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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : How about this for a Christmas surprise?
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| matherp Guru  Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10965 |
Sorry. The developer is now on holiday until the 28th. One thing you could investigate is if the issue still happens if you disconnect the ps2 keyboard and operate from a remote usb console. Can anyone replicate with the same firmware and/or the HDMIUSB firmware? Edited 2025-12-23 18:28 by matherp |
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| Amnesie Guru Joined: 30/06/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 746 |
Hi Peter, no problem take all the time you need  I tested your latest firmware:with the HDMI USB version (my PCB allows bridging VSYS and USB to use an USB Hub) The problem is the same, you can see for yourself, I shot another video in which you also can see the version and OPTION LIST - this time I used the default resolution of 640. As said, there are absolutly no problems with the RC25 version. I nuked the flash every time to be sure. But on "PicoMiteRP2350V6.01.00EXP" there is definitly something wrong: Video with HDMI usb version EDIT I: I also tested the official release (https://geoffg.net/picomite.html) again: HDMI Version (USB and PS/2) got problems when RESOLUTION is 720, when set to default RESOLUTION 640, no problems with "PLAY MP3" - I hope this helps. But yes, also the official release has this bug. EDIT II: It is even more complicated: At first it works with default resolution on the official release, but ONCE set to RESOLUTION 720 "PLAY mp3" crashes the system. Setting RESOLUTION back to 640 doesn't help anymore. A OPTION RESET doesn't help either. Only re-flashing the firmware helps and not setting resolution higher than 640. Once set to 720 all the problems with playback mp3 will occur. So version RC25 is the most stable with no problems at all. Have a wonderful holiday!! Greetings Daniel Edited 2025-12-23 21:23 by Amnesie |
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| ville56 Guru Joined: 08/06/2022 Location: AustriaPosts: 395 |
yes, same here, immediate crash and reboot on play mp3 wth HDMIUSB V6.01.00EXP. I will experiment with other environments later. the current env is: > option list PicoMiteHDMI MMBasic USB RP2350B Edition V6.01.00EXP OPTION SERIAL CONSOLE COM2,GP20,GP21 OPTION FLASH SIZE 16777216 OPTION COLOURCODE ON OPTION KEYBOARD GR OPTION PICO OFF OPTION RESOLUTION 640x480 @ 252000KHz OPTION HDMI PINS 1, 3, 7, 5 OPTION SDCARD GP22, GP6, GP7, GP4 OPTION AUDIO GP26,GP27', ON PWM CHANNEL 5 OPTION MODBUFF ENABLE 192 OPTION PLATFORM OLIMEX USB Edited 2025-12-23 21:52 by ville56 73 de OE1HGA, Gerald |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2492 |
hi toml_12953, just because microsoft erred in not implementing something like WITH ... DO to simplify the syntax, that is no reason for us to repeat the same omission. i'm sure there are many places where mmbasic deviates from microsoft basic - and for very good reason! cheers, rob :-) Edited 2025-12-23 22:01 by robert.rozee |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 8568 |
But... MMPascal is something different. :( Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| toml_12953 Guru Joined: 13/02/2015 Location: United StatesPosts: 546 |
I can't make play mp3 fail no matter what I do. I use an LCD as console and have a Pimoroni Pico 2 as my CPU with PSRAM active. I'm using PicoMite 6.01.00 (not EXP) Edited 2025-12-23 23:11 by toml_12953 |
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| Amnesie Guru Joined: 30/06/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 746 |
The problem occurs in HDMI versions (PS/2 and USB). |
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| bfwolf Senior Member  Joined: 03/01/2025 Location: GermanyPosts: 166 |
First of all: Merry Christmas to everyone!  And then @Peter: Wow! Brilliant!  I stumbled across this thread quite by accident when I saw this https://www.thebackshed.com/forum/ViewTopic.php?FID=16&TID=18342#248656 ...and thought: "Huh? Did I miss something?"  If I remember correctly, the topic of "Structs" came up in the spring – so it kept you busy and you were "working on it in secret"?  I have a few more questions: - Is the size of structs constant even if they contain strings? At least if the maximum length of the strings was specified in the definition by the "LENGTH <n>" clause? - Is it possible to determine the size of structs (memory requirements) at runtime? Something like `sizeof(type)` in C? Perhaps it could be done with the `STRUCT()` function, for example, with `STRUCT(SIZEOF, typename)`? That would be great because then you could calculate the offset of a record formed by a struct within a file for the `SEEK` command. - Does PEEK(VARADDR var) also work with structs? Thank you so much for your wonderful work! Enjoy your time off! Regards, bfwolf |
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| toml_12953 Guru Joined: 13/02/2015 Location: United StatesPosts: 546 |
With Random files, you have fixed length records so it's easy to get to the record you want if you create an index hash table. With STRUCT(FIND... you don't even have to do that yourself if you don't mind a linear search. Personally, I'd SORT the records on the search field then do a binary search to get the record I want. Edited 2025-12-26 06:31 by toml_12953 |
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| bfwolf Senior Member Joined: 03/01/2025 Location: GermanyPosts: 166 |
That was exactly what my question was about. I wanted to know if structs (the new user defined types) can be mapped 1:1 to fixed-length records in random files. An index can be created in a separate file, just as dBase did. This avoids constantly reordering on the flash filesystem. Addendum: I assumed above that the data set could become so large that it couldn't be held entirely in RAM. At best, a portion of it could be stored in a cache. Edited 2025-12-26 06:44 by bfwolf |
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| toml_12953 Guru Joined: 13/02/2015 Location: United StatesPosts: 546 |
Why not store it in a random file on an SD card? Sure access will be somewhat slower but you can have many GB of data. |
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| bfwolf Senior Member Joined: 03/01/2025 Location: GermanyPosts: 166 |
That was exactly what I wanted to imply with my question. If structs have a fixed length, which can be queried using, for example, STRUCT(SIZEOF,typename), their contents can be written to random files, positioned arbitrarily on a struct copy stored in the file using SEEK, and the data can also be read back into the struct in RAM. The positioning would then be achievable with SEEK #f, n*STRUCT(SIZEOF,typename). |
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LeoNicolas Guru Joined: 07/10/2020 Location: CanadaPosts: 562 |
Peter This is amazing for us that like to develop games. It will help a lot to organize the Knightmare game state. I hope this feature will reach the CMM2 and the MMBW versions. Thank you for the surprise Merry Christmas |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10965 |
If you want to know if struts are fixed length why not experiment and find out? If you want to know how long they are count the bytes used in the definition. Then why not try saving a few records to disk and check the disk size as you add records. This is a new experimental capability. Play with it. See what works. Find any bugs. By all means make suggestions but do this after you have explored what is there. |
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karlelch Guru Joined: 30/10/2014 Location: GermanyPosts: 314 |
Go, children, play outside, the weather is nice |
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| toml_12953 Guru Joined: 13/02/2015 Location: United StatesPosts: 546 |
It looks like you'll have to keep track of the size of a record yourself. Since you define the record only once at the beginning of the program, and you know how much space each element takes, you manually add the lengths to get the length of the entire structure. Then you can store the length in a variable. TYPE MyType LastName as STRING * 20 FirstName as STRING * 10 DOB as STRING * 10 HourlySalary as FLOAT HoursPerWeek as INTEGER END TYPE DIM EmployeeRec as MyType StrucLength = 20 + 10 + 10 + 8 + 8 |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10965 |
I'm not saying I won't add a function to return the length of a struct in the future. The point I'm trying to make is that you can experiment with what is there rather than needing everything perfect immediately. The release is marked EXP - experimental. There may be major issues there that I haven't thought about and that may render whole idea unworkable. The only way to know is for people to use it which will help flush out the bugs and limitations. |
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| bfwolf Senior Member Joined: 03/01/2025 Location: GermanyPosts: 166 |
OK, I did.. Here are the results of my experiments: Option Base 1 Option Explicit Type TPoint x As integer y As integer End Type Type TCircle x As integer y As integer r As integer End Type Type TPerson name As string Length 10 surname As string Length 10 phone As integer End Type Dim points(4) As TPoint = (1,2, 3,4, 5,6, 7,8) Dim circles(2) As TCircle = (1,2,9, 4,5,18) Dim people(2) As TPerson = ("Marther", "Peter", 1234, "Graham", "Geoff", 5678) Dim i As integer Open "a:/fpoints.bin" For Random As #1 Open "a:/fpeople.bin" For Random As #2 Open "a:/fcircles.bin" For Random As #3 For i=1 To 4 Struct Save #1, points(i) Next i For i=1 To 2 Struct Save #2, people(i) Next i For i=1 To 2 Struct Save #3, circles(i) Next i Close #1 Close #2 Close #3 Open "a:/fpoin_2.bin" For Random As #1 Open "a:/fpeop_2.bin" For Random As #2 Open "a:/fcircl_2.bin" For Random As #3 For i=1 To 2 Struct Save #1, points(i) Next i For i=1 To 1 Struct Save #2, people(i) Next i For i=1 To 1 Struct Save #3, circles(i) Next i Close #1 Close #2 Close #3 > files A:/ <DIR> . <DIR> .. 00:00 01-01-2024 4 bootcount 01:43 01-01-2024 48 fcircl_2.bin 01:43 01-01-2024 96 fcircles.bin 01:43 01-01-2024 64 fpeop_2.bin 01:43 01-01-2024 128 fpeople.bin 01:43 01-01-2024 128 fpoin_2.bin 01:43 01-01-2024 256 fpoints.bin 05:36 01-01-2024 1093 structs.bas 2 directories, 8 files, 14467072 bytes free > Conclusions: - The memory requrements of a struct in a file are fixed per struct-instance, when written with 'STRUCT SAVE'. - The structs need more space in the file, when written with 'STRUCT SAVE', than the sum of bytes of the struct-members. - It seems that 'STRUCT SAVE' stores information about the struct type in addition to the member data bytes? - So, if we want to store the struct in the file in a way that minimizes data usage, we need to save the struct member-by-member using 'PRINT #fn, memb$' and read back using 'memb$=INPUT$(mlen%,#fn)'. No problem at all but a little bit less performant. This isn't meant as criticism, just what I observed during the experiment. What confuses me is this: Two instances of the struct TPoint (consisting of two integer members) require 128 bytes in the file "fpoin_2.bin", while two instances of the struct TCircle (consisting of three integer members) only require 96 bytes in the file "fcircles.bin"? Many thx again! Addendum: Yes, Peter, I noticed the "experimental" and see the implementation as a great Christmas present! And that you're still gathering ideas. Edited 2025-12-27 03:43 by bfwolf |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10965 |
I think if you do the maths, struct save is saving the dimm'd variable rather than a specific row of the array. So points has 4x2x8 bytes = 64 bytes and in file fpoints.bin you are saving 4 times = 256 bytes. Looks like a bug. Points(1) should save just the one line and points() should save the full array. This is precisely why user testing is so valuable. The test script didn't test this variant. Thanks Edited 2025-12-27 04:14 by matherp |
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| bfwolf Senior Member Joined: 03/01/2025 Location: GermanyPosts: 166 |
I'm happy, if I can help you! Your answer helped me understand what was going on, and I adjusted my small test program accordingly: (I changed the file names to reflect the loop counts) Option Base 1 Option Explicit Type TPoint x As integer y As integer End Type Type TCircle x As integer y As integer r As integer End Type Type TPerson name As string Length 10 surname As string Length 10 phone As integer End Type Dim points(4) As TPoint = (1,2, 3,4, 5,6, 7,8) Dim circles(2) As TCircle = (1,2,9, 4,5,18) Dim people(2) As TPerson = ("Marther", "Peter", 1234, "Graham", "Geoff", 5678) Dim i As integer Open "a:/fpoints_4.bin" For Random As #1 Open "a:/fpeople_2.bin" For Random As #2 Open "a:/fcircles_2.bin" For Random As #3 For i=1 To 4 Struct Save #1, points(i) Next i For i=1 To 2 Struct Save #2, people(i) Next i For i=1 To 2 Struct Save #3, circles(i) Next i Close #1 Close #2 Close #3 Open "a:/fpoints_2.bin" For Random As #1 Open "a:/fpeople_1.bin" For Random As #2 Open "a:/fcircles_1.bin" For Random As #3 For i=1 To 2 Struct Save #1, points(i) Next i 'For i=1 To 1 i=1 Struct Save #2, people(i) 'Next i 'For i=1 To 1 i=1 Struct Save #3, circles(i) 'Next i Close #1 Close #2 Close #3 Open "a:/fpoints.bin" For Random As #1 Open "a:/fpeople.bin" For Random As #2 Open "a:/fcircles.bin" For Random As #3 Struct Save #1, points() Struct Save #2, people() Struct Save #3, circles() Close #1 Close #2 Close #3 Results: > files A:/ <DIR> . <DIR> .. 00:00 01-01-2024 4 bootcount 07:31 01-01-2024 48 fcircles.bin 07:31 01-01-2024 48 fcircles_1.bin 07:31 01-01-2024 96 fcircles_2.bin 07:31 01-01-2024 64 fpeople.bin 07:31 01-01-2024 64 fpeople_1.bin 07:31 01-01-2024 128 fpeople_2.bin 07:31 01-01-2024 64 fpoints.bin 07:31 01-01-2024 128 fpoints_2.bin 07:31 01-01-2024 256 fpoints_4.bin 05:36 01-01-2024 1093 structs.bas 2 directories, 11 files, 14467072 bytes free My conclusions: - When I write 'Struct Save #1, points()', the entire array is saved and occupies (4*(8+8))=64 bytes. - When I write 'Struct Save #1, points(i)' four times in a loop, (4*(4*(8+8)))=256 bytes are written because the index i is ignored, and instead, the entire array is written four times. That's the bug you mentioned, right? - When I write 'Struct Save #2, people()', the entire array is saved and occupies (2*(12+12+8))=64 bytes. - So, a 'name As string Length 10' actually occupies 12 bytes. Presumably because a length byte is prepended? What would the 12th byte be? Is it for padding due to struct alignment in C? So you're storing the data 'compressed' in a struct, just as it would be in C? When I saw the predefined syntax for struct initialization — for example, 'Dim points(4) As TPoint = (1,2, 3,4, 5,6, 7,8)' — it occurred to me whether it wouldn't make sense to allow grouping using additional parentheses? For example, 'Dim points(4) As TPoint = ((1,2), (3,4), (5,6), (7,8))'. Perhaps these could simply be ignored, or even used to fill missing members in the initialization lists with 0 or an empty string? Just an idea... Thanks! |
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