No problem. Thanks for disabling it.
I’m a 69 year old Marine Corps veteran…
Please try not to be too hard on me…
Never to old to learn something new…
Thank you for this info…
The key thing about the PicoCalc is that while a good bit of software has been written for or ported to it, it really is suited for those who want to write their own code to run on what is effectively a way to take a Pico 1(W), Pico 2(W), Pimoroni Pico Plus 2(W) (I use a Pimoroni Pico Plus 2W in my PicoCalc), Luckfox Lyra, or (with some extra work) a RPi Zero and make it hand-held and portable. For me, the PicoCalc is a way to take my zeptoforth anywhere, with an integral display and keyboard to boot, without having to drag my bulky laptop and oodles of cables and wires with.
Your graphic work is awesome!!
That’s what I wanted to play around with on my new PicoCalc.
I’m an electronic technician… From 1975 to present… Component level stuff… (Back when you could actually SEE the components… without a microscope)…
Still building electronic kits… And have 9 Wi-Fi cameras on my house running Blue Iris on my camera server…
Played with Basic a little…(that’s all we had back in the 70’s!!.. Tower PCs with a 386 processor)…not as much as needed to do what you have posted!!! The 3D graphics are really awesome!!!
I hope to be able to see some of those on my PicoCalc…
Can you let me know what OS I should try first on my calc with a Pico2???
Python or Basic??
I have ALL the Pi…SBC’s made so far…
2 or more of each…
I’m just getting started with the Picocalc and not as young as all of you users out there…
Thanks ahead for any guidance you can provide… for an old timer!!!
Thanks for your help!
Tripletee…
Zeptoforth??
Please raise my intelligence to the next level!!!
Question…
I just received a RP 2350 Pico W5 …
(In my January issue #161 of Raspberry Pi magazine)
Should I use that in my new PicoCalc?..
since it has more memory???
Thanks!
If I were to recommend one of either BASIC or Python, and only one of them, in the case of the PicoCalc it’d be a hard choice. If someone just asked me “BASIC or Python?” up front, without any context, I’d say Python any day. However, PicoMite has excellent support for the Raspberry Pi Pico and Pico 2 family boards that cannot be dismissed. So, to be honest, I’d suggest trying both PicoMite and Python, in the form of MicroPython, on your PicoCalc.
As for zeptoforth, that is my own personal implementation of Forth (some people back in the day wrote that in all-caps as “FORTH” even though it’s not an acronym) for ARM Cortex-M microcontrollers and especially for the Raspberry Pi Pico 1(W) and Pico 2(W). It is a rather large, full-featured Forth designed for practical use, much unlike many Forths which have a reputation of being toys and of being written with minimal size as a goal over practicality. Unlike many Forths it compiles directly to inlined native code (as opposed to indirect, direct, or token-threaded code as is often traditional with Forths) and has speed as a goal. It is also preemptive multitasking and, on the Pico 1(W) and Pico 2(W), multicore, but do not mistake that for being multiuser – it is not a multiuser system per se.
zeptoforth has support for FAT32 filesystems on both SD cards and in on-board flash, and for this purpose comes with a text editor, zeptoed, for editing text files in FAT32, and tools for transferring files to and from your board without having to remove the SD card (which is not recommended, as it only mounts the SD card once on boot, and thus it cannot be hot-swapped). If you get a Pimoroni Pico Plus 2(W) it also has support for using the on-board PSRAM as a large RAM disk.
zeptoforth is distributed with optional IPv4 and IPv6 stacks, aka zeptoIPv4 and zeptoIPv6, for use with the Pico 1W and Pico 2W (but mind you that it does not really work with a Pico 1W on the PicoCalc due to not enough SRAM being available for both the framebuffer and the network stack). Along with zeptoIPv4 and zeptoIPv6 it is distributed with NTP clients for both of them on both the RP2040 and RP2350, which are always useful for setting the system time (note that it always uses UTC aside from not taking leap seconds into account).
I could go on and on about zeptoforth, but the above is some of the important stuff to know.
About the Pico 2W, I would highly recommend using that (it has far more SRAM, 520 KiB to be exact, 3 PIO blocks, is faster than the Pico even at its recommended 150 MHz versus the RP2040’s new rating of 200 MHz) unless it both predates July of this year (i.e. it is of stepping A2 or earlier) and thus has The GPIO bug and you need to use GPIO’s as either internal pull-down or as floating digital inputs. The Pimoroni Pico Plus 2W in my PicoCalc predates July 2025 and thus has this bug, but frankly I have never ran into an actual use case where it turned out to be a problem even though I can elicit it manually if I so desire.
Thank you for all the detailed information!!
I will let you know how I make out!!!
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What is your view on the RP2350 Pico W5???
Has More memory….
To be honest, I just looked it up, and I’d personally stick with the Pico 2W simply because it has a more established CYW43439 WiFi/Bluetooth radio chip. For instance, zeptoforth comes with a driver for CYW43439 WiFi for use with zeptoIP but does not have a driver for the radio chip on the RP2350 Pico W5. For similar reasons, I presume WebMite (PicoMite with WiFi support) will not work with the RP2350 Pico W5.
Edit: If you want to use something other than a Pico 2W I would highly suggest shelling out the extra money and investing in a Pimoroni Pico Plus 2W – it is effectively a drop-in replacement for the Pico 2W, with the same underlying radio chip, but as 16 MiB of on-board flash and 8 MiB of on-board PSRAM, along with a breakout connector for many of the extra GPIO’s of its RP2350B.
Ok…thanks again for all the info!!
I just received it the other day and thought I’d ask…
You seemed to be the most knowledgeable!!
Oh, one thing – if you consider getting a Pimoroni Pico Plus 2W and you’re in the US (which I assume you are), get it from a US distributor rather than directly from Pimoroni as if you order from Pimoroni you will have to wait for it to get shipped across the Atlantic.
Thanks…
I’ve ordered from pimoroni many times.
I’ll check into it…
Hopefully there’s not a $20 import fee thanks to Trump.
Thanks again… you’re right… I will look for a local supplier…
I’m in Bethlehem, Pa.!!!
I got mine from Adafruit Industries, which is based out of New York.
Roger that!!!
Thanks!!
OUT OF STOCK!!! ;-(
I’m on the email list…
Stupid me…
That was pimoroni…
Adafruit has it for $22!!
Ordering now!!!
Thanks!!