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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Picocalc done properly?
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thwill Guru  Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4301 |
I must have hallucinated this then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bx2vpwuXoo EDIT: Note that some LCDs you cannot BLIT from, either because they are "crap" or because their MISO pin isn't connected ... which *might* include the LCD on the PicoCalc which may be the origin of your statement. Best wishes, Tom Edited 2025-06-10 04:15 by thwill MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| Gadgetguy Regular Member  Joined: 26/04/2025 Location: FrancePosts: 97 |
Wow. I never realized that the gamemite is not hdmi. Would gamemite games run on the picocalc? But even if not, the proposed new lcd based design would likely run gamemite games? This is superb news, thank you! Edited 2025-06-10 04:24 by Gadgetguy |
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| thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4301 |
The Game*Mite uses a cheap ILI9341 320x240 LCD. Possibly not (especially with the RP2040), the larger display is slower to update and requires more RAM for any framebuffers (I do not believe you can create a framebuffer for just a 320x240 slice of the display). Also I'm not 100% certain but something someone (you?) said on the ClockworkPi forum makes me wonder whether the MISO pin on the display is working, and if not, then no BLIT from the display is possible which may be used by some games ... but now I think about it, maybe not. Someone did try porting the Game*Mite version of Flappy Bird and found it too slow. I'm pretty certain it would ... though the a larger screen might need to be accounted for. Best wishes, Tom MMBasic for Linux, Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
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| Gadgetguy Regular Member Joined: 26/04/2025 Location: FrancePosts: 97 |
Thank you Tom for the reply. I am not sure what the MISO pin is, so it was not me posting about it. So I will try to experiment with Game*Mite games on the picocalc, just as an experiment. And I hope that the concept "better Picocalc" proposed by Peter turns into something I could buy Edited 2025-06-10 04:56 by Gadgetguy |
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Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7823 |
AFAIK the ILI9341 has everything working, including the MISO pin. It supports transparent text etc. ILI9488 has problems with MISO. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10195 |
a4b0920f-57c3-42e8-86d7-5f8a6c7d734a.pdf     |
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| dddns Guru Joined: 20/09/2024 Location: GermanyPosts: 472 |
Very nice, that you separated the keyboard! Is there a reason, why you didn't use i2c port expanders? |
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| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 7823 |
It's cheaper not to? :) 72 switches. 16 IO per expander. 5 expander chips and the wiring is much, much more difficult than a matrix. Multiplexing keyboards is the time-honoured way to do things and there's no shortage of GPIO pins here. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10195 |
I'm enjoying playing with this and here is the first prototype. Everything works but a few changes needed. I think I'll call it the Palm Pico. I'm not happy with the battery charging circuit so am going to move to a design from Great Scott The surface mount speakers I chose are complete c..p so I need to find something better. The RTC battery will move to the bottom of the board which gives room for a CR2032. The audio jack will be replaced with a switching one that cuts off the amp when external audio is plugged in. Finally the board will be shortened so that the keyboard buts up to the screen giving a final size of 160x108mm The software will be standard PICOUSB2350 which will allow the user to plug any external USB device (devices with a hub) into the 64-pin DIL board. I've partially written a new driver for the screen using the PSRAM as a full colour framebuffer and with the screen updated by the second processor. This gives a good performance improvement (GUI TEST LCDPANEL: 335 circles/second with the new driver vs 190 before). I'm still to write the full keyboard driver but I have already modified the KEYPAD command to optionally allow any number of columns and rows AND give the user the ability to specify for each matrix position the code that is returned KEYPAD codes%(cols, rows),vret%, interrupt, colstartpin, ncols, rowstartpin, nrows This will be generally useful in MMBasic allowing much more flexibility in using simple keypads as input devices. The layout of the keyboard allows a commercial overlay to be used - bit expensive but saves any custom work before everything is finished. The screen is 320x320 and because the Pico has PSRAM any 320x240 code will work with no modification without hitting any memory limitations (PETSCII tested) Overall spec: RP2350B, 16MB flash, 8MB PSRAM, 320x320 4" IPS screen, SDcard, DS3231 RTC with CR2032 battery, I2S DAC based audio with line level output and volume controlled stereo amplifiers/speakers, USB host capable, serial console using CH340, External I2C port, powered by standard 18650 lipos using readily available battery holder. ESP8266 port connected to COM1 for WIFI connectivity. AND, of course, completely open source and fully supported by stock MMBasic firmware.    Edited 2025-07-03 03:30 by matherp |
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| WhiteWizzard Guru Joined: 05/04/2013 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2932 |
Absolutely BRILLIANT! |
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PilotPirx Regular Member Joined: 03/11/2020 Location: GermanyPosts: 99 |
Great idea!!!  A Palm Pico is a "must have". Where can I buy this keyboard overlay? |
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| Bleep Guru Joined: 09/01/2022 Location: United KingdomPosts: 624 |
Hi Peter, Looks really good, I can feel another purchase coming on. :-( the screen especially looks very crisp and bright & the keyboard big enough to be useful. :-) |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 10195 |
Long way to go yet. Definitely one, if not two more H/W prototypes to get it right physically and more work needed on the new graphics driver. I haven't even started yet on the keyboard driver. The screen is definitely excellent. |
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vegipete Guru Joined: 29/01/2013 Location: CanadaPosts: 1128 |
Looks pretty cool. Is there any easy way to push the keyboard right up to the edge of the screen? Visit Vegipete's *Mite Library for cool programs. |
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phil99 Guru Joined: 11/02/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2584 |
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