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!
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!
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!
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!!!
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.
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. 🚀
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
@@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.
Timeley this, I'm playing with Geoff's colour maximite 2 this week that I bought last year to demonstrate programming to my grandson. Basic programming comes back to you in a few minutes, should do I've written 100's of thousands of lines of visual basic 5!
Marvelous! Hoping to see more episodes about Programming using other languages (like C, Java, Swift, and others) for Computer Science students like me... 😄👏
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 😏😈
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"! 😳
Thank you very much Sir 🌞 for that interesting video I think most of us were starting our computer life with Basic language and those first pc like Sinclair My first one was a clone of Sinclair Later i was dreaming about Sinclair QL Second one was an Atari 520-ST Later on pc, pc, pc .... haha It would be lovely if we could buy a new version, modern hardware of Atari ST, that beautiful shaped computer, i would buy it surely 😊 Now i have an Atari ST emulator on my Linux based computer, it has these Atari beautiful, unique shaped fonts, system .... gorgeous and i love it soooo much
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!
I only started playing with microcontrollers about 7 yrs ago and by then I think basic was to most people a distant memory . It seems like a very simple and easy to understand language- I suppose that is why it is called basic 🤣. It might see a resurgence now it can run on a modern microcontroller like the pico which is dirt cheap to buy - looks like it would be great for young children to try before tackling C++ Or Micropython.
Thank you for the Video, I think its Time to buy a Pico ;-) just loaded the Dos Version to test it... Runs verry fast ---------------------------- smal program which I tested Cls count=10000 For zahl = 1 To count prim = 1 For teiler = 2 To (zahl/2) If zahl Mod teiler = 0 Then prim = 0 End If Next If prim =1 Then Print zahl;","; Next
I had a ZX81. Was way ahead of the rest of the mechanical guys. At that time computer guys were total geeks. I did a lot of programming in Basic and kind of miss it.
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!
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.
That was very interesting. I too had (still have in the depths of the garage) ZX81's to which I connected all manner of sensors via the expansion slot and learned such a lot programming in BASIC. To really get the nostalgic feeling though you should have saved your programmes on cassette! For anyone using the PICO I thought that breadboard was an excellent idea.
GOTO .......... millions of modern programmers' brains just exploded all over the walls :P Darn this brought back memories of the 1980's when I was learning to program on BASIC, on a massively basic PC. Extreme nostalgia
The GOTO breaks structure and sometimes that's just what you need. Program inversion is one use. Your page is formatted with a header and body and a footer but your data is not. So half your program is structured along the lines of page structure and the other half maps the data structure. This is a job for Program Inversion and the only way to do this in BASIC is with an intelligent use of a GOTO.
Very well executed vid, better than previous SBC vids because of the thorough and rational walk through of process right from beginning. Very important for newbies. We are big Python/C folks here but looking forward to LCD video in basic. How fast would this perform vs PY interpreters... Thanks again for your pro work on this channel. 5 stars!
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!
@@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.
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!
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.
I am a very young man (73) who helped my dad build vacuum tube (valve) Eccles-Jordan (1918) flip-flops for a home built organ in 1957. I was branded when he asked me to hand him the soldering iron and I grabbed it by the hot end. In 1965 I asked him for a PDP-8 and he asked how much. I said only $18,000 and he replied that our house was that amount. So I asked when I can have it.
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.
Thanks for the video, I'll have to try that out. I was a bit later on computers, I first used BASIC on a kids toy laptop, I think the vtech brand. It only had something like a 20x3 character display so a downgrade compared to a C64 or Z81 😆
Have not use basic for a long time. Good to see it on the pico. Thanks for showing this. I don't have a pico. But i can run in windows. How good this is.
Very fun and nostalgic ! I learned basic programming in the early -80:s on a ABC 80 from Luxor using BASIC ofcourse :) I hope there will be a Pascalmite because that was the language where my interest really took off. (Oh, and at 17.07. Opportunties ? Spellcheck on a break? :) )
Hey, Pascal was my 2nd language too (as was English be, butt me think not noticable - it is?), and as it had a compiler (well, later got a QuickBasic compiler too and compiled all my old GWBASIC and QBASIC programs as well) it really got me going. Heck, Turbo Pascal was really popular in the 90's, I remember a lot of code from BBS programming discussion forums was either C or Turbo Pascal :D Oh and C/C++ came third - and I was on my way to become a proper multi-lingual guy. In programming that is ;)
I just got a rpi pico for£4.70. I didn't get it to work with putty as win 10 doesn't show it as a com but just pico but installing tera term vt got the terminal working and it works and I'm very impressed by the interpreted basic. Thank you for drawing my attention to mmbasic and rpi pico.
This took me back to my days writing BASIC software for a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III. I had to laugh when the Pico reports 156k free RAM - the TRS-80 came with 32kB RAM, but I upgraded it to the maximum - 48kB! And we ran our whole company on it!
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.
A most interesting video. I would like to see some more videos about using the PicoMite, I have been looking for a microcontroller and software to use in some simple projects. The PicoMite might be just what I have been looking for. Thanks again for most interesting video. Cheers....😀😀😀
If we add a screen the video will never end, now that would be exciting. What are the advantages and disadvantages of programming languages? Why choose one over another?
depends partly on your interest, for hobby or for career, for hobby basic as a starting point is ok, then python/micropython/circuitpython and/or see CS50P videos with prof Malan on youtube.
That breadboard with the Pico pin labels is interesting. It's unfortunate that the Pico isn't labelled itself. Why did they label only 3 pins? I think they were going for looks instead of easy of use. Even if it was only the pin numbers it would be better than having to count pins to find the one you want. Yes, I know the other side is labelled but most people put it this side up with the LED visible.
after I received my Pi Pico and flashed PicoMite i realised, that the MMBASIC "cls" would not work in Terminal mode. So for this i wrote some tiny Sub-Routines with VT100 Escapesequences to do the Job So we have TCLS for Terminal Clear Screen HOME .. guess what ;-) AT to set the next print position to anywere at the screen cur_off turns of the visible corsor to prevent flickering when redrawing the Screen and cor_on to reenable the cursor ----- Sub TCLS ' clear Terminal Screen Print Chr$(27);"[2J"; HOME End Sub Sub HOME ' Cursor top left Print Chr$(27);"[H"; End Sub Sub AT Row,Col Print Chr$(27);"[";Str$(Row);"H";Chr$(27);"[";Str$(Col);"G"; End Sub Sub cur_off Print Chr$(27);"[?25l"; End Sub Sub cur_on Print Chr$(27);"[?25h"; End Sub
My goodness BASIC, it is like being back to using old 8-bit computers in the 1980s as I had to learn to know what is Sinclair BASIC and how could I use it for plotting circles, doing maths and some simple but cool features. Of course, BASIC isn't superior nor as versatile and ubiquitous as C/C++, Java and Python. But I did enjoy learning some Sinclair BASIC and a bit on AMOS Basic. Of course, most Amiga software didn't bother much on AmigaBASIC as they eventually moved onto 68000 ASM, C, as well as using ARexx for Amiga Workbench 2.04 or newer. C++ is so hard for me compared to BASIC, though...
Chris, that's very impressive. The Basic seems to have a fair number of convenience features. Wow, it's even capable of using VGA. Imagine all that; an 80's style computer on a tiny little chip costing 4 quid. I also learned about the breadboards for the Pico. They look neat. That battery pack thing looks worthy of investigation, too.
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
Cool Heroic Ryzen-loving Inspirational Smart Too geeky Overall knowledgeable Part-machine? Hard-to-find Erudition Right-clicking Blasting away malware Awesome Really appreciated Not a fan of subscription software A single-board computer lover Today has uploaded Today is Sunday Read the first letter of each line.
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.
Excellent reporting! This is tremendous. Just like the GWBASIC I grew up with. I am planning to get a Raspberry Pi 4.0. Will that run this same interpreter? Thanks!
I just had a flashback to all the crappy things about basic. The size of program storage is not one of those. Tight. However, I have 2 of these and I'm intending to use these to create a 6 voice synthesizer (I am a software engineer so please don't worry about my sanity, I don't have any). So, FAST alternatives, please. BASIC may be lean. but it ain't fast!
You should test it's speed before writing it off. It's over 100 times faster than running the same program on a Dragon 32. It also has Interrupts you can use in BASIC. If you do it in Python or C it will be faster still but do check first, I was surprised.
That was fantastic. A few minutes after watching this video I've got Basic running on a Pi Pico. I don't have a breadboard but might dig out my soldering iron this evening. I didn't do much Basic as a youngster. Any chance of showing us how to run FORTRAN on a Pico?
Hi Graham -- that's a fast response to a video! :) Glad to hear you got BASIC running. I'm not aware of anybody creating a version of FORTRAN for the board, but I'm sure it is a technical possibility.
My memories of Fortran are my mates staggering about with 100 yards of printout saying error 1000 times for their 2 + 2 = 4 programme!! Perhaps Forth would be more appropriate I've got a book on it somewhere I've never read.
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!
Man, now I'm curious about how to get the sensor and the LCD screen working! Thanks as always and I hope you have a good week. :D (Also, I can't believe I'm saying this but please watch out for horny spam bots in the comments.)
@ExplainingComputers I've been seeing these spam bots on a few other channels I watch in recent times. They're usually in a different language and have a link leading to pages with, *uhhhh*, very explicit imagery on it. Whenever I see them, I just report them for spam. Never thought I'd see one of those bots trying to peddle a phony dating site in the comments of this channel but here we are. :P
@@ExplainingComputers Sure is! I just keep an eye out for the nice/cool people and throw the jerks, creeps, and bigots out. Unfortunately, some people online can and will screw you over hard (saying this from personal experience), so that's something to keep in mind.
It's remarkable what this device can do considering it's £3.60. I'd be interested in seeing a video of it working via a VGA output. MMBasic and Doom are two possibilities I'm aware of.
great video! would be cool to see if the Pico could be used to emulate some of the old 6809 IC's and run a full version of the Basic language as an old CoCo computer. Or the 6510 CPU like the Commodore 64 or even your ZX Spectrum
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!
I still think kids should learn to program in schools - basic was great to just do text and simple circles/lines and boxes. But then again back in the day we were overjoyed to be able to control exactly what we saw on the screen instead of the screen just displaying whatever was broadcasted to the TV.
I really enjoyed this video. Like you, I learned programing on ZX81as well as the IBM PC/PS2. Despite learning Pascal, COBOL, and Python, I still prefer using BASIC. Indeed, I miss being able to program in BASIC in Windows without having to download it. As always, I love your presentation style and the content.
@@anon_y_mousse I think you're talking about QuickBasic - that was the product sold separately by Microsoft that has a compiler and linker (so you can actually code a library in C or assembly and link that code library with your QuickBasic program). I think QBASIC was kind of a demo version of it that shipped with MS-DOS, but if you wanted real power you had to cough it up ;) QBASIC and QuickBasic were 99.9% compatible otherwise - there were some weird differences like whether you used CLS or CLEAR SCREEN to clear the screen (and I don't remember if that example is even correct).
@@robsku1 I don't particularly care for the distinction. They were nearly identical and the main difference that counts is one came with a compiler and some extra libraries, the other did not. As for technicalities, QuickBasic was the 1.1 version, QBasic was 4.5, and it's not as though the Q stopped meaning Quick just because they abbreviated it.
This gives me some Texas Instruments TI-83 vibes. Would be fun to build a small 3D printed case that held the Pico and an LCD screen, either using that VGA/PS2 image or something else via UART
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.
I too have fondness for basic. My first computer was an Apple ][+ and I literally spent 1000s of hours programming it, first in basic, then Pascal, then 6502 assembly.
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!
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!
it's like going back 45 years! (I suppose you could argue that using Linux is like going back about the same amount of time too, although it also means there's been 40-50 years of development resulting in the best OS available today IMHO)
It seems that this ugly programming lanuguage 'BASIC' never dies. But at least this version drops the needs of line numbers. Back in the 80s I had no money to buy a ZX81, but I was lucky to get a ZX Spectrum later.
wait! What? No line numbers? Are we sure this is BASIC?! Actually this is a pretty decent language for a microcontroller (as Zilog did with the Z8 eons ago)
The Pi Picos are currently £5.50 including the header pins so I've ordered 2 of them. Can't wait to try MMBasic on them. I think my little robot buggy build might be losing its Arduino Pro Mini brain in favour of the obviously more versatile Pi Pico.
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.
Excellent video Chris! I felt like you, like a step back in time to the old computers. Mine was a Texas TI 58, later 59 and a wonderful HP41. This little Pico with Basic reminds me of them, and the Zinclair computers to. A time where no such computer would be sold without a proper manual explaining "it all". :) I think i have to try this little Pico out.
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!
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. :)
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.
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. :)
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.
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 😉
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.
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
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).
GW-Basic is my first love. So this video is like hello from my youth. Thank you!👍
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.
Timeley this, I'm playing with Geoff's colour maximite 2 this week that I bought last year to demonstrate programming to my grandson.
Basic programming comes back to you in a few minutes, should do I've written 100's of thousands of lines of visual basic 5!
Marvelous! Hoping to see more episodes about Programming using other languages (like C, Java, Swift, and others) for Computer Science students like me... 😄👏
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 😏😈
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"! 😳
How much was the Parallax BASIC Stamp back in its day, $35 each maybe? Its PIC chip doesn't stand a chance against this little $4 beast.
My brother and I shared his Spectrum zx 81. Downloading games from tape and writing sprite games from magazine articles. Thanks for the memories.
Thank you very much Sir 🌞 for that interesting video
I think most of us were starting our computer life with Basic language and those first pc like Sinclair
My first one was a clone of Sinclair
Later i was dreaming about Sinclair QL
Second one was an Atari 520-ST
Later on pc, pc, pc .... haha
It would be lovely if we could buy a new version, modern hardware of Atari ST, that beautiful shaped computer, i would buy it surely 😊
Now i have an Atari ST emulator on my Linux based computer, it has these Atari beautiful, unique shaped fonts, system .... gorgeous and i love it soooo much
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!
Wow. Programs costing hundreds of $ aren't documented as well. This guy deserves a donation.
I only started playing with microcontrollers about 7 yrs ago and by then I think basic was to most people a distant memory . It seems like a very simple and easy to understand language- I suppose that is why it is called basic 🤣.
It might see a resurgence now it can run on a modern microcontroller like the pico which is dirt cheap to buy - looks like it would be great for young children to try before tackling C++ Or Micropython.
Thank you for the Video, I think its Time to buy a Pico ;-)
just loaded the Dos Version to test it...
Runs verry fast
---------------------------- smal program which I tested
Cls
count=10000
For zahl = 1 To count
prim = 1
For teiler = 2 To (zahl/2)
If zahl Mod teiler = 0 Then
prim = 0
End If
Next
If prim =1 Then Print zahl;",";
Next
I had a ZX81. Was way ahead of the rest of the mechanical guys. At that time computer guys were total geeks. I did a lot of programming in Basic and kind of miss it.
Amazing ! At the same time.... 40 years ago... indeed, I did the same thing,... how time flies !
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.
Cool thing. I like Icecream and Watermelon too.
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.
That was very interesting. I too had (still have in the depths of the garage) ZX81's to which I connected all manner of sensors via the expansion slot and learned such a lot programming in BASIC. To really get the nostalgic feeling though you should have saved your programmes on cassette! For anyone using the PICO I thought that breadboard was an excellent idea.
GOTO .......... millions of modern programmers' brains just exploded all over the walls :P
Darn this brought back memories of the 1980's when I was learning to program on BASIC, on a massively basic PC.
Extreme nostalgia
The GOTO breaks structure and sometimes that's just what you need. Program inversion is one use. Your page is formatted with a header and body and a footer but your data is not. So half your program is structured along the lines of page structure and the other half maps the data structure. This is a job for Program Inversion and the only way to do this in BASIC is with an intelligent use of a GOTO.
Very well executed vid, better than previous SBC vids because of the thorough and rational walk through of process right from beginning. Very important for newbies. We are big Python/C folks here but looking forward to LCD video in basic. How fast would this perform vs PY interpreters... Thanks again for your pro work on this channel. 5 stars!
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.
I, too, began my journey into my computerfied life with the US version os the Sinclair - the Timex/Sinclair TS1000.
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!
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.
Hey! Great! Now I'm waiting for the next PicoMite video by you!
(how about covering GAMBAS for linux also?)
I am a very young man (73) who helped my dad build vacuum tube (valve) Eccles-Jordan (1918) flip-flops for a home built organ in 1957. I was branded when he asked me to hand him the soldering iron and I grabbed it by the hot end. In 1965 I asked him for a PDP-8 and he asked how much. I said only $18,000 and he replied that our house was that amount. So I asked when I can have it.
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.
Thanks for the video, I'll have to try that out.
I was a bit later on computers, I first used BASIC on a kids toy laptop, I think the vtech brand. It only had something like a 20x3 character display so a downgrade compared to a C64 or Z81 😆
Have not use basic for a long time. Good to see it on the pico. Thanks for showing this. I don't have a pico. But i can run in windows. How good this is.
Very fun and nostalgic ! I learned basic programming in the early -80:s on a ABC 80 from Luxor using BASIC ofcourse :) I hope there will be a Pascalmite because that was the language where my interest really took off. (Oh, and at 17.07. Opportunties ? Spellcheck on a break? :) )
Thanks for this, and sorry for the typo. With a weekly schedule, they sometimes creep in. :(
Yes for Pascal! Maybe FORTRAN next! COBOL even???! 🙂
Hey, Pascal was my 2nd language too (as was English be, butt me think not noticable - it is?), and as it had a compiler (well, later got a QuickBasic compiler too and compiled all my old GWBASIC and QBASIC programs as well) it really got me going. Heck, Turbo Pascal was really popular in the 90's, I remember a lot of code from BBS programming discussion forums was either C or Turbo Pascal :D
Oh and C/C++ came third - and I was on my way to become a proper multi-lingual guy. In programming that is ;)
I just got a rpi pico for£4.70. I didn't get it to work with putty as win 10 doesn't show it as a com but just pico but installing tera term vt got the terminal working and it works and I'm very impressed by the interpreted basic. Thank you for drawing my attention to mmbasic and rpi pico.
This took me back to my days writing BASIC software for a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model III. I had to laugh when the Pico reports 156k free RAM - the TRS-80 came with 32kB RAM, but I upgraded it to the maximum - 48kB! And we ran our whole company on it!
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 brings memories back. I started out in '82 with a Commodore VC-20 and 8K Memory extension. All the that is sooo familiar.
A most interesting video. I would like to see some more videos about using the PicoMite,
I have been looking for a microcontroller and software to use in some simple projects. The PicoMite might be just what I have been looking for. Thanks again for most interesting video. Cheers....😀😀😀
"Why are you running BASIC on a Raspberry Pico?"
"Because I can." :-)
If we add a screen the video will never end, now that would be exciting. What are the advantages and disadvantages of programming languages? Why choose one over another?
depends partly on your interest, for hobby or for career, for hobby basic as a starting point is ok, then python/micropython/circuitpython and/or see CS50P videos with prof Malan on youtube.
That breadboard with the Pico pin labels is interesting. It's unfortunate that the Pico isn't labelled itself. Why did they label only 3 pins? I think they were going for looks instead of easy of use. Even if it was only the pin numbers it would be better than having to count pins to find the one you want.
Yes, I know the other side is labelled but most people put it this side up with the LED visible.
after I received my Pi Pico and flashed PicoMite i realised, that the MMBASIC "cls" would not work in Terminal mode. So for this i wrote some tiny Sub-Routines with VT100 Escapesequences to do the Job
So we have TCLS for Terminal Clear Screen
HOME .. guess what ;-)
AT to set the next print position to anywere at the screen
cur_off turns of the visible corsor to prevent flickering when redrawing the Screen
and cor_on to reenable the cursor
-----
Sub TCLS
' clear Terminal Screen
Print Chr$(27);"[2J";
HOME
End Sub
Sub HOME
' Cursor top left
Print Chr$(27);"[H";
End Sub
Sub AT Row,Col
Print Chr$(27);"[";Str$(Row);"H";Chr$(27);"[";Str$(Col);"G";
End Sub
Sub cur_off
Print Chr$(27);"[?25l";
End Sub
Sub cur_on
Print Chr$(27);"[?25h";
End Sub
My goodness BASIC, it is like being back to using old 8-bit computers in the 1980s as I had to learn to know what is Sinclair BASIC and how could I use it for plotting circles, doing maths and some simple but cool features. Of course, BASIC isn't superior nor as versatile and ubiquitous as C/C++, Java and Python. But I did enjoy learning some Sinclair BASIC and a bit on AMOS Basic. Of course, most Amiga software didn't bother much on AmigaBASIC as they eventually moved onto 68000 ASM, C, as well as using ARexx for Amiga Workbench 2.04 or newer. C++ is so hard for me compared to BASIC, though...
Oh man I wish I had a time machine and a few thousand PicoMites, I would love to see how kids in the 80's reacted to these little bad boys
Kind of amazing how powerful the Pico is compared to that ZX81. And for that prize!
Chris, that's very impressive. The Basic seems to have a fair number of convenience features. Wow, it's even capable of using VGA. Imagine all that; an 80's style computer on a tiny little chip costing 4 quid. I also learned about the breadboards for the Pico. They look neat. That battery pack thing looks worthy of investigation, too.
Thanks to you and the MMBASIC creators for this video.
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
Even though I will probably never do any of this, still it is riveting to watch!
Marvellous. I think we need a regular Wednesday slot to demo the light sensor and display. Soon please. ;-)
I am currently musing about producing more content . . . stay tuned! :)
I had a ZeeeeX81. They only sold the ZEDX81 on the other side of the pond.
I have so many fond memories of writing programs for the ZX81, I even had the 16K RAM pack :)
Wonderful video! Many thanks Chris
Cool
Heroic
Ryzen-loving
Inspirational
Smart
Too geeky
Overall knowledgeable
Part-machine?
Hard-to-find
Erudition
Right-clicking
Blasting away malware
Awesome
Really appreciated
Not a fan of subscription software
A single-board computer lover
Today has uploaded
Today is Sunday
Read the first letter of each line.
Now this is cool. :)
Thanks. I was looking for a recommendation for a language to run on my pico.
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.
Excellent reporting! This is tremendous. Just like the GWBASIC I grew up with. I am planning to get a Raspberry Pi 4.0. Will that run this same interpreter? Thanks!
MMBasic is available for several platforms, but not the Raspberry Pi I'm afraid.
I just had a flashback to all the crappy things about basic. The size of program storage is not one of those. Tight.
However, I have 2 of these and I'm intending to use these to create a 6 voice synthesizer (I am a software engineer so please don't worry about my sanity, I don't have any).
So, FAST alternatives, please. BASIC may be lean. but it ain't fast!
You should test it's speed before writing it off. It's over 100 times faster than running the same program on a Dragon 32. It also has Interrupts you can use in BASIC.
If you do it in Python or C it will be faster still but do check first, I was surprised.
That was fantastic. A few minutes after watching this video I've got Basic running on a Pi Pico. I don't have a breadboard but might dig out my soldering iron this evening.
I didn't do much Basic as a youngster. Any chance of showing us how to run FORTRAN on a Pico?
Hi Graham -- that's a fast response to a video! :) Glad to hear you got BASIC running. I'm not aware of anybody creating a version of FORTRAN for the board, but I'm sure it is a technical possibility.
@@ExplainingComputers Well, FORTRAN really is quite obsolete. BASIC, like rock and roll, will never die.
My memories of Fortran are my mates staggering about with 100 yards of printout saying error 1000 times for their 2 + 2 = 4 programme!!
Perhaps Forth would be more appropriate I've got a book on it somewhere I've never read.
@@nonoyorbusness I always wanted to try Fourth. I remember being very interested in the Jupiter Ace, although I never got to use one.
@@ExplainingComputers had a blast learning forth on my atari 800, the most interesting part is that it's stack oriented. (like the old HP RPN)
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!
Brightest idea I've seen in years, CONGRATULATIONS!! to the developers, and a big thank to you , for spreading the word.
Man, now I'm curious about how to get the sensor and the LCD screen working! Thanks as always and I hope you have a good week. :D
(Also, I can't believe I'm saying this but please watch out for horny spam bots in the comments.)
Thanks for this. Spam bots are indeed creeping in, but I do try to keep them out.
@ExplainingComputers I've been seeing these spam bots on a few other channels I watch in recent times. They're usually in a different language and have a link leading to pages with, *uhhhh*, very explicit imagery on it. Whenever I see them, I just report them for spam. Never thought I'd see one of those bots trying to peddle a phony dating site in the comments of this channel but here we are. :P
@@Praxibetel-Ix The (online) world is sadly a very strange place.
@@ExplainingComputers Sure is! I just keep an eye out for the nice/cool people and throw the jerks, creeps, and bigots out.
Unfortunately, some people online can and will screw you over hard (saying this from personal experience), so that's something to keep in mind.
It's remarkable what this device can do considering it's £3.60. I'd be interested in seeing a video of it working via a VGA output. MMBasic and Doom are two possibilities I'm aware of.
great video! would be cool to see if the Pico could be used to emulate some of the old 6809 IC's and run a full version of the Basic language as an old CoCo computer. Or the 6510 CPU like the Commodore 64 or even your ZX Spectrum
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!
Stanley may rule, but his bucket is forever.
Thx Geoff and Peter for all the fun .
I still think kids should learn to program in schools - basic was great to just do text and simple circles/lines and boxes. But then again back in the day we were overjoyed to be able to control exactly what we saw on the screen instead of the screen just displaying whatever was broadcasted to the TV.
Thanks for this awesome video. You awesome. :)
I've always found using line numbers better as you can find lines easier if you need to edit.
really enjoyed that now where did i put that vic20
I really enjoyed this video. Like you, I learned programing on ZX81as well as the IBM PC/PS2. Despite learning Pascal, COBOL, and Python, I still prefer using BASIC. Indeed, I miss being able to program in BASIC in Windows without having to download it. As always, I love your presentation style and the content.
QBasic was always my favorite. Version 4.5 could even compile your code.
@@anon_y_mousse I was partial to BASICA and GWBasic.
@@anon_y_mousse I think you're talking about QuickBasic - that was the product sold separately by Microsoft that has a compiler and linker (so you can actually code a library in C or assembly and link that code library with your QuickBasic program). I think QBASIC was kind of a demo version of it that shipped with MS-DOS, but if you wanted real power you had to cough it up ;)
QBASIC and QuickBasic were 99.9% compatible otherwise - there were some weird differences like whether you used CLS or CLEAR SCREEN to clear the screen (and I don't remember if that example is even correct).
@@robsku1 I don't particularly care for the distinction. They were nearly identical and the main difference that counts is one came with a compiler and some extra libraries, the other did not. As for technicalities, QuickBasic was the 1.1 version, QBasic was 4.5, and it's not as though the Q stopped meaning Quick just because they abbreviated it.
@@anon_y_mousse just adding...
...despite of my nitpicking I do get your point 🙃
Good to see *_goto_* again! Some people absolutely hate it but not me. ;-)
This gives me some Texas Instruments TI-83 vibes. Would be fun to build a small 3D printed case that held the Pico and an LCD screen, either using that VGA/PS2 image or something else via UART
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.
I too have fondness for basic. My first computer was an Apple ][+ and I literally spent 1000s of hours programming it, first in basic, then Pascal, then 6502 assembly.
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!
You deleting line numbers triggered flashbacks of "spaghetti code hell" !!! 😵💫 Thanx alot!
the last time i did a program like this it was in a spectrum 48k
I had to run MMBASIC in compatibility-mode since WINDOWS Defender kept blocking the program. Running BASIC does remind me how much we have learned.
I wish I had kept my ZX81 now.
My Commadore 16 stopped working in the late 80s so I checked it.
I sold my ZX81 for a fiver when I got my Commadore 16.
It would be amazing to see Contiki run on that.
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!
PICO is amazing and probably the best arm microcontroller, although a disadvantage is not compatible with ttl lvl :(
I've actually got a terminal program on my cell phone. I just find it funny that I could program it from an android.
Cool. :)
it's like going back 45 years! (I suppose you could argue that using Linux is like going back about the same amount of time too, although it also means there's been 40-50 years of development resulting in the best OS available today IMHO)
It seems that this ugly programming lanuguage 'BASIC' never dies. But at least this version drops the needs of line numbers. Back in the 80s I had no money to buy a ZX81, but I was lucky to get a ZX Spectrum later.
wait! What? No line numbers? Are we sure this is BASIC?! Actually this is a pretty decent language for a microcontroller (as Zilog did with the Z8 eons ago)
The Pi Picos are currently £5.50 including the header pins so I've ordered 2 of them. Can't wait to try MMBasic on them. I think my little robot buggy build might be losing its Arduino Pro Mini brain in favour of the obviously more versatile Pi Pico.
Very good presenting skill highly enjoyable, been tinkering for a while now I’ve found your videos I’ve found new inspiration! Many thanks!
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.
Excellent video Chris! I felt like you, like a step back in time to the old computers. Mine was a Texas TI 58, later 59 and a wonderful HP41. This little Pico with Basic reminds me of them, and the Zinclair computers to. A time where no such computer would be sold without a proper manual explaining "it all". :)
I think i have to try this little Pico out.