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| Menu | JAQForum Ver 19.10.27 |
Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Clockwork-Pi: PicoCalc
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I might just possibly put a hidden feature into MMBasic to ensure he can't update  |
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Geoff and Peter, Be assured that genuine Shedders will support you however you wish. Had it not been for this 'development' I may have been interested in it but not now! Well spotted Tom. Cheers, Andrew |
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It didn't take much spotting, I'm on their mailing list having bought a DevTerm last year and am an occasional lurker on their forums. From what I've read there, they are more miss than hit with their delivery estimates for their products but seem to be pretty good with resolving hardware problems and providing replacement parts where necessary. Software support seems to mostly come from their community. I still advocate a policy of engagement and (unless Peter/Geoff explicitly wants to tell me not to) may well prod on their forum once the PicoCalc becomes more than some flashy website images. I'd probably even invest if I didn't have a wife to (correctly) remind me that I already have sufficient gadgets gathering dust. Best wishes, Tom Edited 2025-03-15 19:54 by thwill |
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Haha, I would like that!  Greetings Daniel |
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i can see a few ways that could be done, in particular with the RP2350 having some OTP ROM. but beware: inserting a 'trap' goes against the principals of open-source software - far better to reason with him. cheers, rob :-) |
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I see from the updated blurb, it now includes pico 2 and W and usual variants. It has a 4x4-inch lcd so the overall size is more like a tablet than a calculator. Driving that screen pixel count with SPI is near the point where parallel data is needed for speed though. Small qwerty keyboards are a bit awkward, but the Blackberry was pretty popular I guess. I think the overall presentation with the injection molded case is pretty slick, it points to a sustained (and costly) development effort which has backing. Given that it can use varied firmware from a wide range of sources I think it will be sustained. If I was commuting I would probably get one to use on the train, and use my own programs, but I still prefer a full size keyboard (old git). The lack of copyright notice is pretty bad but I don't think there is much to be gained overturning it, unless there is proof of loss and damage etc. They probably need some games to make it popular so that may be an opportunity. |
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the initial feeling i got at first glance - and judging by the name "PicoCalc"- is that the designer was trying to capture the look-and-feel of the TI-NSpire calculators:  (from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TI-Nspire_series) this is something i'd have loved to have back when (a) i was a teenager, and (b) we were all living some time back in the 1980's. but not quite so much these days. today, most teens would rather have a smartphone! far more interesting to me personally is the DevTerm (https://www.clockworkpi.com/home-devterm). i would rather like to see a DevTerm with someone actually using it, so as to get some idea of the overall size. is the keyboard usable? how readable is the display when showing an 80-column screen? a DevTerm with a couple of RP2350 inside could be an interesting proposition! cheers, rob :-) |
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There's a challenge for Tom, porting MMB4L to Android. |
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THIS would be a dream! Or even for the Raspberry Pi... :) Greetings Daniel |
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It already works on Raspberry Pi: https://github.com/thwill1000/mmb4l/releases/tag/v0.7-alpha.1 Android will have to wait, I probably look at Webasm again before that. Best wishes, Tom Edited 2025-03-16 23:07 by thwill |
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I have a DevTerm, the keyboard is rather cramped and really only good enough for hunt and peck, I'd have preferred something thumb typeable like a Psion 3a keyboard. The display is good, but rather lacking in vertical height for a good desktop experience ... ok for a terminal though. It runs MMB4L perfectly fine. Best wishes, Tom |
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Do you mean WebAssembly (aka WAsm) or what (and why)? John |
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I do ... and because I quite like the idea of being able to run MMBasic in the web browser and opening up the games people have created on MMBasic to those who don't have 'mites and don't want to install the MMBasic interpreter. I did actually make enough progress on this three (?) years ago to get MMB4L to transpile to WebAssembly and get the MMBasic prompt up in a browser. But I didn't get beyond the problem of the MMBasic prompt blocking the rendering loop. I know rather more about web programming now, so if/when I can find the time I expect I will be able to make more progress. Best wishes, Tom |
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I got that wrong, now the blurb says 4 inch display but as diagonal, eg about 3 inch square. So the display and qwerty keyboard are pretty small. |
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It looks like Clockworkpi is taking steps to correct their mistakes and acknowledge MMBasic's copyright and licensing. Since Clockworkpi is a hardware company, not a software company and don't really like to update software, I think they recognize they will need to stay on good terms with Geoff and Peter so the PicoCalc can get what its needs from the community. https://github.com/clockworkpi/PicoCalc/tree/master/Code/PicoMite |
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don't know if anyone has already posted a link to this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-d8Hj0SEFR0 it is a 20-minute long review of the 'picocalc', whith a good sized chunk covering mmbasic. i do notice that the scrolling speed of the screen is rather poor, and also feel it would be far more usable if it was 80-columns wide instead of only 40; they use a 320x320 pixel panel. cheers, rob :-) |
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Hi folks, I've been taking a keen interest, not that I have any intention of buying another paperweight; though it has made me more interested in the idea of MMBasic for Android. That screen is proving problematic, they have a hacked driver, the larger size (c.f. 320x240) means it is slower to update and the frame and layer buffers take more RAM, and they also have a mechanical problem where people keep breaking their screens when they switch the Pico module. They also seems to be having problems with the i2c keyboard timing out and software niggles with both console input and output. There has even been a suggestion of crowd-funding a PicoCalc for Peter in the hopes that he might sort it out, and keep the PicoCalc firmware up to date with the main-line ... I bit my tongue at that point. However I'm sure their community, if not necessarily ClockworkPi themselves, will find solutions, though I do wonder if they might ultimately settle on MicroPython as their default firmware rather than MMBasic  . There is also some movement towards using a Luckfox Lyra module running Linux rather than a Pico, apparently they are pin compatible.In positive news I've badgered ClockworkPi sufficiently that they've made some movement towards respecting the MMBasic license, though I feel there is still more to do there. Best wishes, Tom Edited 2025-04-26 04:49 by thwill |
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Deleted by author Edited 2025-04-26 04:35 by thwill |
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I solved the keyboard problem yesterday (27 Apr) but I don't know when it will make it into the various ports floating around. I believe ClockworkPi will iron out their differences with the people here. They seem very receptive to suggestions. At least they didn't delete the copyright notice in the startup banner! No need for crowdfunding, I'd outright buy Peter a PicoCalc if he would commit to keeping the latest PicoMite running on it. Heck, it's only $75 USD. It's a nice toy, Peter!  |
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