fbergama/pigfx

Pi pico ?

Closed this issue · 5 comments

Would it be possible to run pigfx on a pi pico ?
Is there some way to generate a binary that could be
down loaded to the pico flash ? Does the pico have the
resources to run pigfx ? Less memory, slower clock.

Thanks for a very nice piece of software.
Regards
John Luke

Hi John
Unfortunately it's not possible to get PiGFX running on a Pi Pico. It's a completely different platform, it's missing an SD card port and doesn't even have HDMI output.
Regards
Christian

tawez commented

I would agree only with that it is different platform (ARM Cortex M0+).
There is SPI on board, so SD card can be attached. VGA or HDMI can be added as well. Pimoroni Pico DV Demo Base is a good example (there is also VGA version).
The question is if the same code base can be adapted, or should it be completely new project.

There are some limitation with Pi Pico as it has much less RAM, so probably not all features will be available.

I was afraid so had forgotten about HDMI. A pity though.
Looks like a pi zero would be the best low end alternative.
Should this issue be closed ?

Regards
John Luke

The worldwide Pi Shortage recently meant that I wasn't able to supply the Pi Zero Serial Terminal for the RC2014 (The device PiGFX was originally written for), so I turned to the Pi Pico, and now have the Pi Pico VGA Terminal that runs PicoTerm https://z80kits.com/shop/rc2014-pi-pico-vga-terminal/

PicoTerm runs very similarly to PiGFX, although due to a lack of RAM, it can either run 80 column mono or 40 column colour. It has VGA output, although there should be an HDMI compatible version out soon.

I think this would be the best way to go if you want to use a Pi Pico.