PicoMite: Running BASIC on a Raspberry Pi Pico
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- Опубліковано 2 лип 2024
- Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller set up as a "PicoMite" running the MMBasic programming language from Geoff Graham. The PicoMite firmware and manual can be downloaded from geoffg.net/picomite.html
To program the PicoMite I used the PuTTY terminal emulator, which can be downloaded from www.putty.org/
The Monk Makes Breadboard for Pico is available here: shop.pimoroni.com/products/br...
Please note that I have no association with any of the aforementioned individuals, websites and organizations, and that none of the above are associate links.
The current limiting resistors used with the LEDs were 220 ohm.
If you like this video, you may enjoy my previous episode where I demonstrate using MicroPython to control LEDs and servos with a Raspberry Pi Pico: • Raspberry Pi Pico: Inp...
More videos on SBCs and wider computing and related topics can be found at / explainingcomputers
You may also like my ExplainingTheFuture channel at: / explainingthefuture
Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
00:48 Hardware
02:48 PicoMite Setup
08:14 BASIC Programs
11:52 Output Control
15:21 Switched On
17:06 BASIC Opportunities
18:33 Wrap
#PicoMite #MMBasic #RaspberryPiPico #ExplainingComputers - Наука та технологія
For me, nothing beats an episode of Explaining Computers for clearing my mind of the week’s news from our sad world.
I am a very old man (65) who started in High School on a Digital Equipment Corporation, PDP1145. Our OS at that time was RST Basic. It was 1975 and I lived in Springfield Massachusetts. I am still active in the Computer field and take my word for it; We have come a long way.
Been a Subscriber for a few years and look forward to your Sunday Video's.
This will be a Nostalgic Fun Project! Thank You Very Much.
Bill
1977 Lewiston Maine some UNIX like time sharing system running some BASIC with Northeast Bank and the High School. Punch cards and Teletype printers at 300 BAUD, no monitors! We were probably responsible for deforesting many many acres!
Pdp11
I'm and even older man (68) who in college, started on a DEC PDP-8 with nothing but the front panel toggle switches to use to program the thing! I still keep my hand in these days for fun in retirement. It absolutely amazes me what can be done on a bit of silicon no bigger than my fingernails these days. Cheers!
My brother and I shared his Spectrum zx 81. Downloading games from tape and writing sprite games from magazine articles. Thanks for the memories.
GW-Basic is my first love. So this video is like hello from my youth. Thank you!👍
All your videos are good, but even at your high level this one stands out as extra special. Thank you very much indeed.
Thanks Mark. :)
BASIC computing at its finest on a Sunday morning. Well done Mr. Barnatt. Thank you for that excellent web link.
I suspect that MMBasic is going to get a few new and well deserved users. :)
@@ExplainingComputers First 😉
Amazing ! At the same time.... 40 years ago... indeed, I did the same thing,... how time flies !
This brings memories back. I started out in '82 with a Commodore VC-20 and 8K Memory extension. All the that is sooo familiar.
I find a lot of your videos quite nostalgic, but this one has sent me back to high school. I learned to program then and this brings me back to the 70s. I always enjoy watching what you do. Thanks for sharing!
I was in high school in the 70's, but my school didn't offer any type of computer classes. I took radio and tv repair, where we worked on mostly tube tv's. I did learn basic on a friends trs80.
Same here, we had just got some Apple ][+'s when I was in high school.
The first computer I got to use was an ICL 2903 (remote over acoustic coupler modem and teletype terminal, painfully slow and often take near on an hour to get a connection over the PSTN line) running George OS using CECIL programming language, also the Research Machines 380Z running BASIC at school.
But my own first computer was a ZX81 preorder as well. Fun times indeed. Today, there is so much tech in your basic systems that it is overloaded and curtails the creative stuff, which things like microcontrollers give back as you can get creative at the core way more. Just like those early microcomputers.
I liked the ICL 2900 architecture. Got to use it at Glasgow Uni (with VME/B) and Edinburgh with our home grown EMAS (Edinburgh Multi Access System).
Thx Geoff and Peter for all the fun .
Brings back memories of running BBC Basic on my BBC B. Really interesting video.
That's really neat, can't believe the documentation, that's a huge amount of time! Looking forward to the VGA output version. Wishing I still had a pile of old Byte magazines, I spent hours typing basic code into a Sinclair and saving out to cassette tape. There were some neat games for the Sinclair and things like Color Computer in this old magazines!
There's a big pile of Byte mags on the Internet Archive site.
@@parlabaneisback Thanks, I'll have to look around.
Then was the day you spent days typing? Only to forget a command or Quota to watch your work crash!!! Or it works great, and the disk gets scratched!!!
I agree
there is a bad side to those listing.
i once was asked to help a desperate teenager who had spent a LOT of time typing a LOT of code. It did not work.
it is a PITA to find the mistakes in such a copy.
MM BASIC is a very powerful language with the benefit of being well documented and simple to use. You can create custom commands as well. Very cool and underrated!
Brightest idea I've seen in years, CONGRATULATIONS!! to the developers, and a big thank to you , for spreading the word.
Amazing, original and intuitive work as always. Well done and presented! Thank you for introducing all of us to to these wonderful ideas! It is a fresh breath of air without commercial bias.
Videos like this that link computers, SBCs, or microcontrollers with electronics are my favorite EC videos. Throw in some basic programming, like the BASIC language I first learned on my Commodore in 1980 and it’s absolute Nirvana. Can’t wait for the display interface video(s) to come. Geoff’s Projects looks very interesting. Looking forward to reading the 170 page manual, and exploring the projects on the website. Thanks CB and EC for keeping us in the loop on this great tech!
Always look forward to a Sunday afternoon EC video. Thanks Chris.
Thanks to you and the MMBASIC creators for this video.
Whooo remember me my first program ever, in 1985, on a Thomson To7. I love the idea of this pico Basic. Nice entry for young to learn programming.
I love this channel you run with consistency and reliable information and a dose of humor (especially the outro "veeeeery soooon" which I love). Thank you very much for what and how you do. I bow low.
My first experience with Basic was on a Commodore 64 and in its early days it used a cassette tape to store and retrieve programs. Commodore Basic also used line numbers. I am sure MMBasic is much improved. I have not ventured into the Raspberry Pi Pico, so thank you for the introduction!
@Jim McIntosh Me Too! I learned how to program on an Atari 400. Ah, the good old days. Star Raiders!
Apple ][+ here
@@TheySuckFatLongDonkeyLogs I lusted after Apple 2's but in the day they were 3x as expensive as 400's. And me being the cheapskate that I am went for economy. I even worked for Atari for a time.
I can’t happily program in BASIC without line numbers. Your demonstration of with and without was a moment of happy-not-happy. I realized my coding acquisition is psychologically based if you call composing in BASIC coding. And it never occurred to me I might write in BASIC again. What a profound video!
Structured BASIC programming never needs line numbers.
@@SpeccyMan Wean him off the line numbers. I still find them comforting when I want to write something without thinking.
The thing is we had to use them just to be able to call a block of code.
39 years since I started using Basic on a Sirius micro. Thanks Christopher, takes me back to the good old days in computing.
Fascinating! A wonderful mix of nostalgia and the present day.
I enjoyed getting the introduction to BASIC on the Pico as much as you enjoyed revisiting it.
Slice that breadboard in half right down the middle and you can then make it "wider" so that the pico plugs into the end of each row. That would open up four connection slots per pin.
Worth doing as the board is not too expensive if you mess up
Brilliant seeing basic back again. That language still has so much to offer us in this modern world
Wow. Programs costing hundreds of $ aren't documented as well. This guy deserves a donation.
I love BASIX. No pratting about with objects, no worrying about indents and half a dozen kinds of parentheses.
It takes me back to my spectrum 48k days.
I'm very tempted to have a go with this.
It's also cheap and simple!
I think I paid more for the USB cable than the computer. Just bang the code straight in and hit F2 and it saves and runs instantly. I'm loving it.
I was havng flashbacks to programming in basic on my Commodore 64 back in the 80's. Another great video,I will certainly be checking the website and PicoMite out.
This is such a beautiful video, I am so eager to try this on my own now. Thank you for showing the beauty of computing yet again!
Wow! this is the coolest thing Ive done with a pico so far! How neat! thank you so much for the tutorial. I've never used basic before, and it was a great introduction.
BASIC is part of me and every time I read/hear this magic word I feel so happy,
Thanks Chris
Excellent episode. Informative, interesting and well presented. Thanks. Guess what my retirement lasted 10 days, I’ve accepted a position as an in-house field tech at “Control Micro Systems” notice the middle word, it was a sign. They have videos on yt, CMS laser. Thanks for getting me interested in high tech again. FYI, Artemis is back in the VAB. 🚀
That was indeed a short retirement -- but it sounds like you will be doing some interesting work. :)
Amazing Project - Having spent part of the last year translating ideas written in Basic into MicroPython and C++ to run on the RP2040 Pico (All good for the learning curve) - PicoMite allows an alternative approach to exploring such ideas directly.
Thank you for another clear and informative video.
Thank you for Geoff's website! Awesome stuff!
In the early 2000s I learned to make my first microcontroller-driven robots using a Basic Stamp 2. This is such a delightful nostalgic throwback! I made some cool stuff, including a mini sumo robot that had infrared distance sensors that it would use to find and follow an opponent. It was so cool for a 12 year old to be able to relatively easily get into that with a BASIC powered MCU
Oh my gosh a blast from the past. I got my start on the Timex Sinclair as well, and basic programming. This video is certainly informative, as are all of yours. I will truly be giving this a try.
Around 1979 I wrote a BASIC interpreter for the 6502 that ran on an APPLE ][ with at least 25K RAM and Apple DOS. I didn't like AppleSoft BASIC because its I/O was slot dependent and you could not have multiple files open on the floppy at the same time and you had to switch slots to write to or read from different peripherals or files. The syntax of my version was based on BASIC+Plus that I learned on the PDP-11 running RSTS/E at the college I was at.
It was written entirely in assembly, was slow and completely non-portable, and took up 20k of RAM all by itself.
It's hard to believe that something as small and "simple" as a Pico is many times more powerful than the Apple ][, or even the PDP-11, so having a good BASIC interpreter with a built-in editor (other than the command line), file handling, etc., is practical and even leaves more RAM and storage available for the user.
You just hit me, it was 40 years ago for me too - on my good ole trash80 though I haven't done as much as you have. Really great that Geoff has made his MM Basic available for other platforms.
Thank you for your link to Geoff. I am passionate about affordable electronics and Geoff looks like he has to be number one when it comes to value for money.
Very good presenting skill highly enjoyable, been tinkering for a while now I’ve found your videos I’ve found new inspiration! Many thanks!
This brings back memories, great job, thanks a lot!
Great video Chris. Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the video. Very much looking forward to having a go at this. My journey into computing also started with a zx81 with a 16K add on pack! Thanks again for all your content.
Old Basic langage, all my youth, I haven't seen you since a long time. Python and C++ are younger but you seem in good health. Long live to Basic !!
It would be interesting to see the Pico turned into a little basic stand alone computer with a keyboard. Looking forward to your next video!
Hi Perry. It can be done -- it just requires a handful of diodes and resistors, plus a VGA and PS/2 socket. Certainly a potential video . . .
@@ExplainingComputers I appreciate the reply. Wishing you a great day!
I agree, that would make for a terrific video!
Is the ram memory limited or can 'we' access or use the connected pc ram?
I learned basic on the older IBM xt, 8088 micro processors, 286, 386, 486 pc followed running DOS, then moved on to win95 and continued editing and creating scripts to modify programs. After win 98 appeared, the dos days faded into the NT which took too much time to rewrite the older language..at which I became a user instead of a programmer.
@@Barracuda48082 edit: sorry I just reread your question. My original response was unrelated. I'd also like to know if it can support external RAM, but I don't believe it can.
Three of my favorites in one video; ExplainingComputers, BASIC and Raspberry PI!
I think I could make quite a lot of use of this for various projects, where programming in BASIC directly on the Pico would probably be quicker and easier than the usual options. I've used BASIC on a ZX81, Spectrum, BBC B and IBM PC, but none of those had the ability to do what a Pico can!
I've tested the same BASIC program on a Dragon 32 and PicoMite and found the PicoMite is over 100 times faster. Things that used to be a problem in BASIC such as program speed, data storage and spaghetti code are solved with this. Yet you can still write a 3 line program that actually does something and runs instantly.
Sir Chris, this one of your best videos ever. You've touched on tons of content. No wonder I see pleasure and pride in your eyes tonight. WELL DONE!
Having written a FORTRAN program on a 4KB PDP-8 computer in the early 70s, I can both appreciate this amazing $4 computer as well as the light-years we've come with the Raspberry Pi! Mind-boggling to us career computer guys. Btw, I'm now 75.
I know Fortran on a 4KB computer sounds almost impossible, but I did it. No disk drive, just a Teletype with a punched paper tape reader and 3 mag tape drives. I would literally watch the tapes spin and rewind during the compile process. An additional 4KB CMOS memory bank served as the tape buffer. I "keyed" in the RIM loader in octal on the console switches and pressed the execute switch.When dinosaurs roamed the earth!
Thanks for these comments Don. It seems many of us beyond a certain age here appreciate BASIC on the Pico, and how it takes us back to earlier days of computing.
In 1978 at the tender age of 24 I bought a 6502 based UK101 build- it- yourself kit which boasted a 'Massive 8K Basic' ... here at nearly 70 that EC video and the work of the guys who ported the basic transported me back to a time when computing wasn't owned by Google, Amazon and Microsoft ... it belonged to the guys in their back bedrooms. Great work all round - thank you :) I will enjoy reading the manual.
I feel the nostalgia just watching this ....
My first microcomputer was the Timex Sinclair, the stateside close cousin of the ZX81, good times!
Getting a 16K memory module and a full size keyboard / case was a massive upgrade for it!
Marvelous! Hoping to see more episodes about Programming using other languages (like C, Java, Swift, and others) for Computer Science students like me... 😄👏
A lovely trip down memory lane, looking at BASIC.
Gee-Wiz, You went back to the 1980+ year of computer "BASIC" Simply and reliable with using PLC controller. You're going to have to pull out the kindergarten book. And teach these "now programmer" ancient coding of BASIC, C, PLC, early JAVA (which now make gaming so darn life like), and 5 1/4" drive and 3" Floppy drives. I read the list of us "oldies" pulling out old books, magazines of memories! Great Jobs!
Thanks to this video I'm also PicoMite user now (and a Bascom user for years)
Great video. My first dealings with computing was with BASIC on a TI99/4a back in, I believe, 1982, when my father purchased it. Spent many hours copying programs form magazines and also making up some of my own. Storage was on an audio cassette.
Me too, I still have mine 😊 I think I have to set it up again and look at what I have on the tapes 🤔
This is good stuff Chris, and inspiring. Going to get busy playing with my Pico this week. Thanks for another great video.
Greetings Steve. Sound like I have given you -- and others here -- something to tinker with! :)
To echo many of the same sentiments that others have listed below, this neat little video brought back memories of my first encounter with computers & programming. I almost missed the whole PC movement & didn't care too much as there were hardly any around in high school in the 70s. If not for a fateful day in the mid-80s while in graduate school (music performance) and I wandered by a smallish room and heard a synthesizer & also a handful of Sanyo MBC-550s 'grunting' away w data disk & compiler drive talking! (a kind of music, CP/M was it?) As I learned FSU had a connection to the U. of IL at Champaign-Urbana & the music departments were involved in technology research in sound synthesis termed C-Music (?) or some such. The staff built the synth I heard from the ground up - out of wood. Big sucker, and FM synthesis was breaking out big-time , especially in Pop music!
The next year saw a large lab set up with - wait for this - Atari 1040 STs of which I have the regular & a Mega-STE in my basement to this day! FSU started a Center for Music Research & they could get 3 Ataris with 1MB on the MOBO, stereo sound jack, MIDI IN/OUT, cartridge port, etc. and GUI for the cost of just 1 Macintosh! Actually, a British professor on staff taught the first programming class I ever took: Pascal. That language was abandoned the next semester in favor of C. After I started teaching high school a few years later (1/2 day music 1/2 day computer literacy/programming...ahhh...so nice!) the kids & I had fun with programming challenges in QBASIC, Batch files (anybody remember?) and MS-DOS. Oh, and fantasizing about the day I would buy a PC with a couple MBs RAM and a huge 40MB hard drive! Woo-Hoo!) Well then, I feel sorry for anybody who has read this tome down to this point. But at least know I feel good in the way one does after visiting a very close friend not seen in many years! Have a good one, and I think I shall poke around in the MicroPython project mentioned above.
Cheers!
Wonderful video! Many thanks Chris
What's interesting that while watching this video, I suddenly got very nostalgic and it also brought me back 40 years ago when I learned to program on Coleco Adam's SmartBasic. So it was very interesting when you ended the video with you also getting nostalgic about when you learned to program in Basic as well. I still remember coding back then using the line numbers, GOTOs and a simple line editor. Of course, fast forward to today and I'm looking to retirement from being a career IT professional as a software engineer. Thanks for the video and bringing back old memories!
Nice to see things going back to BASIC, my first introduction to computers
Stinking cold so tucked up with a nice warm wrap of "proper computing" nostalgia today!
The only thing I find strangely disturbing is the lack of "World" after "Hello"! 😳
WOW, where was this when i was 11 or 12? It would have given me so much enjoyment at that age. It still is fun today, but when i was a kid i was using regular electric switches and what i could "borrow" from an old car etc. I still remember adapting a 6v / 12v meter circuit that used LEDs output to show the level, reducing the resistors to convert to a VU meter for my radio because i wanted falshing lights. See your LED on the breadboard and then the neat MMBasic was just great. Thank you for bringing this to us and than Geoff for his hard work.
Very good, that took me back 40+ years...
I've really enjoyed this video Chris a real trip down memory lane, I used a BBC micro (Acorn) for my 'O' level exam back in 1986. We had fun programming in basic and saving onto cassette tapes, plenty of line numbers as well. Part of the exam was writing a program which I used for RC aircraft design saved onto a 5.25" floppy disk. I'm looking forward to the next episode in this series. :)
Thanks Chris, very informative. Takes me back to my college days in thd 80's coding in BBC Basic
Oh, that's cool! I didn't know MMBasic ran on the pico! I wanted to build/buy the maximite2 a long time ago and having the pico as the target will make that possible! Thanks for letting me know about this! Also, Geoff's work is amazing! Thanks for posting this!
Loved it! This pico has probably more power than the 50kg TRS-80 computer which I first learned BASIC with!
This could be just what I need. Thank you.
Excellent video. Thanks for your valuable time sharing.
So nostalgic! In the 90s I had so much fun in basic!
Thank you for the nostalgia.
My feelings always kicks in when I see BASIC ❤️❤️❤️❤️
Now that was extremely exciting! I can't wait to see what you do with a keyboard and VGA output. I'll follow along with my own setup.
I learned BASIC on the ZX-80, then switched over to the C64 (quite the leap!) where I continued with their thankfully crappy BASIC, forcing me to learn machine code.
Really fun times.
This takes me back to my Basic Stamp fun times. You can't beat the price and features.
Way to go *_Geoff Graham!_*
Being able to make simple microcontroller programs (or complex) that can be edited with any terminal program (without installing any programming environment, compiler, etc.) is awesome. And for a lot of projects it's likely more than fast enough. Awesome!
My weekend is now complete!!
Now this is a subject I've never thought about, but great!
Greetings Leslie. :)
That's really neat. Seeing the BASIC programming reminds me of when I took BASIC in college during the 80s.
This takes me back a ways. I programmed Apple IIs using Apple BASIC (which isn't much different than what you were showing) and loved writing code back then (late 80s). This little board seems like a great thing to go back and try to see if I even remember BASIC. For $4 I'm all in on this. No doubt I will study Geoff's site. Good stuff Chris, good stuff.
I wrote my first program in Fortran in freshman - intro to engineering at Uni. Sept 1972 and I am still working at the "same" company for 47 years!
I should added IBM 350 and card readet!
Very interesting once again!! Thanks Chris
a very nostalgic video. this time it was really a basic lecture.
Very funny and great job. Back to the future!
OMG, shades of Edlin! Now I understand how a whole raft of display doohickeys work, like programmable signs and such. Now anyone can have a dynamic billboard!
Even though I will probably never do any of this, still it is riveting to watch!
I did a little coding while in College in my computer science classes. I've mucked about with MMBasic and after having my Raspberry Pi I've started coding with Python it all interests me to write a small program and watch it work. Thanks for the introduction to the Raspberry Pi Pico. I'll check out the website you mentioned and take a "Closer Look". Thanks Chris 😀👍✌
Thanks for the intro - just getting started with my Pico Mite basic board (it has VGA onboard and can go direct to video monitor).
Great to hear -- I am about to build a PicoMite VGA! :)
Cool to know I have the option of loading Basic onto my Pico, Thanks for the info in this detailed video. Cheers.
This looks like a great introduction to programming for newbies! Making basic circuits and programs run on this would be a good starting point before embarking on using less intuitive (imo) languages. But more importantly it looks fun!
This is being put in my "one of my favorites EC!". It's along the lines of why I started watching EC. It's funny how you ended the video with your reminiscing of the Sinclair. I was doing the same thing while watching and thinking about my introduction to BASIC on a Commodore PET with cassette tape at roughly the same time! The wonder and joy of computing and electronics never seems to fade, does it?
Thanks Rex. And I agree, there is a certain joy where basic (no pun) computing and electronics come together that never fades. :)
Remember programming an Apple 2 plus in BASIC and 6502 assembler in 1979. Its great to see it being used on the Pico. Very nostalgic to see BASIC back in use.
Thank you! A very exciting post, in my personal opinion!
This is great! I think I'll look out my old Commodore 64 magazines and try to get Scramble running on my Pico. Excellent video!
I, too, began my journey into my computerfied life with the US version os the Sinclair - the Timex/Sinclair TS1000.
My first BASIC programming began in the early 70's using a rather large acoustic modem/terminal connected to our mainframe computer using the desk telephone handset. It was intended to make self programming of small engineering programs easier for us since it eliminated much of the programming complexity. You simply called a number, plugged the handset into the modem, and started programing, thereby eliminating the need for computer cards submitted for overnight runs, thereby speeding up program development. Programs I wrote were for tasks such as selecting the proper wire diameter, material, and overall spring dimensions in the design of springs, sizing hydraulic orifices given a hydraulic actuator's size and loading, and many other relatively simple engineering tasks. It was a fun time. It wouldn't be long, however, and programmable desktop and handheld calculators would soon take over that task. Like most computer history, that era didn't last long. I may give this a try this just for the memories.
Nice Sunday as ever is my favorite day aka Christopher day lol love the topic of the day.
Greetings on another Sunday!
Way back in 1980 I saw the first Apple ads, but the price caused me to hesitate till '82.. Saw the ZX81 at a friend who told me to buy a Speccy instead, as they were JUST released. So I waited for mine while getting acquainted on his ZX81 and ZX80..I only bought my first pc when 286's were well on their way. An ICL OPD filled in the gap after the Speccy to pc. Damn, the nostalgia..Great one Chris, now you got me into thinking what mischief I can cause with that Basic stuff in Windows 😏😈