 Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me. |
Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : MMBasic Programming Challenge 2022
  Page 5 of 7   |
|||||
| Author | Message | ||||
Mixtel90 Guru  Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 5735 |
You can get packs of PCB with that (or a similar) pattern on ebay, although you may have to cut one down to size. I got an assorted size box for not much money. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3848 |
Volhout, Whilst i appreciate the effort, perhaps you should hold off from sending your interface board until I find out whether my version works. It would save you the cost of postage if nothing else. Best wishes, Tom Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3848 |
Successful test of @Volhout's entry!  As you can see my breadboard is "a bit how ya goin"; I was in a real rush to get it working and I had no 2.2M resistors hence the cluster of 4 (2x1M, 2x100K) in the bottom right.  The little adapter boards are made of the the very grottiest Chinese perfboard and I was soldering half-blind ... haven't done anything intricate in a while ... so off to the opticians this week for stronger varifocals I think. Thanks for the entertainment @Volhout, all three judges agreed it's very impressive ... and that it doesn't fit the eligibility criteria for the challenge  ; we may need to think about how to adjust those for 2023. If it is any compensation then I still intend to include it when I make the YouTube video for the challenge.Best wishes, Tom Edited 2022-07-11 09:35 by thwill Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
Turbo46 Guru Joined: 24/12/2017 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1593 |
Tom, this sort of thing is very useful. Mine is more basic, no extra lenses and no LED. I don't solder without it. Bill Keep safe. Live long and prosper. |
||||
| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 3550 |
@Tom Thank you for you perseverance in supporting my entry. I know it broke one of the rules, and was ignorant enough to think it would merely cost points, so any chance of winning was 0. Reading the rules again, I understand it will be disqualified. And I am fine with that. It already gives me greatest satisfaction that others have seen it work. That is my prize. Love it. Thanks for your effort, Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
||||
| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 5735 |
Competition entry or not, I think this is a pretty amazing system. I really wasn't expecting to ever see SSTV running on a 4-quid microcontroller module and a comparator. :) You get a special (virtual) prize from me, Volhout. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3848 |
@Volhout Thanks for your understanding. I (and I'm sure the other judges) have mixed-feelings about disqualifying your program but felt that given the wording and intent of the Challenge rules it would be "unfair" on the other contestants to allow it. If I had been more "on the ball" and to an extent less selfish (I wanted to see your entry and have it to showcase in my YouTube video) I would have made more of an issue when you first started posting about your entry - I rather assumed from what you had said that you knew it was against the rules and were doing it anyway, channeling the inner anarchist as it were. For next time (assuming there is a next time) perhaps we need to adjust the rules to allow $5-10 of additional easy to obtain "jelly-bean" hardware to be used ... though that rather depends on the willingness of the judges to go the extra mile - I personally like a little building project. I'm going to show it to my RiscOS cronies tonight, assuming the breadboard survives the trip - "show & tell" for aging geeks. QUERY: I note that the most recent schematic that you posted contains an extra 47nF capacitor compared with the original entry, but that there appears to be a X marked on it on the schematic. What's that all about ? - I included it in my build. OBSERVATION: Unless it got somehow mangled in the transfer the .bas file that you submitted isn't actually valid MMBasic, it splits the declaration of DIM a%(7) over two lines - obviously it was easy for me to fix. Thanks again for your entry, Tom Edited 2022-07-11 19:40 by thwill Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 3550 |
The extra capacitor is a precaution to prevent the IC from oscillation. In the VGA picomite it was not needed In my adapter for K8 it was not needed. But you where going to wire up something yourself, and I could not be sure that you would use long wires. With long wires, the IC has potential to oscillate. With the capacitor at the 3.3V and GND terminals this is unlikely. Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
||||
| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3848 |
OK, thanks, note that whilst you keep refering to K8 I think you mean K6 (Game port A) ... as far as I can tell the 1.4 PCB has does not have a K8. Best wishes, Tom Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 3550 |
Hi Tom, Who do you think needs new varifocals.... Mea culpa..... Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
||||
| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3016 |
Very impressive indeed, and now, after looking it up, I know what SSTV stands for ("slow scan TV for any as tech-illiterate in that area as I). Of course, I've seen many instances: "Fly Me To The Moon". PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
||||
bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2870 |
Hi All, I will await an official call by the judges but if Volhoult is indeed DQ’d I will send him a couple of my new, not released yet, PicoMite backpack PCBs (50mm x 50mm) and a daughter board “Pico-KB-Vga” (50mm x 20mm) that plugs into first board and makes a 50mm x 50mm x roughly 30mm high Pico-PC as a consolation. Not only because of its technical merit in itself but also because his entry had been accepted with inferences made that it would be OK. Note, these will be bare PCBs and sent in a standard envelope as a ‘letter’ no tracking. Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
||||
| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3848 |
Did I/we do that? Inference by neglect possibly? I haven't really given the competition the same attention I gave it last year, so if there is a problem then "mea culpa". Best wishes, Tom Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
| bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2870 |
Hi Tom, All, I did say ‘inferences’. It seems to me that it was known from the start that it needed some additional hardware to run but the entry was not rejected outright. So inference by omission, the bottom line I will await the full board of the judges to decide whether to accept it or not, if not accepted my offer above will stand. Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
||||
vegipete Guru Joined: 29/01/2013 Location: CanadaPosts: 1082 |
The rules say Does Volhout's entry run on the base PicoMiteVGA hardware? Key word, does it RUN? If so, then I'd say it qualifies. Trouble is, without special hardware, while it may run, if it doesn't actually do anything then the impressiveness score might be pretty much zero. No offense meant to Volhout, I am not a judge, only my opinion, but I would rather let his entry stand, under the specified contest conditions if need be, than be DQed. ======= The rules also say "Submitted programs must work with the latest release version of the firmware" which to some degree my entry breaks. Mine exposes a bug in the CMM2 release firmware that is fixed in a later beta. I do though provide a work-around that allows mine to avoid triggering the bug. Visit Vegipete's *Mite Library for cool programs. |
||||
| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3848 |
It certainly makes for an interesting topic of conversation. For the record I (and I suspect the other judges) would like @Volhout's submission to qualify, but given that we're the judges we are somewhat beholden to uphold the rules of the competition. Actually the keyword is "demonstrable", I don't think the rules mention "run". The spirit of the competition was a "Programming Challenge" with an arbitrary 5K limit (that leads to some ridiculousness in the entries, as your well know) it was never intended to be a general competition to recognise or reward the best MMBasic contribution ... presumably that would be won by Peter by default. I do not believe that @Volhout's entry meets the letter of the rules or even necessarily their spirit. With the benefit of hindsight I should have paid attention and intervened earlier and I'd still love to be outvoted on this. I did actually notice that. I would probably have worded the competition rules differently if Peter did separate maintenance and feature releases. Given that you are only relying on a bugfix in the beta version I am of the opinion that your entry is within the spirit of the rules - I suppose the other judges may have a different opinion. To be clear I have built @Volhout's hardware, scored his entry and will include it within the YouTube video it's just I don't think it is eligible for one of the prizes. YMMV, Tom Edited 2022-07-12 02:22 by thwill Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3848 |
Delete double post - must have used an incompatible character Edited 2022-07-12 02:21 by thwill Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
| Volhout Guru Joined: 05/03/2018 Location: NetherlandsPosts: 3550 |
I hope this plead is not interpreted wrong, but I would like to repeat my previous standpoint: My entry does not qualify according to the rules, and I am fine with that. Let's close this discussion, do not find loopholes to make it compete. I would also like to emphasize that the attention to my entry throws a shadow over the other contestants entries. Please pay attention to the entries that meet the criteria, in stead of openly discussing a disqualified entry. The other contestants worked just as hard, probably even harder, to achieve their goal, and deserve focus in this thread. Please make them shine !! Harm (Volhout) Edited 2022-07-12 02:38 by Volhout PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS |
||||
| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 3848 |
 Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
| lizby Guru Joined: 17/05/2016 Location: United StatesPosts: 3016 |
I've run FractalLandscapes.bas on MMBasic for Windows with no changes made whatsoever. I think it's impressive. I especially like the mountainous "Mars" rendering. I have a question: is the default MODE 1 (800x600) in MMBasic for Windows the best one for this program, or would another one be better? (It seems possible that if the whole tilted surface is supposed to be visible, I may be seeing some parts clipped.) Thanks for your contribution. PicoMite, Armmite F4, SensorKits, MMBasic Hardware, Games, etc. on fruitoftheshed |
||||
| Page 5 of 7 |
|||||
 Print this page |
