Anything needed for support of 'Arduino Nano' style RP2040 boards

[robzed]

Hi,

On UKMARSBot, some people are using 'Cytron Maker Nano RP2040' and 'Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect' boards. Do we need to do anything special to support these boards on Zeptoforth? I guess a minimal Pico Zeptoforth will work without the special features?

Boards:

• https://docs.arduino.cc/hardware/nano-rp2040-connect
• https://www.cytron.io/p-maker-nano-rp2040-simplifying-projects-with-raspberry-pi-rp2040

UKMARSBot https://ukmars.org/projects/ukmarsbot/ and https://github.com/ukmars

[tabemann]

zeptoforth itself should run on these as long as they use 25Q-type QSPI flash (both the Winbond and GigaDevices flash used in various RP2040-based boards qualify). I would presume that, most likely, such flash is being used. Some things such as LED's are not guaranteed to work out of the box (note that there is optional code included with zeptoforth which you can load which will enable it to use the Neopixels on the Cytron Maker Nano RP2040 ─ configuring it, though, is up to you). I should note that in particular the WiFi module on the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect will not work out of the box (on that note I should buy one and get it working).

[robzed]

The Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect uses an ISSI IS25LP128F-JKLE (NOR Flash 128M 2.3-3.6V 166Mhz Serial - it's a 16Megabyte part) - I looked on the device.

The Cytron Maker Nano RP2040 I don't have (yet), so can't check the chip. The markings can be seen in this image: https://cdn.cnx-software.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Maker-Nano-RP2040.jpg

[tabemann]

You could try the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect - I can't guarantee that it will work, though.

[robzed]

Tried the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect, using zeptoforth-0.64.2. (zeptoforth_full-0.64.2.bin)
Normal Forth interaction works. Tried this:

compile-to-flash
: hello1 ." hello rob" ;
hello1 hello rob ok
reboot
hello1 hello rob ok
<pull power, and replace>
hello1 hello rob ok

I wanted to check how much flash Zeptoforth thinks it's got attached... any ideas?

These don't appear to work on the RP2040 board?
free ( – ) Display space free for the main task and for flash in general
copyright ( – ) Display the copyright notices

[robzed]

What other tests do you want me to run on the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect?

[tabemann]

My apologies - free and copyright don't exist. I had moved free to unused to avoid a name conflict with free used by the heap allocator, and I had merged the copyright notice with the license under license.

Thanks for confirming that it works on the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect (even though it may take more work to get any LED's working ─ LED's have always been a trouble spot compatibility-wise). That's all I was really asking of you there - now we know that at at a basic level zeptoforth does work on the Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect.

About how much space zeptoforth thinks it has, it only stores compiled code in the lower 1 MB of flash. The second 1 MB of flash on the RP2040 is devoted to block storage. Any flash above that is currently ignored, but one could easily modify the code so it uses flash higher than 2 MB for more block storage.

[robzed]

I've created a demo for the Cytron Maker Nano RP2040 board. The code is located here: https://github.com/robzed/Maker_Nano_RP2040_Forth_Demo

I upload a video to Facebook. The information on this board is https://www.cytron.io/p-maker-nano-rp2040-simplifying-projects-with-raspberry-pi-rp2040

I'm happy that this board is working with Zeptoforth. (I have even compiled-to-flash and repowered - and it works).