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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Teensy 4.1?
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| grroel.tech Newbie  Joined: 09/12/2021 Location: SpainPosts: 18 |
Hello, In a message I read that the development of Picomite for Raspberry Pi Pico is finished, it will not be extended any more. Teensy 4.1 is a board with a 600 Mhz ARM Cortex M7, FPU, 1 Gb. of RAM, DSP and graphics acceleration, I think it is a perfect candidate for a full MMBasic implementation with great performance and capacity. Could this implementation be contemplated? It would be a perfect example of a "straight to Basic" computer. Thank you for Picomite. Regards. |
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thwill Guru  Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4311 |
My opinion, and only with respect to MMBasic on a "micro-computer", not wider micro-controller usage. LOL, we're going to go around this in circles forever with Peter endlessly porting or not-porting MMBasic to every micro-controller under the sun as the mood takes him. If "we" (whoever "we" is) want a straight to MMBasic computer then it should be the Pi-Zero, they are cheap, powerful, plentiful and come with all the necessary bells and whistles (USB input, HDMI output, WiFi). Raspbian / Raspberry Pi OS will boot to the command-line in less than 20 seconds and there is no problem to have a script that will automatically go from there to the MMBasic prompt - sure, it's not bare-metal, but it is achievable and maintainable. Perhaps MMB4L will get to this point, perhaps someone else will fork from Peter's MMBasic For Windows, but ultimately *I* think it is how we get to the cheap MMBasic "micro-computer" destination. YMMV. Best wishes, Tom MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3378 |
+1 This solves so many problems, from computing power (Pi-Zero 2 W) to price to availability to HDMI graphics to wireless networking to (for those for whom there would be a benefit) an OS. There may be future wonders, but the MMBasic embedded range looks pretty solid. ~ Edited 2022-02-07 00:05 by lizby PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4044 |
Yes - if you put in the LARGE effort to rewrite all the I/O, start-up, etc code (since probably ALL of its I/O, hardware etc will be different). Sadly, this is typically the situation with any new CPU :( John |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
There's always a new "latest and greatest" chip/board coming out. Porting to all of them would be an impossible task - and supporting those ports even more so. Better to keep to just a few boards and do it well, IMHO. The PicoMite is an exceptional port, I think, in part because the chip and hardware is so well documented. I'd like to say the same for the Pi Zero, but I'm not sure about that. If you have to depend on an underlying OS produced by someone else to get it to do anything then no, it's not great. It's bare metal (albeit with support libraries) or don't bother. We already know that GPIO access on the Pi series is virtually impossible to support. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| darthvader Regular Member  Joined: 31/01/2020 Location: FrancePosts: 87 |
As i know , pi pico , stm32 , teensy have all been used with arduino core. So , then before porting MMBasic to every MCU , i think that the best way to not reinvent the wheel each time will be to port the MMBasic code to arduino environment. Visual Studio Code with platformio are the most used interface and allot better than the arduino one :) SPI , I2C , Serial , etc ... will then be exactly the same code , only the MCU pin config and register change , but it's already done in the arduino core ;) It was just my Sunday idea .... Cheers. Theory is when we know everything but nothing work ... Practice is when everything work but no one know why ;) |
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| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3378 |
We don't know that. There is a "pure Linux" way to handle GPIOs on the Pi with MMB4L, both the deprecated sysfs method which works with SYSTEM calls with the present Alpha release, an ioctl method (which is not encouraged to be employed in user space) and a still-under-development linux core ioctl method intended for user space. These are and should be (relatively) independent of what the Raspberry Pi Foundation does going forward. PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10315 |
hummmmm...  |
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| Amnesie Guru Joined: 30/06/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 675 |
Yes I think the same. The point is, that Raspberry is cheap, powerful and most important: available everywhere at all times. |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
@lizby Once RPi finally get their *official* GPIO access for users properly sorted out then there may be hope. Obviously something that's only accessible to root or gets blocked during system calls is useless. It seems to be either low priority (because they are using someone else's library) or because it's impractical to support it across different OS versions (which means that library has to be kept updated). The RPi isn't intended to be a working system that gets upgraded from time to time. Things break at each OS change but that doesn't matter most of the time as it's basically a "load the OS and programs once and let it go" educational machine. It's not really a computer that gets security updates etc. If you freeze it in time, use a single board version and a single OS version and never update it then you stand a chance. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3378 |
Yes, noted, but it seems that when the "under-development" library is released, it will be a Linux-wide solution (and the built-from-source library works now). I don't understand this. As with basically any Linux system, upgrades can be made as they become available. But it's not like Windows, where unless you take steps to prevent it, updates will be done whether or not it's convenient for the user. PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
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| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 5090 |
Pi zero. Maybe that is a good starting point. But honestly, I have used several in projects, but always add HW that is on the A B or B+, such as a USB hub. Available ? Check farnell. Out of stock on almost any version. Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
The Pi isn't just any standard linux system though, it just looks like one from the outside. The hardware is distinctly non-standard and differs from version to version. Hence the problems with the GPIO. It needs low level access but that access is via restricted addresses in the SOC and has to be arranged as part of the deal between Broadcom and RPi. The SOC changes with every version of the Pi. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
The Pi 4 big version has been out of stock in most places for a couple of months now, I think. I read that you can still find the 3B in some places, but that's the biggest now. I don't know about the Zero and Zero W. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3378 |
I have to wonder what you think standard linux hardware is? I have run a much cut down and modularized Linux, OpenWrt, on at least 6 different types of hardware (with as little as 4 megabytes of flash), and basic linux is the same on each. According to wikipedia: "Platforms Alpha, ARC, ARM, C6x, C-Sky, H8/300, Hexagon, IA-64, m68k, Microblaze, MIPS, NDS32, Nios II, OpenRISC, PA-RISC, PowerPC, RISC-V, s390, SuperH, SPARC, Unicore32, x86, Xtensa". The standardization work being done by the linux libgpiod team is intended to allow GPIO access across platforms. I know this doesn't fix the immediate problem with the Pi and MMBasic, but there is hope for the not-too-distant future. What hope is there for any other non-embedded platform? They may be capable, but they wouldn't have the picromite base to start from, and they are not likely to touch the pi for cost and availability. PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
Linux systems are generally not tied by NDAs with a particular SOC manufacturer. You just compile the OS for a particular platform and that's it. RPi are in a pretty unique position, where the platform keeps changing with every hardware release. They don't have control other than specify which parts of the SOC they would like to use (and pay for) - they have to change their OS to adapt it to the hardware available. They *could* stick to a single SOC, but that gives no performance updates. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3378 |
Pi zero w availability seems restricted now. Sparkfun has it with a limit of one per customer, and with the headers with a limit of 5 per customer. Pi Zero 2 W is not in stock, though Sparkfun and Adafruit allow you to register for notification when available. I would suspect that this is a relatively short-term shortage--as opposed to the H7s, etc. (but I have no way of actually knowing). PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7937 |
Silicon in general isn't too good to get hold of. When the problems started the big users bought up all they could and booked any remaining manufacturing capability. It's really clobbered things. :( The RP2040 might still be around because it uses the older 40nm process and was easy to manufacture at the time. I don't know who actually makes it, there could be more than one company involved. I'm wondering how good the stock is because I doubt if it has any priority in manufacture. 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 |
Pi-Zero, RPi, etc. The solution seems simple to me. Use those devices for what they are good for and simply hand-off the I/O to a connected Picomite....Job done! As far as availability, yeah I switched to Parallax Propeller which is immune to this cr@p. Pretty much whatever MMBasic device is available can be my host/front-end....quite possibly MMB4W now because with a small solid-state NUC or ITX system, we are talking serious capabilities   |
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| JohnS Guru Joined: 18/11/2011 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4044 |
4MB - Luxury! The smallest I can recall running fairly recently: 512KB flash, 64KB RAM I wouldn't really recommend such, though. John |
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