TheBackShed.com

Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : PicoMite Draft manual V6.00.02 - please review

Page 2 of 3

Author

Message

twofingers
Guru

Joined: 02/06/2014
Location: Germany
Posts: 1539

Posted: 10:26pm 02 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Page 199:

Is it possible that on page 199 (RegEx) the word "Qualifiers" should correctly be "Quantifiers"?

Regards
Michael

causality ≠ correlation ≠ coincidence

Supertech

Regular Member

Joined: 13/11/2016
Location: Australia
Posts: 41

Posted: 12:26am 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Anything missing in all manuals to date? See who notices....?

Why not scan Manual for 'MMBasic syntax typos', like say MMEdit would do, before publishing it even as draft. This would save us humans to try to see the obvious errors we miss over and over, and our precious time to find them!

Webmite, Grand QUESTION to Publishers:

Geoff, the publisher of Webmite Manual, 'Have you ever copied and pasted "your own typed examples" into say MMEdit (set as Webmite), sent to correct hardware and "Run"' to see that YOUR examples "actually work" FROM ANY of your manuals?

I acknowledge the huge work in this. it is exceptional and thank you all.

Regards to All. Supertech.

phil99

Guru

Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 2513

Posted: 01:25am 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Neither the firmware no the manuals are produced by commercial enterprises. It all relies on volunteers so it is to our benefit to volunteer some time to help them test and proof read their work where we can.

Presumably the examples worked at the time they were written but someone volunteering to test all the example code on the latest RC would be helpful.

Quote Why not scan Manual for 'MMBasic syntax typos', like say MMEdit would do

Only needs a volunteer to write the scanner, and update it with each change.

toml_12953
Guru

Joined: 13/02/2015
Location: United States
Posts: 408

Posted: 02:43am 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

phil99 said Loop While works but Do Until doesn't.

> a=-3
> do until a=>0 :print a, :pause 1000 :inc a : loop
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
> a=-3
> do :print a, :pause 1000 :inc a : loop while a=<0
-3 -2 -1 0
>

> a=-3 : do until a > 0 :print a, :pause 1000 :inc a : loop while a < 6
-3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5
>

Thanks. I thought I had tested that but I guess not. Getting old is hell!

toml_12953
Guru

Joined: 13/02/2015
Location: United States
Posts: 408

Posted: 02:48am 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Nimue said

toml_12953 said

Returns the standard deviation

Returns the sample standard deviation

An unbiased opinion there.... (drops the mic and walks out...

)

You, sir, are a statistician!

Mixtel90

Guru

Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7683

Posted: 08:20am 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

I always thought "standard deviation" just meant "not too kinky"....

Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs

bfwolf
Regular Member

Joined: 03/01/2025
Location: Germany
Posts: 75

Posted: 09:43am 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

phil99 said Loop While works but Do Until doesn't.

DO WHILE <cond> .. LOOP and DO .. LOOP UNTIL <cond> are explained on p. 113 of the manual draft! As far as I understood, "UNTIL" should follow "LOOP" at the end of a loop and "WHILE" should follow "DO" at the head of the loop.

@Peter:
If "WHILE" also works at the end, this should be added to the manual and would be "a nice side effect".

bfwolf

toml_12953
Guru

Joined: 13/02/2015
Location: United States
Posts: 408

Posted: 10:16am 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

bfwolf said
DO WHILE <cond> .. LOOP and DO .. LOOP UNTIL <cond> are explained on p. 113 of the manual draft! As far as I understood, "UNTIL" should follow "LOOP" at the end of a loop and "WHILE" should follow "DO" at the head of the loop.

@Peter:
If "WHILE" also works at the end, this should be added to the manual and would be "a nice side effect".

bfwolf

In the ANSI standard for Full BASIC, both UNTIL and WHILE may be paired with either the DO or the LOOP verb.

bfwolf
Regular Member

Joined: 03/01/2025
Location: Germany
Posts: 75

Posted: 05:44pm 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

toml_12953 said
In the ANSI standard for Full BASIC, both UNTIL and WHILE may be paired with either the DO or the LOOP verb.

You're right!

Didn't know this but looked into the ANSI doc for "FULL BASIC" and indeed UNTIL and WHILE may be both either combined with DO or LOOP, as said in chapter 8.3.3 Examples on page 84 of ANSI doc.
As a C and Pascal programmer, i didn't expect this to be allowed...

The ANSI doc didn't say anything about the behaviour, when UNTIL and WHILE are used sultanously for the same loop - as phil99 tried. There was no example in the ANSI doc showing this as legal?

If this variant should work, there might be a bug in MMBasic?
Else perhaps a error message should be thrown?

bfwolf

matherp
Guru

Joined: 11/12/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 10135

Posted: 06:08pm 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

The only versions that"should work" are the ones in the manual.

JohnS
Guru

Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4017

Posted: 06:53pm 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Bear in mind MMBasic doesn't claim to be ANSI.

Some parts are, some aren't. (Go by the manual as Peter says.)

John

bfwolf
Regular Member

Joined: 03/01/2025
Location: Germany
Posts: 75

Posted: 07:38pm 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

matherp said The only versions that"should work" are the ones in the manual.

JohnS said Bear in mind MMBasic doesn't claim to be ANSI.

Some parts are, some aren't. (Go by the manual as Peter says.)

John

That's what I expected!

Aside from that, using WHILE and UNTIL simultaneously can be contradictory and difficult to resolve. It can also be very confusing for the reader.

bfwolf

phil99

Guru

Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 2513

Posted: 09:49pm 03 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Quote when UNTIL and WHILE are used simultaneously for the same loop

Was just messing about to see what would happen.
Results:
DO ignores anything other than WHILE.
If DO has WHILE an error results if anything follows LOOP.

EDNEDN
Senior Member

Joined: 18/02/2023
Location: United States
Posts: 134

Posted: 03:42am 04 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

phil99 said

Quote when UNTIL and WHILE are used simultaneously for the same loop

Was just messing about to see what would happen.
Results:
DO ignores anything other than WHILE.
If DO has WHILE an error results if anything follows LOOP.

I'm of the opinion that if both an UNTIL and WHILE are syntactically allowed, it should work correctly. If they aren't allowed together then an error should be detected and reported.

I agree it is a little bit confusing if both of them are present in the same loop. But if it isn't detected as a syntax error, it damn well better work correctly.

matherp
Guru

Joined: 11/12/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 10135

Posted: 06:23am 04 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

Feel free to write an improved parser. Otherwise accept what is there. Follow the manual and it works.
Edited 2025-06-04 16:24 by matherp

JohnS
Guru

Joined: 18/11/2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 4017

Posted: 06:24am 04 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

EDNEDN said I'm of the opinion that if both an UNTIL and WHILE are syntactically allowed, it should work correctly. If they aren't allowed together then an error should be detected and reported.

It's quite a simple parser which was squeezed into microcontrollers. It doesn't detect everything but does try to follow the manual.

Maybe there's a tool which is "better" (i.e. does what you want)?

I think it's that UNTIL or WHILE can be used but not both together and I read the manual that way.

John
Edited 2025-06-04 16:25 by JohnS

phil99

Guru

Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 2513

Posted: 07:55am 04 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

This appears to be a non-problem to me. That While can follow Loop can be regarded as a bonus Easter-egg by anyone who wants it.
It doesn't need to be in the manual as it doesn't add any useful functionality.
WHILE (expression) is just UNTIL NOT (expression). That is if you invert the expression following either WHILE or UNTIL you get the same function as the other one.
.
Edited 2025-06-04 18:00 by phil99

Mixtel90

Guru

Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7683

Posted: 09:01am 04 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

The versions in the manual, i.e. the MMBasic Bible, work fine. If anything else does then that's simply a bonus. :) Bear in mind that although free bonus features work at the moment they may not do so in future versions of MMBasic!

Mick

Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini
Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs

stanleyella

Guru

Joined: 25/06/2022
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2474

Posted: 03:58pm 04 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

If I can suggest hdmi using hdmi breakout board as this would be popular for beginners that don't have a pcb with hdmi socket.
thinking of adafruit I use.

phil99

Guru

Joined: 11/02/2018
Location: Australia
Posts: 2513

Posted: 01:53am 05 Jun 2025

Copy link to clipboard

Print this post

May have been mentioned.
P14, Clock Speed, Missing Clear_Flash.uf2

Quote Nearly all tested Raspberry Pi Picos have worked correctly at 380MHz or more, so overclocking can be useful.
If the processor fails to restart at its new clock speed you can reset it by loading this firmware Clear_Flash.uf2 file listed under
the heading Loading the Firmware (above) to reset the Pico to its factory fresh state.

Page 2 of 3

Print this page