fivebyfive VS DevTerm-KB

I used my experience from the early months of the year, when I was really digging in and learning about the current state of MicroPython, to inform my talk - including some of the projects and discoveries from my DEV series. The video was published recently.

MicroPython has led me along a number of different paths - since it runs on a whole variety of different hardware. In February a tiny ESP32-C3-powered board covered in RGB LEDs caught the attention of the maker community, and I subsequently wrote a small blog series and created a project around it (fivebyfive on GitHub). It also highlighted a few learning opportunities around MicroPython on the ESP32-C3, which have been addressed in the current release. The worldwide chip shortage has meant that the RP2040 chips from the Raspberry Pi folks have been more available than some alternatives, so I've been playing with a lot of boards based on those, but until about a week ago, connectivity was more of an issue than with the Espressif chips!

Most recently, I’ve been learning about MicroPython.

In the previous post, I got everything working pretty nicely with the basics on the board - we had flashed a working MicroPython build, and had a simple piece of code that exercised the NeoPixel LEDs. Since writing that post, I also created a reference card (image above - there's a PDF, and the source GoodNotes file, on GitHub as well); and updated the code a little to add a test for the onboard status LED and programmable button.

Since the manufacturer's content is limited to a YouTube video, and the Arduino code, I've documented various experiments and findings on GitHub in a set of discovery notes.

There are a number of other gadgets that have arrived in the past 6 months, but one I'll call out is the ClockworkPi DevTerm, a 1980s TRS-80 lookalike slab portable that is clipped together in parts, and can take a number of different "cores", or processor boards. I picked mine up with the R01 core, a RISC-V Allwinner D1 chip which is experimental in the context of trying to run a Linux distribution. There are other options available; I have a CM4 adapter on the way. This is another community that I've enjoyed interacting with, as we learn new things together, and share our experiences.