Another Raspberry Pi Pico language: MMBasic

It’s very much a work in progress, but Geoff Graham and Peter Mather’s MMBasic runs nicely on the Raspberry Pi Pico. Development is mostly coordinated on TheBackShed.com forum.

• Download and manual: Geoff’s Projects – BASIC Interpreter for the Raspberry Pi Pico
• Source: MMBasic running on the Raspberry Pi Pico

It supports an impressive range of displays and peripherals. The project gives me a very distinct “This is how we do things” vibe, and it’s quite unlike any other Raspberry Pi Pico project.

To show you what MMBasic code looks like, here’s a little demo that uses one of those “Open Smart” LED traffic lights on physical pins 14-16 which cycles through the phases every few seconds:

' traffic light on gp10-12 (green, yellow, red), pins 14-16

' set up ports for output
FOR i=14 TO 16
  SETPIN i, DOUT
  PIN(i)=0
NEXT i

red=16
amber=15
green=14

DO
  ' green on for 5 seconds
  PIN(red)=0
  PIN(green)=1
  PAUSE 5000
  ' amber on for 3 seconds
  PIN(green)=0
  PIN(amber)=1
  PAUSE 3000
  ' red on for 5 seconds
  PIN(amber)=0
  PIN(red)=1
  PAUSE 5000
LOOP