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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Updated PicoMite, PicoMite and WebMite Firmware

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matherp
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Joined: 11/12/2012
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Posted: 01:27pm 26 Jun 2023
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Loading a program clears saved variables
 
Volhout
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Joined: 05/03/2018
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Posted: 01:44pm 26 Jun 2023
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Aha.... makes sense ... have to find another solution using the filesystem ..

Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
Bleep
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Joined: 09/01/2022
Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: 02:27pm 26 Jun 2023
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Hi Peter,
As a follow up to this question, is it expected that a VAR SAVE of only 1 variable takes about a third of a second? this does not noticably go up with increased number of saved variables. I was getting a watchdog timeout intermittently caused by this, for now I've increased the timeout.
Thanks Kevin.
 
Volhout
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Posted: 08:06am 27 Jun 2023
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Hi Peter,

I have one request for the PIO DMA.

Belowis the text in the manual

PIO DMA RX pio, sm, nbr,
data%() [,completioninterrupt]
[,transfersize] [,loopbackcount]

PIO DMA TX pio, sm, nbr,
data%() [,completioninterrupt]
[,transfersize] [,loopbackcount]


The "nbr" value is the number of transfers where the interrupt is called.

My request is :

When nbr=0 then do not call the interrupt ever (never stop the DMA). This is needed when using a ring buffer while reading (RX) or sending (TX) data through PIO infinitely.

It hurted in the logic analyzer (after a while the analyer stops waiting for a trigger), and in the sine wave generator (depending the PIO DMA speed the sine wave output stops after few minutes.

Alternatively you can disable the "nbr" interrupt when a loopback counter is used.

Thank you in advance for helping

Volhout.
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
matherp
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Posted: 08:48am 27 Jun 2023
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Unfortunately, the DMA has a 32-bit counter and will always stop when that runs out. It is not possible to tell it to run continuously
 
thwill

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Joined: 16/09/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 3850
Posted: 05:49pm 29 Jun 2023
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Hi Peter,

I've come across a few things with the standard PicoMite (specifically in embedded use with LCD and no attached console) whilst developing the software for the Bintendo / PicoGAME LCD which I think may be considered general usability issues and I'm wondering if you might consider addressing them ?

1. When the PicoMite aborts (e.g. "Error invalid address - resetting") then, to prevent the possibility of the device going into an endless reboot loop, it clears OPTION AUTORUN. This is ideal during development, but once the PicoMite is deployed it means that if such an abort does occur the device is "dead" until you attach a USB console to reconfigure OPTION AUTORUN, even resetting the device doesn't help because the OPTION has been cleared. I would like to suggest that the desired behaviour once deployed would be for OPTION AUTORUN to not be cleared on abort - hopefully by that point the programmer will have ironed out anything that might cause an endless reboot loop and the user would rather the device and program just restarted in the event of an abort. I realise this will probably need another OPTION to implement, or a flag to OPTION AUTORUN.

2. When a PicoMite with no console reports an ERROR and returns to the MMBasic prompt then it appears to have just hung. I would suggest that (again possibly OPTION configurable) if an LCD is configured it is cleared to black and the error message is written in white centrally on the LCD.

3. Under other circumstances (i.e. non-error conditions, and again OPTION configurable) when a PicoMite with no console finds itself starting at, or returning to the MMBasic prompt the LCD should be cleared to black and display the message "MMBasic - attach USB console".

YMMV,

Tom
Edited 2023-06-30 04:00 by thwill
Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures
 
matherp
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Posted: 06:03pm 29 Jun 2023
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Sorry Tom, but this is another one user only request. You can achieve most of what you want with OPTION LCDPANEL CONSOLE
 
thwill

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Posted: 06:10pm 29 Jun 2023
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ACK, I assume that given the PicoMite is open-source that you (and Geoff) have no objection to me providing a pre-built binary of a forked and slightly modified PicoGAME LCD specific version of the firmware if I decide I want to go down that route ?

Best wishes,

Tom
Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures
 
thwill

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Joined: 16/09/2019
Location: United Kingdom
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Posted: 09:38am 02 Jul 2023
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This feels like a bug, given no SD card present:

> option list
PicoMite MMBasic Version 5.07.08b7
OPTION SYSTEM SPI GP6,GP3,GP4
OPTION AUTORUN 1
OPTION CPUSPEED (KHz) 252000
OPTION LCDPANEL ILI9341, RLANDSCAPE,GP2,GP1,GP0
OPTION GUI CONTROLS 2
OPTION TOUCH GP5,GP7
GUI CALIBRATE 0, 4034, 2040, -2600000, -64285
OPTION SDCARD GP22
OPTION AUDIO GP20,GP21, ON PWM CHANNEL 2
> a:
> ? Mm.Info(SDCARD)
Ready                    <--- Huh?
> b:
> ? Mm.Info(SDCARD)
Not present


Best wishes,

Tom
Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures
 
matherp
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Joined: 11/12/2012
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Posted: 10:34am 02 Jul 2023
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Thanks - will fix
 
Volhout
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Joined: 05/03/2018
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Posted: 07:32pm 17 Jul 2023
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Hi Peter, others,

I have finished my SNAKE game for picomite VGA.
Now I want to port it to picomite (LCD)
The VGA game used 8 sprites.

I thought I could use the 8 blit buffers (picomite does not support sprites).

So on the VGA pico I loaded all sprites piece for piece in mode 2, and saved them as images (bmp files). I did not use save compressed image.

When I try to open these bmp files on the picomite with BLIT LOAD, the picomite complains they are not in 24bit RGB mode.

What did I do wrong ? Is this something that should have worked, or did I make a mistake in my thinking.

The sprites are 8x8 pixels (=64), and the bmp file is 150 bytes in size. That (indeed) does not sound like it can fit all the pixels as 24 bit values (should be 192 bytes minimum).

Is there any way I can convert sprites in VGA pico to something I can BLIT LOAD in a normal pico?

Thanks you for your help,

Volhout
Edited 2023-07-18 05:35 by Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
phil99

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Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 1799
Posted: 10:17pm 17 Jul 2023
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Open the image in IrfanView, click Image => Increase Colour Depth => 16 milion colours (24 bit)
Then file => save as...

If you don't already have it it is free and can do batch processing. Once you set up the conversion rules it will do the lot in one go.
 
Volhout
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Location: Netherlands
Posts: 3558
Posted: 07:06am 18 Jul 2023
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Thanks !

Will try this tonight. I remeber that MS Paint also allows to save as 24bit bmp.
That was my alternative. I remember my old PC still has native MS Paint. The new ones do not have this installed anymore. See if it still boots...

Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
Martin H.

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Joined: 04/06/2022
Location: Germany
Posts: 904
Posted: 09:24am 18 Jul 2023
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The Format, Sprites are saved and loaded is 1 Byte per Pixel, which holds the Colornumber.

8,1,8
FFFFFFFF
F000000F
F000000F
F000000F
F000000F
F000000F
F000000F
FFFFFFFF
 This is not BMP

To translate Pictures for the Pico I use MMB4W

For example:

fname$="Loderunner.png"
W=128
H=32
cls
load png fname$
for y=0 to h
 for x=0 to w
   nc=0
   cl=pixel(x,y) and &HFFFFFF
   if (cl and &HFF)>&H7F then nc=&HFF
   select case  cl and &HFF00
     case &H1f00 to &H5E00
       inc nc,&H4000
     case &H5f00 to &H7F00
       inc nc,&H8000
     case &H8000 to &HFF00
       inc nc,&Hff00
   end select
   if (cl and &HFF0000)>&H7F0000 then inc nc,&HFF0000
   pixel x,y,nc
 next
next
save image "Loderunner.bmp",0,0,w,h

Edited 2023-07-18 19:31 by Martin H.
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Volhout
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Location: Netherlands
Posts: 3558
Posted: 09:48am 18 Jul 2023
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Hi Martin,

OK, so the trick is to use MMB4W...
Apparently MMB4W saves "SAVE IMAGE" in 24bit RGB values.

Picomite VGA does not save in 24bit RGB using the exact same command (or I must be wrong).

Volhout
Edited 2023-07-18 19:49 by Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
Martin H.

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Joined: 04/06/2022
Location: Germany
Posts: 904
Posted: 10:00am 18 Jul 2023
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I think the difference is not the BMP, but there is SPRITE LOAD and SPRITE LOADBMP
Which should also run with BLIT LOAD and BLIT LOADBMP  (untested)
The normal Load uses the Format the format I mentioned above
  Quote  
SPRITE LOADBMP will load a blit buffer from a 24-bit bmp image file. x,y
define the start position in the image to start loading and w,h specify the
width and height of the area to be loaded.
e.g.
BLIT LOAD #1,"image1", 50,50,100,100
will load an area of 100 pixels square with the top left had corner at 50,50
from the image image1.bmp

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Volhout
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Posts: 3558
Posted: 10:49am 18 Jul 2023
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Either I am confused, or you are confused....
I have the sprite file in pico VGA, named "8.spr"

in picomite VGA

MODE 2
SPRITE LOAD "8.spr",1 'load 8 sprites starting from index 1
SPRITE WRITE 1,0,0    'write the first 8x8 sprite in the top left corner of the VGA screen
SAVE IMAGE "1.bmp",0,0,8,8  'write the 8x8 top left corner as a BMP file to disk


copy the "1.bmp" file (SD card....) to a standard pico

in picomite

BLIT LOAD 1,"1.bmp",0,0  'load the pixels in blit buffer #1, size automatic


Then I get an error, the file is not in 24bit RGB format

That is where I was confused...

Volhout
Edited 2023-07-18 20:50 by Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
Martin H.

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Joined: 04/06/2022
Location: Germany
Posts: 904
Posted: 11:18am 18 Jul 2023
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  Volhout said  Either I am confused, or you are confused....

now I am to ..
as I see it, "Blit LOAD" is not meant to load BMP files, but SPR.
There shold "Blit LOADBMP" work.
I'll test it this afternoon when I'm  back from the office :-)


Cheers
Mart!n
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Volhout
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Location: Netherlands
Posts: 3558
Posted: 12:59pm 18 Jul 2023
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Before you get even more confused

I use 2 different pico's

1/ picomite VGA, with screen attached, that runs SNAKE. Use it to create the BMP files from the individual spritest in the SPR file.
Note that on the VGA version, SPRITE and BLIT are doing the same.

2/ picomite (normal) with attached ILI9341 display. You need the display configured (not actually attached, the problem will also show if you only have the display configured, but not actually attached.
I use this to (try to) load the BMP file in the blit buffer.
Note that on picomite, SPRITE does not exist. BLIT does.

Volhout
Edited 2023-07-18 23:01 by Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
Volhout
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Location: Netherlands
Posts: 3558
Posted: 08:47am 19 Jul 2023
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Playing with SPI to read an attached ADS8326 ADC.
Checked the 4 SPI modes:



The table is correct, but after I measured with a scope, I understood that "output data on falling edge" means "output shifts at falling edge".

So your SPI device must be configured to latch the data at the rising edge.





Volhout
Edited 2023-07-19 18:51 by Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
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