systems such as multitasking and power management, but does not support colour graphics. Colour Maximite A new version of the Maximite was featured in the September 2012 Issue of Silicon Chip Magazine. New features in the Colour Maximite are. 100pin Version PIC32 Colour VGA with eight colours (black, red, green, blue, cyan, yellow, purple and white). Synthesised stereo music and sound effects. Battery backed real time clock (optional). Arduino compatible connector with an additional 20 I/O lines that are independent of the original 20 I/Os. 2 channel PWM analog output. Special commands for animated games. Version 4.0 of MMBasic which has extra commands to access and utilise the additional features. Several software and hardware projects have been created utilizing the Maximite in the 12 months since it was first announced. These range from simple dataloggers to complex process controllers. Colour Maximite 2 (Gen 1) The Colour Maximite 2 was introduced in mid-2020, and was featured in the July 2020 issue of Silicon Chip magazine. Specifications: CPU: 480MHz 32-bit ARM Cortex-M7 with 2MB flash RAM: 1MB on-chip plus 8MB off-chip RAM Display: Colour VGA output at up to 800×600; 8-bit (256 colour), 12-bit (4096 colour) and 16-bit (65,536 colour) display modes Audio: Stereo audio output supporting WAV, FLAC, MP3 and MOD file playback, synthesised speech and sound effect support Storage: SD card up to 128GB; FAT16, FAT32 and exFAT file systems supported Battery backed real time clock (standard) USB keyboard support I/O: 28 external I/O lines with Raspberry Pi hat-compatible pinout; Nintendo Wii nunchuck support Serial I/O: Communications protocols including 2×serial, 2×I²C, 2×SPI and Dallas 1-Wire The Colour Maximite 2 runs MMBasic 5.x and includes a compatibility mode to run programs written for the original Colour Maximite. Colour Maximite 2 (Gen 2) The Colour Maximite Gen 2 was announced in mid-2021, and was featured in the August 2021 issue of Silicon Chip magazine. This is an enhanced version of the Colour Maximite 2, relying on more surface mounted components than the Gen 1, thus being optimised for automated machine assembly. Enhancements over and above the Colour Maximite Gen 1 include upgraded graphics (1920x1080 with 24-bit colour), on board support for a mouse, accurate real time clock, ESP-01 WiFi module and an extra Wii nunchuck port on the front panel. As at September 2021, there are over 100 programs available for both versions of the Colour Maximite 2. References External links Geoff