is, for better or worse, they've put MMBasic and fingers-crossed "a rising tide lifts all ships", I know that at least two CMM2s have been bought on the back of interest in the PicoCalc.

YMMV.

Tom
MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures
 
dddns
Senior Member

Joined: 20/09/2024
Location: Germany
Posts: 215
Posted: 02:44pm 30 Apr 2025
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Hello everyone,

I followed the discussion a bit and of cause I took a look at the product.

To me, there is really nothing special about this product except there is no alternative to buy.
The very low price clearly indicates to me, that the Chinese company is selling it for half, lets say 50.
Having a manufacturer not willing to talk or cooperate is worth nothing.
The idea of having a user base using exactly the same device is very nice.

A charge of 1000 would be a round 50 per each..


Best experience with ssd1963

comparison

and last edit if I may add: To me, and I let everybody have his own opinion, is a PicoMite attached to a ssd such a different world, that you can call this a real handheld computer on which you can seriously edit code.
Edited 2025-05-01 02:01 by dddns
 
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