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.

Continuing the exploration of 10PRINT, we look at how to implement the 10 Print algorithm on the Pico-8 platform.

Introduction

We’ve done 10PRINT on a lot of machines.

But we haven’t done a comparison between Rust and C.

For no particular reason, I thought it would be fun to compare the two languages side by side.

A race? Yes, please.

10 PRINT Quick review

10 PRINT is a one-liner program that generates a maze-like pattern using the characters / and \.

The program is based on a one-liner BASIC program from the late 70s and 80s. There’s even been a book written about it called: “10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10”.

Over the years, I’ve been on a silly quest to do 10PRINT on as many things as I can. They end up on X, here, or sometimes both.

I hadn’t considered it before because I just figured I couldn’t print the "/" and "\" characters on the HP-42s.

I was wrong. It’s pretty easy. After a few minutes in the manual, I figured it out.

00 { 45-Byte Prgm }
01▸LBL "TEN"
02 RAN
03 RAN
04 X>Y?
05 GTO "\"
06▸LBL "/"
07 ├"/"
08 AVIEW
09 PSE
10 GTO "TEN"
11▸LBL "\"
12 ├"\"
13 AVIEW
14 PSE
15 GTO "TEN"
16 END

The program is pretty simple. It generates two random numbers and compares them. If the first is greater than the second, it prints a "/" and goes to the next iteration. If the second is greater than the first, it prints a "\" and goes to the next iteration.

The “famous” 10PRINT program on vintage computers was a delight for many in the 70s and 80s. It’s fun to port to other platforms and machines.

I’m always looking for calculators that can do it. It requires both a slash - ASCII character 47, and a backslash - ASCII character 92. Most calculators can print the forward slash, but the backslash is only sometimes implemented.

Rockwell International was a powerhouse of the 1970s and 80s.

The Rockwell AIM 65 computer, also known as the Advanced Interactive Microcomputer 65, is an early microcomputer produced by Rockwell International in the late 1970s. It was essentially a development system, intended primarily for engineers, educators, and hobbyists, and was named for its built-in alphanumeric keyboard and LED display.

The AIM 65 was built around the 6502 microprocessor, the same chip used in popular systems like the Apple II, Commodore PET, and Atari 2600. The AIM 65 was designed as a single-board computer, with the processor, memory, input, and output all integrated into one circuit board.