# Notepad or basic word processor for the PicoCalc? **URL:** \ **Category:** PicoCalc\ **Created:** [September 15, 2025, 11:54am UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/notepad-or-basic-word-processor-for-the-picocalc/19737 "2025-09-15T11:54:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![cjstoddard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@cjstoddard](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/cjstoddard)\ **Post date:** [September 20, 2025, 8:24pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/notepad-or-basic-word-processor-for-the-picocalc/19737/23 "2025-09-20T20:24:10Z")
The Hackberry Pi has a couple of different options, including one based on a Pi Zero but the keyboard is not all that good, at least I don’t find it particularly easy to use. Honestly, The uConsole is best of breed. [https://www.elecrow.com/hackberrypi-cm5-q20.html](https://www.elecrow.com/hackberrypi-cm5-q20.html) ---
**Author:** ![simple\_simon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e79b87/32.png) [@simple\_simon](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/simple_simon)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2025, 11:52pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/notepad-or-basic-word-processor-for-the-picocalc/19737/24 "2025-09-24T23:52:51Z")
Is this any good? [WordGrinder](https://cowlark.com/wordgrinder/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Aaron\_Addison](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/aaron_addison/32/13781_2.png) [@Aaron\_Addison](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/Aaron_Addison)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2025, 8:11pm UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/notepad-or-basic-word-processor-for-the-picocalc/19737/25 "2025-09-26T20:11:02Z")
yea its nice software ---
**Author:** ![UtahPilot](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/user_avatar/forum.clockworkpi.com/utahpilot/32/13793_2.png) [@UtahPilot](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/UtahPilot)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2025, 3:07am UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/notepad-or-basic-word-processor-for-the-picocalc/19737/26 "2025-12-06T03:07:28Z")
I don’t use an app notebook very often but I do find them very useful for things like appointment dates. So, I set out to write a simple notebook for the PicoCalc. After a coulple of hours of work I gave up. Even a very simple notebook takes quite abit of coding! A couple of days later it struck me. The MMBasic editor is a great thing to write on. Delete lines, insert lines, rearange lines, edit lines, copy, paste, save, delete, and on and on. So, I made a file with the MMBasic editor and named the file “NotePad.bas”. Then I hit the F1 key to save the file. (BTW, I’ve changed my default drive to the B: drive.) When I hit the F1 key the file is saved to the SD card. Now when I want to write or edit a note I just type EDIT “notepad.bas” at the prompt and the file pops up in the edit mode. Notice that every line starts with ‘ so every line is just a comment. The ‘program’ can not be run because there are no commands within the program. You might not want to write a novel like this, but for short notes, it works just fine. - Jim ![IMG_0124](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex029/uploads/clockworkpi/original/2X/7/79b601895f79dd8218514a0fc5ea1ba24e3c6872.jpeg) ---
**Author:** ![tabemann](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/df705f/32.png) [@tabemann](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/u/tabemann)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2025, 6:00am UTC](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/notepad-or-basic-word-processor-for-the-picocalc/19737/27 "2025-12-06T06:00:53Z")
I wrote a text editor for zeptoforth called _zeptoed_ which runs on the PicoCalc. It is designed with editing source code in mind, with features such as auto-indent, block indentation, and block commenting (using Forth line comments, of course). It edits files in FAT32 filesystems, on the SDHC card, in on-board flash, and if you are using a Pimoroni Pico Plus 2(W) and have set up zeptoforth properly, in PSRAM. Note that on the RP2040 you really will need to use the _text-only_ PicoCalc terminal emulator, because the default size of the zeptoed heap will cause a crash if you use it with the _graphical_ PicoCalc terminal emulator due to the size of the framebuffer not leaving much space left over. You can make it work if you shrink the size of the zeptoed heap, but that leaves less space for editing, and zeptoed will unceremoniously exit if it exhausts its heap space. A better solution is to just not use an RP2040 and instead use an RP2350 in the first place. I find that for most of my purposes the default heap size of 64 KiB works fine on the RP2350. [Previous page](https://forum.clockworkpi.com/t/notepad-or-basic-word-processor-for-the-picocalc/19737.md?page=1)