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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : New function added to micromite
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| cicciocb Regular Member  Joined: 29/04/2014 Location: FrancePosts: 70 |
Hi all, I'm a new user coming to this forum mainly interested to the very nice micromite project. I modified the source code of the micromite in order to include other functions. I must recognise that this was very easy to do as Geoff did a very good job commenting all around his code. So, basically, I was able to include roughly the following functions : - A "minimalistic" file system permitting the use an external SD card (FAT16 only, mount, filewrite, fileopen, chdir) - A function permitting to enable/disable the pull-up/pull-down of any pin - The support for an external TFT display (based on the ILI9341 chip 320 x 240 65K colors, available on E-bay for less than 5 Euro (2.2") ) using the SPI; the functions covers the init, the classics (dot, line, square, circle, fill, the text with several sizes) and the display of a bmp resident on the SD-CARD. - The support for another RTC, the MCP79410 - The support for the NEC IR protocol Last, but not least, I extended the CPU command with the values 64, 68, 72, 76, 80 and 88. To be noted that the value CPU 60 is already included into the actual firmware (try cpu 30 then cpu 60 as Geoff suggests). The other speeds are achievable only using overclock methods. As per the licence given with the source code, I can't distribute it but, if someone is interested, I could ask to Geoff for the authorisation. Regards |
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Geoffg Guru  Joined: 06/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 3196 |
I am sorry to say that I am not happy about this. Basically I do not want a competing fork that will stain the Micromite name. These "features" are of doubtful value and quality and in some cases will not work. For example, I know that you cannot attain a clock speed of 88MHz - you cannot even reliably get to 60MHz. I posted the source code because I wanted people to be able to see for themselves how MMBasic works and modify it for their own use. I did not do it so that people could create public forks without consultation. Geoff (putting on a fireproof suit). P.S. Please let us not have another fruitless debate over someone's interpretation of open source. Geoff Graham - http://geoffg.net |
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vasi Guru Joined: 23/03/2007 Location: RomaniaPosts: 1697 |
I'm also against publishing those changes. He must keep them for himself. And to be honest, I'm against everything that may determine Geoff to keep the sources closed. @cicclocb, I'm sure you understand. Anyway, congratulations for those changes if those suits your projects needs. Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton Elvish name: Mablung Miriel Beyound Arduino Lang |
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| cicciocb Regular Member Joined: 29/04/2014 Location: FrancePosts: 70 |
OK, no problem, I close the debate. |
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atmega8 Guru Joined: 19/11/2013 Location: GermanyPosts: 722 |
And everybody is a winner: Geoff because of his wonderfull work and the first class documentation of the code, so that privat modifications are possible. And, cicciocb, who adapted it for his needs and shows that he is a smart and intelligent guy to ;-) Congratulations to all Diewmar |
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| WhiteWizzard Guru Joined: 05/04/2013 Location: United KingdomPosts: 2817 |
Well done Geoff for stopping this one early 
Collectively I believe that all BSF members should help Geoff 'police' these types of situations and prevent the spreading of potentially 'buggy' MicroMite firmware. Let one man be in total control is what I say and we will then avoid lots of 'random' variants which would be absolutely impossible to support. We have all worked hard in helping Geoff get the firmware to where it is today so let us not undo all that hard work. . . . CICCIOCB: It is great you were able to achieve what you did for your own personal use. However, firmware changes must be kept very much to yourself as you now know. 
Note that if you write some MMBasic code and wish to share it then this would be fantastic. Many great threads have started on the BackShed as you can see from the topic index . . . . For everything Micromite visit micromite.org Direct Email: whitewizzard@micromite.o |
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Grogster Admin Group  Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9308 |
--- Post deleted by user. --- (how do you actually delete posts anyway?) Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
I think maybe you can't ..... ? http://www.thebackshed.com/forum/help.asp#FAQ10 |
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bigmik Guru Joined: 20/06/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2914 |
Hi Cicciob, Please dont be despondent and give up your work.. As has already been said for your own use its 100% OK. I hope you realise that Geoff needs to control the distribution to protect his own reputation.. If he allowed your work to be released he would then be pressured to allow other peoples variants to be released.. Not all of these will be bug free. It would hardly do for some PC Journalist to pick up say `my variant' and have a hell of a time with it and write an article that is published world wide canning the uMite because the variant he tried was full of bugs and crashed etc.. All that aside there is nothing wrong with you documenting your code and passing that onto others who may wish to use it in their own variants of uMite, albeit without being able to distribute their variant either. You could even post that information here. Regards, Mick Mick's uMite Stuff can be found >>> HERE (Kindly hosted by Dontronics) <<< |
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BobD Guru Joined: 07/12/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 935 |
but you can't take back the emails that went out. for what you said.
I think Geoff makes it very clear about the terms and conditions for access to source code. People have to enter into an agreement to get the source code and they should stick to it. If they think the mods they have made are "better than sliced bread" and should be available to all then submit them to Geoff and / or the forum for inspection and incorporation into future releases if approved by Geoff. To do otherwise will end up creating confusion about what code you have, what features and who is supporting what. |
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| hitsware Guru Joined: 23/11/2012 Location: United StatesPosts: 535 |
Also seems you can only edit once ... :) |
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| BobD Guru Joined: 07/12/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 935 |
You can edit many times but only until someone else puts up another post in the same thread. Hope that makes sense. My post will block you from making an edit. |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9308 |
Drat!!!! 
I only deleted my post, as I was concerned that it would spark one of those debates on Open Source, which Geoff did not want to have happen, and I also did not want to upset/annoy/tick-off anyone, as the subject has pretty serious for-and-against supporters - that's why I removed my own post, but thanks for saying you agreed with it anyway. I will have to remember that fecking auto-email of the message when I post - Drat, drat, drat, drat! Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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| Grogster Admin Group Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 9308 |
Thanks - useful information for future reference. Smoke makes things work. When the smoke gets out, it stops! |
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Gizmo Admin Group Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
Members cant delete, they can only edit before another post is made. But yes, the email send out will contain the old version of the post, and not reflect any changes. So, you can edit your post, provided another member hasn't replied. The idea is to keep a paper trail of sorts, make members think twice before posting something they may regret, and to keep the thread coherent. eg: Fred posted "Bill is an idiot" Bill posted a reply "I'm not! You dont know me very well." Fred went back and changed his original post to "Bill is a trustworthy person." Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
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| robert.rozee Guru Joined: 31/12/2012 Location: New ZealandPosts: 2350 |
from my own observations, you can edit a posting as often as you like, up until someone posts a response. once a posting is no longer the 'latest' it becomes set in stone. alas, i'm going to wade in too over enhancements to mmbasic. i think one must view mmbasic as being just like a commercial product that is effectively being sold (in the compiled form) for $0. the source code is being made available freely, but only for educational and personal use. consider it like buying (in this case for $0) a colour TV. with the TV comes a set of plans - and i did once get a new TV that came with a schematic. you can use those plans to repair your TV, to make enhancements and modifications to your TV, to better understand how your TV works. but you can NOT use those plans to make more colour TVs and distribute them. the plans are also copyright (quite separately from the TV) back to the manufacturer, so, like a book, you can not redistribute the plans in either original or modified form. the only exception i am aware of is if you modify mmbasic and then distribute the compiled version embedded within a product - ie, that the end user can not 'see' the modified mmbasic. geoff might care to correct me on this. regarding the enhancements put forward, a couple of them look great. a couple look very undesirable; in particular, i am not a fan of overclocking. the pull ups/downs is an idea that geoff has mentioned before as something for a future release, while all the rest are pretty much things that can be implemented in either basic code or on a small slave PIC. the simple file system on SD card idea would be a great one to offload onto a lower PIC, perhaps making use of the slave I2C commands. my opinion is that designing enhancements is to be encouraged - use them just for yourself, hand out just the code segments you have written, discuss them, and most certainly make them available to geoff directly. who knows, you might have discovered a better way of doing something that geoff hadn't thought of. just bear in mind that mmbasic is geoff's baby, and proceed with due respect for that. what is/isn't in the distributed version is entirely his choice. and while we all have our own favourite set of enhancements for the next version, just bear in mind that geoff has been working madly to get this project completed for many months now. he deserves to be left along to have a well-deserved break. there will be time to bring up new feature requests once he has had a few months to relax! just my opinion, rob :-) |
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| cicciocb Regular Member Joined: 29/04/2014 Location: FrancePosts: 70 |
Hello all, I'm very sorry to be the cause of this "fruitless debate". 
I understood the scope of Geoff and I don't want to interfere into his great work. Anyway, I'm not a Basic programmer or, more precisely, I was long time ago. I bought two years ago 2 duinomite that are still inside their boxes! I'm used to program the pic micros in C and assembler and I found very interesting to have a look at the Geoff's code and try to implement new functions within the available free space limits. I recognize that I learnt a lot, in particular on the way he address the I/O registers and handle the memory. Again, this was just for the fun as I know that I'll never use it. I'm not within the "target" for the micromite that is aimed essentially to people that need a fast and easy way to build a microcontroller based project. I like to build my own PCB, program in C and find the limits; this is what I plan to do in the future. This is the reason that pushed me to try to share the fun I had. I can just suggest at everyone to take the source code and see how it's easy to implement new functions inside. This could push also you to go forward, discovering the full power of the PIC32 Micros. Again, I don't want break the link between Geoff's and his "aficionados" giving the sources of what I did; any medium skilled C programmer can search on internet and implement new functions in C. The problem is that he will be obliged to "hide" his works so, probably, you'll never know. As someone reports, some of these function could also be done in basic; this is true but you will be faced to the responsiveness of the basic. For example, I implemented first the TFT interface in basic but I discovered that, from a practical point of view, it's too slow for a 320*240 65K colors. But, for example, the RTC and, maybe, the NEC IR code are possible. Anyway, now you know that there is the room to implement new functions inside the micromite and I'm sure that Geoff will not disappoint you. Regards, Cicciocb |
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| spongebob Newbie  Joined: 02/05/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5 |
@Cicciocb, don't get frustrated man! I, like many others, have been reading around for months and years, but never felt the need to register and post so far. Sorry, but could not restrain myself anymore after seeing this topic. Guys, you should found a new church. Something like "Geoff's witnesses". No, wait, I am completely serious! There is a bunch of grown men here acting like teenagers on a concert of JB. Since when improvement and innovation are dirty words simply because they might be unpleasant to somebody?? I dare to say, Geoff's code as great work he has done, is way far from perfect. I have seen it in details and I am sure I am not the only one to say that. Not here of course. Geoff has set some "rules" for distribution, yet not playing by them himself. He endorses those cheering him up here, while others, like @Cicciocb are put into a black list. Yet, mmbasic.com says "MMBasic is a free and open BASIC interpreter for 32 bit microcontrollers." Note the words "free" and "open". Is it really free and open? Did Geoff create the BASIC language? Did he make the MPLAB C compiler used to write it? Did he build the PIC32's die? There are actually many similar creations, some of them much better. Ask Google about that. One day a guy makes a few improvements and instead of you all congratulating him and encouraging his further work, what happens? Geoff is acting like a pinched girl and everyone is happy about that. Shame on you! As I said before, I have been reading here for a while and seen this is not the first time as well. My first post here and maybe the last one if I get banned for freely speaking up my mind. That's up to the admin's personal views. At least now you know what other people see and how a dozen of users can turn otherwise great forum into laughing stock for the DIY community. Those users know who I am talking about. I do not intend to offend anyone, but come on, use your own heads! Not starting a flame war, so please do not bother to pile up on my post. There won't be any response from my side. I just hope some of you can open up their eyes and start seeing more than what someone wants them to see. Cheers |
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| vasi Guru Joined: 23/03/2007 Location: RomaniaPosts: 1697 |
Excellent post, @cicciocb! Elegant and straight to the point. @spongebob, you are exaggerating! I also program in C, Pascal, JAL etc. and I am a "code size maniac" - well, sort of. I also stressed Geoff to implement byte code compilation and other features. But then, I matured  . As long as my friends have a lot of fun with MMBasic, I'm also ok. Look at the world wide reaction regarding Maximite/Micromite.
Keeping MMBasic under strict copyright is a common sense. Look at other software houses - how many bugs and imperfections have their compilers/interpreters? Still, there is a compatibility assured for the firmware produced with those along the globe. And those teams are receptive to bug reports and requests. As Geoff is! So, why are you against when our friends are enjoying like children for their new toys? Start your own projects and debates about your language/boards (though, here you won't get too much attention unless is about MMBasic and you will suffer my pain  ). Still, here are my friends and I have a good time. Is not hard to me to respect others choices. So, cheer up!
Vasi Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton Elvish name: Mablung Miriel Beyound Arduino Lang |
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MicroBlocks Guru Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
I guess some need to read this As a professional software developer i have run into that problem and can understand the decision fully. Microblocks. Build with logic. |
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