fivebyfive VS MicroPython

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.

Just putting my hand up to say that MicroPython is awesome (and runs on the RP2040). https://micropython.org

Gah, I just ordered one on impulse [1]. I've wanted to build out a WiFi PDA for quite some time now and I like this hardware.

I'm quite liking the idea of running tulip MicroPython [2] on it, or going back to pure MicroPython [3] and writing some drivers. Apparently something like ampy can be used to upload/download Python files [4].

Threads could be quite exciting for running multiple programs at once [5], although I have no idea what it means for two programs to fight over GPIO! It does seem as though MicroPython can only utilise a single core [6].

[1] https://www.lilygo.cc/products/t-deck?variant=43087936487605

[2] https://github.com/bwhitman/tulipcc/tree/main/tulip/tdeck

[3] https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/esp32/tutorial/intro....

[4] https://www.digikey.co.uk/en/maker/projects/micropython-basi...

[5] https://docs.micropython.org/en/latest/library/_thread.html

[6] https://github.com/micropython/micropython/issues/8197

If you really want to engage in the travesty that is shoehorning a high level scripting language into an environment that has 512 bytes of RAM and less clock cycles than an electric toothbrush, there is micropython.

There is some work to implement a common CAN interface in micropython but it's some way off yet: https://github.com/micropython/micropython/pull/13149

https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-sdk/ links to a PDF about connecting to the interwebs with a pi pico.

micropython/micropython//ports/rp2/boards/RPI_PICO_W: https://github.com/micropython/micropython/tree/master/ports...

raspberrypi/pico-sdk /lib: btstack, cyw43-driver, lwip, mbedtls, tinyusb https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-sdk/tree/master/lib

raspberrypi/pico-examples//pico_w/wifi/access_point/picow_access_point.c:

https://github.com/raspberrypi/pico-examples/blob/master/pic...

There's an iperf opkg pkg, or is it just netperf (which works with fluent)?

raspberrypi/pico-examples//pico_w/wifi/iperf/picow_iperf.c:

Needed for hobby project, maintained by very small team. Haven't decided on specific microcontroller. Needed for general bit-banging, speed and code size are not priorities.

So far have considered MicroPython [0] [1] and Lua [2] [3], but open for suggestions for others.

What are experiences?

[0] https://micropython.org/

Python is also a general-purpose programming language. It's typically used on desktop / laptop computers. But Micropython is a variant that can be used to program embedded devices.