I think flash rom every time for test, is a real bad idea.
Depends on what you are writing, if you are intending to write C code to run natively (i.e. as “firmware”) on the Pico then I haven’t heard of an emulator for the Pico microcontroller hardware
If you want to develop in a language that will run under one of the existing supported firmware (e.g. PicoMite/MMBasic) then (a) you should able to run such programs from the SD card, and (b) there are implementations of those languages on other more convivial development platforms. e.g. MMBasic for Linux (MMB4L)*.
Which I maintain and will probably be forever “in alpha” 
. In the next 6 months I like to think that I will find time to tweak it to provide a better simulation of the MMBasic available on the PicoCalc … but it will never be anything close to a cycle accurate emulator, it’s just a compatible interpreter running on Linux.
I’m try to compile picocalc_helloworld and test in Wokwi RP2040 emulator, it’s loop output “i2c write error”. Looks work, but I will try to directly connect PicoCalc’s USB-C port to my computer.
Ah, now I am wiser, there is at least one RP2040 emulator .
Your using the writing new firmware approach …
… the simplest way to do “Hello, World!” on the PicoCalc is:
' helloworld.bas
Print "Hello, World!"
I think I no longer need the emulator. I’ve fully implemented Flag configuration in CMakeLists.txt, abstracted a common layer in the C code, then used SDL2 on the computer and the Pico SDK with LCDSPI on the PicoCalc.
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Is this something you could share? Having a way to do development like this sounds useful. Thanks.
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My suggest is, this device are design for pi pico and something seems like pico(someone test unofficial pico, ESP32, its works), install official Pico SDK, and download minicom (this will help you to recieve your c program print output).
Maybe C/Cpp is not best way to coding on Pico, but its best way to implement game or some complex program (but also need learn how to deal with pointers). If you want to control led, buttons on breadboard, i guess mmbasic (picomite) is enough.
If you want to control led, buttons on breadboard, i guess mmbasic (picomite) is enough.
I wouldn’t diss MMBasic until you’ve taken it for a drive .
The MMBasic games demonstrated in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bx2vpwuXoo&ab_channel=ThomasWilliams are all running on fundamentally the same hardware as the PicoCalc (display is 320x240 rather than 320x320).
Sure you can probably achieve something more impressive in native code, but that’s probably a lot more work, and definitely requires flashing new firmware to play it.
On the other hand, there will be (or already are) many 8-bit emulators that run on the RP2040 and can soon be ported to the PicoCalc … though I do wonder about the SPI display proving a bottleneck … but I’m not really a hardware guy so may be talking out of my proverbial.
Best wishes,
Tom
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So someone has used a ESP32 in a PicoCalc? Do you have any link or more information on this?
I did some research and it seems like the ESP32-C6-Pico might be pin compatible. I was curious how difficult it would be to use an ESP32 instead of a Pico (though I’m sure using the display and keyboard would require work). The ESP32 devices support BLE better than the Pico, it seems, and I’ve got some project ideas around that. Apparently another popular option in the past (before the Pico had versions supporting wifi) was to connect an ESP32 to the Pico via i2c and that might be an interesting option for the PicoCalc as well.
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Thanks. I saw the other post and ordered something similar. I didn’t know about the WalnutPi, but the one I bought seems similar, and is supposed to be pinout compatible with the Pico. The labelling for GPIO numbers appears to be different in screenshots, but the WalnutPi differes in GPIO numbers as well compared to the Pico numbering, while everything else matches up. (I guess at most the GPIO numbers would need to be adjusted in the code.) The one I ordered has a ESP32-S3R2 and identical specs to this WalnutPi except it has a couple of extra GPIO pins on the back (27 total compared to 25), doesn’t have an obvious option to solder on a external antenna connection, and has 16MB flash instead of the 8MB that the WalnutPi lists. Also ended up being cheaper based on my research, but I guess if it ends up not working I can get the WalnutPi to replace it.
I was happy to see that this guy got the screen, keyboard, and audio working on his ESP32S3.
yep, video works for us
he also posted there: I have successfully ported MicroPython to the PicoCalc.