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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : PicoMite Firmware Release Version 6.02.01

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Geoffg

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Joined: 06/06/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 3356
Posted: 02:07pm 25 Mar 2026
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Peter has released the latest version of the PicoMite firmware V6.02.01.

This can be downloaded from https://geoffg.net/picomite.html  (scroll to the bottom of the page).   It includes the updated user manual and additional specialised manuals (see the Extra Documentation folder in the firmware zip).

This release includes many bug fixes and enhancements. Also included are five new commands and support for the PicoCalc.  Below is listed the full change log.

Geoff

  Quote  Changes from V6.02.00

All versions
File names on the A: drive are now no longer case sensitive and behave like the B: drive
Minor internal bug fixes and code restructuring
Fixes bug in GPS parsing
Fixes bug where Text is setting tiles incorrectly when the output exceeds the screen width
Fixes bug in the editor when the marked text exceeds the buffer size
Editor now correctly colour codes string literals and comments split across continuation lines
Blank lines are now allowed in TYPE declarations
Corrects behaviour when the A: drive is formatted but the current directory is not at root level
F10 in the editor when in mark mode is no longer limited by the buffer size. This allows the user to mark any amount of text and save it to a file.
The editor now correctly restores non-default foreground and background colours on exit.
Fixes bugs in Structures when assigning from an array element which is a structure to a structure
Attempting to use a single element array in a structure now gives an error
Major rework of PLAY TONE and PLAY SOUND to reduce the overhead in the interrupt routine and improve action of volume changes.
Fixes BLIT Framebuffer to work in modes 4 and 5 on HDMI versions and Mode 3 on VGA RP2350 and HDMI versions
Fixes bug in FLASH LIST n when n does not contain a program
Fixes bug in SPRITE SCROLL when MM.HRES not 320
SPRITE(B function now properly supports all orientations of the sprite
KEYDOWN function now supports PS2 keyboards.
mm.info(PWM SLICE gpno) This returns the PWM slice for a given pin

Adds new commands
SAVE DATA fname$, address, nbytes
LOAD DATA fname$, address
TILEMAP
BLIT RESIZE
ONESHOT

All RP2350 versions
Fixes bug in PORT command and function when pins > GP31 are used
Tweaks to flash and param timings to improve reliability.
Reduced memory footprint of using png files - still big but not as big
SPRITE LOADPNG is modified as follows. Previously pixels under the cutoff threshold were transparent BUT black pixels were also transparent (assuming the default transparent = black). Now you can set the transparent colour to a negative value (-1 to -15) this causes black pixels to be replaced with the positive value of the negative value. So:
SPRITE LOADPNG 1,"mypng.png",-2 will replace black pixels with myrtle avoiding holes in the sprite.
load png and sprite load png now process mode 3 png files (colour map included in the file)
Various enhancements to STEPPER command and PEEK(STEPPER function
New Command PLAY SAMPLE
Implements optional hidden line removal for 3D wireframe models

the LOCATION command can now optionally return the sidereal time
Adds FRAME command

RP2350 only and not WebMiteRP2350
Max CPU speed for PicoMite(USB)RP2350 now 420MHz
Fixes bug in BLIT FRAMEBUFFER for buffered LCD drivers
Fixes bug in scrolling for buffered LCD drivers
Adds RAY command and function

PicoMiteRP2040 and PicoMiteRP2040USB
reduces firmware image size by 16Kbyte with concommitant increase in size of A: drive.

All PicoMite and WebMite versions
N5110 driver now correctly uses INVERT in the option setting

WebMite RP2350 version
The WebMiteR2350 should now support the Pimoroni Pico Plus 2 W. This board uses the RP2350B and includes PSRAM.

PicoCalc
The standard PicoMite, PicoMiteRP2350, WebMite and WebMiteRP2350 versions should all support the PicoCalc. To use this nuke the current firmware on your PicoCalc and install the relevant version from the download. The code will automatically detect it is running on a PicoCalc and configure itself. You must be running a version of the bios that supports returning the battery level. I've been loaned a PicoCalc and tested with BIOS 1.5 and 1.6.

Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net
 
terekgabor
Regular Member

Joined: 02/01/2026
Location: Hungary
Posts: 49
Posted: 03:52pm 25 Mar 2026
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Congratulations!
I like to use it very much on my Picocalc!
👍
 
Fede
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Joined: 09/03/2026
Location: Spain
Posts: 23
Posted: 04:11pm 25 Mar 2026
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Guaaauuuu.

Thank you so much.

I'm going to try it right now on the Pico Calc.

 
stanleyella

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Joined: 25/06/2022
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2807
Posted: 09:05pm 25 Mar 2026
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@Geoffg thank you. installed with rpi 400. picomite usb hdmi working and usb keyboard. go to set options to test mmedit on rpi400
 
homa

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Joined: 05/11/2021
Location: Germany
Posts: 561
Posted: 09:16pm 25 Mar 2026
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First of all, thank you so much for all your hard work!

Special thanks to Peter for creating all the PicoMite versions. And to you too, Geoff, for the excellent manual.
(I’d like to have the doc for the German translation again ;-)

I do have one question, though. What led to the change of heart regarding the PicoCalc? Up until now, your statement about the developer and the background had put me off buying it. I had also pinned my hopes on Peter’s hardware development. However, I am currently considering ordering the ver2 for myself. It would be great to have a gadget like this for mmbasic in my pocket. Is support now guaranteed? I’d really appreciate a brief explanation.

Matthias
 
matherp
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Joined: 11/12/2012
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 11215
Posted: 09:52pm 25 Mar 2026
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I wrote about this previously. Although I strongly dislike the vendor's business practices, the reality is that multiple hobbiests just like TBS members bought the thing. A PicoCalc forum member Ernst did a great job of pulling together the various mods to the PicoMite firmware that were needed to run the PicoCalc AND sorted the crappy keyboard "BIOS". I therefore decided to incorporate these together with some additional code that automatically configures the PicoCalc if the PicoMite firmware sees it is running on a PicoCalc. This means that MMBasic runs fully supported on the PicoCalc. What I won't do is compromise MMBasic to run when launched from one of various mechanisms that load binaries from SDCard that are available in the PicoCalc world.
I borrowed a PicoCalc to get the firmware working and my view of it FWIW is, looks nice, but unusable keyboard and too small screen. Over-complicated hardware design and use of many Chinese components with no English datasheets and a screen that uses a controller chip which is not specified. Strange and compromised serial port. Not open source despite including multiple open source software components. Nice toy but pretty useless in practice. Your view may vary.
 
toml_12953
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Joined: 13/02/2015
Location: United States
Posts: 602
Posted: 10:21pm 25 Mar 2026
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  matherp said  
I borrowed a PicoCalc to get the firmware working and my view of it FWIW is, looks nice, but unusable keyboard and too small screen.


Speaking of screen size how big is the screen on your Palm Pico? Also, how's it coming along? Will we see Gerbers and a BOM soon? Until it arrives, the PicoCalc is just about the only all-in-one handheld for MMBasic available.
 
homa

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Joined: 05/11/2021
Location: Germany
Posts: 561
Posted: 10:39pm 25 Mar 2026
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Peter, thank you very much for the detailed explanation — it was extremely helpful. I really appreciate your perspective on open-source philosophy and your assessment of the components used in this context. Sometimes, though, compromises have to be made. I don’t think it’s completely useless in terms of my vision for the project. My absolute dream would be for it to have touch functionality, but yes...
I’m also really looking forward to your project, and I hope I’ll be able to build the replica.
Matthias
 
stanleyella

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Joined: 25/06/2022
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2807
Posted: 11:20pm 25 Mar 2026
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This version doesn't work with mmedit-mmcc. the terminal goes red highlight text and no keyboard, All working before
PicoMiteHDMI MMBasic USB RP2350A Edition V6.01.00b11
OPTION SERIAL CONSOLE COM2,GP20,GP21
OPTION FLASH SIZE 4194304
OPTION COLOURCODE ON
OPTION KEYBOARD UK, 0, 0, 600, 150
OPTION RESOLUTION 640x480 @ 315000KHz
OPTION DISPLAY 20, 40
OPTION SDCARD GP2, GP6, GP7, GP4
OPTION AUDIO GP0,GP1', ON PWM CHANNEL 0
OPTION DEFAULT FONT 3, 1
I don't know why and only know mmedit not xterm
regards, stan
 
TassyJim

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Joined: 07/08/2011
Location: Australia
Posts: 6508
Posted: 05:09am 26 Mar 2026
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Sorry Stan, I can't help you with MMEdit.
I don't have a HDMI USB configuration set up but I thought that once the firmware is loaded you can forget about the PC terminal program and use your keyboard/monitor stand alone.
MMCC only talks to your USB-serial chip which I assume hasn't changed.

Every other version I have loaded performs as expected.

Jim
Edited 2026-03-26 15:14 by TassyJim
VK7JH
MMedit
 
Volhout
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Joined: 05/03/2018
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 5859
Posted: 07:33am 26 Mar 2026
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  stanleyella said  This version doesn't work with mmedit-mmcc. the terminal goes red highlight text and no keyboard, All working before
PicoMiteHDMI MMBasic USB RP2350A Edition V6.01.00b11
OPTION SERIAL CONSOLE COM2,GP20,GP21
OPTION FLASH SIZE 4194304
OPTION COLOURCODE ON
OPTION KEYBOARD UK, 0, 0, 600, 150
OPTION RESOLUTION 640x480 @ 315000KHz
OPTION DISPLAY 20, 40
OPTION SDCARD GP2, GP6, GP7, GP4
OPTION AUDIO GP0,GP1', ON PWM CHANNEL 0
OPTION DEFAULT FONT 3, 1
I don't know why and only know mmedit not xterm
regards, stan


Stan,

Wrong thread. This is the V6.02.01 release thread. You are asking about a beta of V6.01.00.

Geoff, Peter,

What I have tested so far, all seems to work on RP2040 VGA. Congratulations on this new milestone. I am especially happy with the speed gain for 2040 (also Game*Mite).  

Volhout
Edited 2026-03-26 17:35 by Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
bfwolf
Senior Member

Joined: 03/01/2025
Location: Germany
Posts: 235
Posted: 09:57am 26 Mar 2026
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  Geoffg said  Peter has released the latest version of the PicoMite firmware V6.02.01.
..
Geoff

  Quote  Changes from V6.02.00

All versions
...

Adds new commands
SAVE DATA fname$, address, nbytes
LOAD DATA fname$, address
...



"LOAD DATA fname$, address":
I may have overlooked this before? It can be very useful, but: extremely dangerous!!!  
A total crash is practically guaranteed if the file is larger than the allocated RAM!

Couldn't this be supplemented with an optional argument?

Something like "LOAD DATA fname$, address [, nmaxbytes]"?

Perhaps if a bugfix release is needed anyway? (which we certainly hope isn't the case.)
Otherwise, it could be included in the next main release.

Anyway — and I'll say it again: a huge thank you to @Peter for his fantastic work!  
And also to @Geoff!

Regards, bfwolf
 
Mixtel90

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Joined: 05/10/2019
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 8768
Posted: 10:12am 26 Mar 2026
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There isn't anywhere guaranteed to be safe to load data into apart from the screen buffer. I think it's OK that the user simply understands what the command does and does their homework first. :)  Yes, a complete crash is almost guaranteed if you don't be careful - same with the POKE commands. It all adds to the fun. :)
Mick

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

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Joined: 25/06/2022
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2807
Posted: 02:33pm 26 Mar 2026
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  Volhout said  
  stanleyella said  This version doesn't work with mmedit-mmcc. the terminal goes red highlight text and no keyboard, All working before
PicoMiteHDMI MMBasic USB RP2350A Edition V6.01.00b11
OPTION SERIAL CONSOLE COM2,GP20,GP21
OPTION FLASH SIZE 4194304
OPTION COLOURCODE ON
OPTION KEYBOARD UK, 0, 0, 600, 150
OPTION RESOLUTION 640x480 @ 315000KHz
OPTION DISPLAY 20, 40
OPTION SDCARD GP2, GP6, GP7, GP4
OPTION AUDIO GP0,GP1', ON PWM CHANNEL 0
OPTION DEFAULT FONT 3, 1
I don't know why and only know mmedit not xterm
regards, stan


Stan,

Wrong thread. This is the V6.02.01 release thread. You are asking about a beta of V6.01.00.

Geoff, Peter,

What I have tested so far, all seems to work on RP2040 VGA. Congratulations on this new milestone. I am especially happy with the speed gain for 2040 (also Game*Mite).  

Volhout




That is my old options list that I got to set up on latest version but mmcc says connected and I chose picomite vga-hdmi but mmcc no pc ketboard response.
The pico usb keyboard works, characters typed appear on hdmi monitor.
maybe I should have flash nuked before but mmcc terminal doesn't work.
 
mozzie
Senior Member

Joined: 15/06/2020
Location: Australia
Posts: 277
Posted: 04:49pm 26 Mar 2026
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G'day,
Many thanks once again to Geoff, Peter and everyone else who makes this awesome piece of kit available to all of us, it is very much appreciated    

I will hopefully post up some info on the CNC machine when time allows, with a bit of luck it may inspire others to give it a wurle and try it out.

@Stanleyella, I have had problems with colour 0 in teraterm not being set to black, this gives a full highlighted screen in the terminal with the same colour text, might be worth a look in your software just in case. YMMV

Regards,
Lyle.
 
stanleyella

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Joined: 25/06/2022
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2807
Posted: 11:13pm 26 Mar 2026
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to see if mmedit faulty connected an ili9341 usb board and worked ie programmable so no idea why latest don't work with mmedit/mmcc.
option list
PicoMite MMBasic USB RP2350A Edition V6.01.00b10
OPTION SERIAL CONSOLE COM2,GP8,GP9
OPTION SYSTEM SPI GP18,GP19,GP16
OPTION AUTORUN  ON
OPTION FLASH SIZE 4194304
OPTION COLOURCODE ON
OPTION KEYBOARD UK
OPTION CPUSPEED (KHz) 378000


OPTION LCDPANEL CONSOLE
OPTION DISPLAY 20, 40
OPTION LCDPANEL ILI9341, LANDSCAPE,GP15,GP14,GP13
OPTION GUI CONTROLS 4
OPTION TOUCH GP12,GP11
GUI CALIBRATE 0, 3900, 3816, -886, -658
OPTION SDCARD GP22
OPTION AUDIO GP0,GP1', ON PWM CHANNEL
this works but the new version doesn't work in mmedit like image, no keyboard,
Edited 2026-03-27 09:18 by stanleyella
 
Volhout
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Joined: 05/03/2018
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 5859
Posted: 08:29am 27 Mar 2026
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Stan,

Please confirm.

You have a pico-2 system that uses an ILI9341 LCD display, and connects to a USB keyboard. The console is a CH340 connected to GP8/GP9 and works in TeraTerm. But not in MMEdit/MMCC.

Please show a photo of your setup. It is hard to help with little information.

Maybe OPTION AUTORUN OFF ???

Volhout

P.S. I have seen a similar incident before on my linux system, and re-installed MMEdit/MMCC 5.37 to solve it. The strange thing was that when MMEdit opened MMCC that MMCC would connect to the pico, but when I manually opened MMCC and pressed the CONNECT button, it would not connect. Regardless the settings I changed. After re-install all worked. Maybe a configuration file got corrupt.
Edited 2026-03-27 18:59 by Volhout
PicomiteVGA PETSCII ROBOTS
 
ville56
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Joined: 08/06/2022
Location: Austria
Posts: 450
Posted: 09:02am 27 Mar 2026
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MMedit/MMCC do work reliably if the setup is ok. I was outsmarting myself already several times with the Olimex USB/HDMI board. It is a bit tricky if the defaults in MMBasic and the board hardware or setup are not the same as soon as you lose the USB/serial connection. So connecting the serial console forth and back and uuups... where has my serial gone to now??? It was always my bad, connecting the the serial converter to the right pins always solved it. And yes, there is always the chance to reverse TX and RX too. I've done all that already  
                                                                 
73 de OE1HGA, Gerald
 
dddns
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Joined: 20/09/2024
Location: Germany
Posts: 821
Posted: 10:20am 27 Mar 2026
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PicoMite MMBasic USB RP2350B Edition V6.02.01 runs excellent! The minor graphical glitches I noticed in earlier versions have all been fixed. This also applies to the HDMIUSB firmware I tested. Many thanks @matherp!

I've also tested MMedit/MMCC 5.4.0 under Ubuntu 22.04 base and I can confirm that it works without problems. @Jim, the escape key issue with miniFM is gone too!
 
stanleyella

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Joined: 25/06/2022
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 2807
Posted: 02:42pm 27 Mar 2026
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pico 2350 connected to hdmi screen says
PicoMiteHDMI MMBasic USB RP2350A Edition V6.02.01
UK Keyboard Connected onchannel 1
option list
option serial console com2,gp8,gp9
option flash size 4194304
option colourcode on
option keyboard uk
option resolution 640x480 @ 252000KHz
option audio gp0,gp1 ' m on pwm channel 0

I didn't enter those options,
 
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