There’s a new fun device in my lab today. The Clockwork Pi PicoCalc, a retro-inspired handheld that blends nostalgia with modern DIY flair. Powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico, it’s perfect for tinkering.

Out of the box is boots directly to a version of BASIC called PicoMite. It’s a version of MMBasic that’s been optimized for the PicoCalc. It’s a great way to get started with programming on the PicoCalc. Other languages like Python/C/C++ are also supported, but I will primarily be using BASIC on it.

Last year, we did the 100 door problem on many platforms in BASIC and Assembly language.

The 100 door problem is:

• There are 100 closed doors in a row.
• You walk past the doors 100 times (100 passes)
• The first time, visit every door. If the door is closed, open it. If it is open, close it. In programming, you’d probably call this toggling the door so let’s call it that.
• The second time, ONLY visit every 2nd door and toggle it. (door 2, 4, 6, etc)
• The third time, ONLY visit every 3rd door and toggle it. (door 3, 6, 9, etc)

Keep going through this loop over and over until you get to the loop where there’s only the last door.