Raspberry Pi Pico PIO - Ep. 8 - Introduction to DMA 

Glad you like them! Thanks for watching!

Thank you very much! I'm going down the DMA/PWM rabbit hole right now. We'll see where that leads.

Thank you for your kind words and thoughts. I've been trying a couple pair of glasses and I think I'm getting used to the vision change. Close work is still a challenge; but getting better. I'll be going to AirVenture next week; maybe a couple of videos from there. Then I hope to get back to some RasPi Pico videos. Thanks for watching!

You're welcome. My VGA and AWG videos also have a lot of DMA content.

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching.

Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching!

Glad it was helpful. Thanks for watching!

Thanks for watching. DMA works best when you have to send a ton of data quickly; without slowing down for the processor. I have several more videos where I use DMA and PIO to move a lot of data; both video and an AWG. Have fun!

Thank you very much for your comments; they are right on! I did learn a lot from this video, and I got into DMA and PWM in much more detail in the next video, that's where I realized the difference between PWM channel "A" and "B". The gamma reference was from the sample program I was using, I believe it refers to the relative brightness of the LED. Thanks for watching, hopefully the next few videos will be helpful.

@@LifewithDavid1 Ps I meant GPIO 26 for the LED I think, don't have the reference sheet in front of me at the moment but the assertion is correct. I did find it strange that the SDK has a lot of convenience functions but some of them offer a strange mix of convenience combined with raw register writes like the one discussed above. I guess learning any new hardware is tricky. I'm still at the very beginning with PIO where I am constantly asking my self questions "I wonder if this will work" for things that aren't explicit in the documentation. I agree the docs are extremely good relative to a lot of hardware I've used but there are still some ares that are vague. Like pindirs and their specific semantics with side set etc.

That's very feasible as long as the Pico has enough computing power and memory for your application. In fact, you could use PIO with DMA to transfer the data from the camera into memory without using any core resources. Then you would have both cores available for machine learning. Sounds interesting. Good luck!

That's my 6502 multi purpose computer built 35 years ago. I feature it in several videos, including this one: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BcqRvHkn-EA.html I also do some high speed paper tape emulation with it in later videos using the Pico and (shudder) MicroPython. This is where I first started using PIO. This computer was the 3rd one I built; there is another video on my earlier computer, as well as Tiny Basic. Thanks for watching!

How about dma into a separate peripheral? Like a trinket which has a 264 on chunk also. Maybe leave it bare metal? Thoughts? Or maybe do that to an soc, like a raspberry pi?

I'll have to check it out. Sometimes transferring the program from the working version to github leads to errors. Thanks!

@@LifewithDavid1 Ah, yes, the error is in the github. But some edits needed regardless as I see you've put it all in one file. No surprise you'd taken to Python. Having just missed the day's of being taught Fortran in University (by one year, and still used it in projects due to math libraries), I've always resisted Python myself. But if you are used to Fortran, Python is a much better version of that. But NOPE, I'd just tried a Python project recently and it had a format validation tool.. Nope, no thanks! Rust is much more my thing if not C/C++. Anyhow, the ommission is a very Python-esque error. Cheers!

@@kippie80 being a curmudgeon myself I've found very little value in most new languages (new as in newer than any sort of macro assembler of which even in the late 70's many assemblers were very powerful in terms of "higher level constructs" and even data structures, newer than ESPOL (aka a systems level ALGOL for Burroughs large systems) and PL/S) I accidentally took a "temporary job" writing the firmware for some computer company not to be named and stumbled upon C which is the last new language I've found much value in, which is VERY valuable for many reasons) Sure I've had to use a dozen new languages in the age of the internet, not many actually had anything new, just rehashed bad ideas for the most part. Their attraction isn't the language itself but merely the idiotic amount of options and ease of sucking in massive amounts of other people's code without care written 10 seconds ago rather than the language itself. Having said that... within the last 2 years I've consolidated ALL of my dev work across the entire stack from micro controller to web crap to 2 language thank god. C(and C++ with a lot of restraint in terms of use of language features god what a mess unless you ignore the bad ideas) and believe it or not... Go which is sort of like "really easy C" with a crazy easy build/package management system. I only responded to this as you mention Rust... I have very mixed feelings about Rust... it's one of those things I WANT to love but having been trying to love it for a few years now I just can't and from a practical stand point I really think the team seems to making mistakes in terms of language complexity and features. It is not nearly as programmer friendly as C and at the end of the day relies on what C does best for a lot of its target scope. I am not making a final judgement call yet but it's too volatile for me to buy in and hasn't yielded much actual benefit to me when using it side by side on various real life stuff to get comfortable with it over the last few years... I think the biggest thing I like about it happens to be: 1. Rustup 2. Cargo I wish the C/C++ ecosystem could really consolidate around a similar tool chain/package management system other than that I've been fairly happy with C since the mid 80's. "Safe" programming practices have been around for a very very long time. Just my 2c

I agree. My experience started with FORTRAN and I was pretty good with it. That lead into Basic and several other languages of the mid to late 70's. However, those languages tend to warp the minds of those that use them such that I have a difficult time "thinking" in terms of "object oriented" programming language. Programming is not part of a electric power utility project manager's job; so I only programmed for fun. Now that I'm retired; I'm trying to make up for lost time; with mind numbing results. Thanks for watching!

That's a good point. I like a little background music; and I am trying to get the audio ducking settings right. I hope it's better in my more recent videos. I'm using Pinnacle Studio 25 and it's a bit of a challenge.

@@LifewithDavid1 I would not use filler music in any video I wanted people to retain information from. Music is meant to invoke emotions and tends to distract from informational content.

Personally I like the music popping up. I instinctively pause the video to take in what David just said, re-read the code and relate it to what went before. Thanks David!

@@adeeperbluegreen I think it would sound a bit bland without it though

Sorry to hear that. I checked and the video looked clear on my computer. Unfortunately, during times of constricted bandwidth, RU-vid viewers may experience lower quality playback. Maybe try again; off peak. Thanks for watching!