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.

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

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

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

@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

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. :)

@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

  thwill said  

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.

Tom

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

  Volhout said  

The extra capacitor is a precaution to prevent the IC from oscillation.
...
But you were going to wire up something yourself, and I could not be sure that you wouldn't 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.

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

Hi Tom,

Who do you think needs new varifocals....

Mea culpa.....

Volhout

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".

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

  bigmik said  

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.

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

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

The rules say

  Quote  

Submitted programs may “do anything” but must be demonstrable with just “base” hardware:
? PicoMite - SD card, keyboard and VGA monitor or 320x240 ILI9341

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.

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.

  vegipete said  

The rules say

  Quote  

Submitted programs may “do anything” but must be demonstrable with just “base” hardware:
? PicoMite - SD card, keyboard and VGA monitor or 320x240 ILI9341

Does Volhout's entry run on the base PicoMiteVGA hardware? Key word, does it RUN?

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.

  vegipete said  

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.

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

Delete double post - must have used an incompatible character
Edited 2022-07-12 02:21 by thwill

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

  Volhout said  

I hope this plead is not interpreted wrong ... The other contestants worked just as hard ... Please make them shine !!

   

  Lodovik said  

My project ... I ported a fractal landscape generator that I found in an old Compute magazine from 1987

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.