MicroPython – Python for microcontroller | Hacker News Reader

MicroPython – Python for microcontroller

micropython.org

76 pointskiechu17 comments

GAME CHANGER. sorry for caps but this is huge. I have used arduino heavily but I can tell you it has its specifics and a universally accepted language with nice syntax like python will generate a massive uptick in projects and creativity.

That being said I would love to contribute.

Do you know the eLua Project? It might also correspond to what you want.

http://www.eluaproject.net/

interesting thanks

I like it too! It sure beats running Javascript or Basic. That said, this board is pretty fast to begin with - 168MHz, so its not like they run this on an Arduino Uno.

I have some projects that run off batteries and must be low-power, so I'd really love to have a low-power Lua stack running on much more constrained hardware than this thing.

Edit 1: and along comes eLua. Thx!

Edit 2: in case anyone wondered, eLua requires least 256k of Flash and at least 64k of RAM

I fail to see how it is any different from Forth, Basic and Pascal offerings for micro-controllers that we have since the early 90's.

The only thing that failed in those controllers was to get the market Arduino was able to.

Basic has been an easy language but python has dominance. This is key, for one reason another be it timing, era headlines IDK they never got the traction python did.

The language is key and if someone can plug it in and per-se "not be afraid" to hack as many are I think its a big deal.

Energy is an issue - sure, but its v1 and a nice processor.

I'm very excited about this.

Looks promising, i found this post if someone is interested: https://blog.dbrgn.ch/2014/5/6/first-tests-with-micropython/

Reminds me of the "Java Processor" [1]

I wonder if anyone is trying to revive that now?

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_processor

That was a bit different as they were trying to replicate the JVM in hardware (i.e. as an instruction set). This is just a rewrite of python that can run on a small ARM chip. Still very impressive mind, but a different beast. It is more similar to .net Micro Framwork ( http://www.netmf.com/ ) .

There are small JVMs that are well suited to doing this. As a matter of fact ST sells a developer kit based on the exact same microcontroller series used here, the STM32F4 ( http://www.st.com/web/catalog/tools/FM147/CL1794/SC961/SS153... ) of course it comes with rather crippling limitations of 3 month eval time, and 1 hour run. It is obviously aimed at a rather different market though.

While proprietary and not very open to (or usable at all by...) hobbyists, ARMs Jazelle[1] is listed there at the bottom:

> The most prominent use of Jazelle DBX is by manufacturers of mobile phones to increase the execution speed of Java ME games and applications. A Jazelle-aware Java Virtual Machine (JVM) will attempt to run Java bytecodes in hardware, while returning to the software for more complicated, or lesser-used bytecode operations. ARM claims that approximately 95% of bytecode in typical program usage ends up being directly processed in the hardware.

Jazelle seems to be "old news" now though, replaced by something else.

While not the same thing as a hardware Java implementation, JavaCard[2] is pretty interesting. It's quite a bit different from "big" Java (especially the language features available), but it's very widely adopted in mobile phone SIM cards and traditional smart cards. I've got a yubikey neo here which is a JavaCard smartcard intentionally left very open to experimentation (the keys needed to manage the card and upload new applets aren't secret). I've uploaded applets to it on my own, both the OpenPGP applet and some simple stuff I wrote to play around.

[1]http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazelle

[2]http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Java_Card

FYI Damien George (creator of MicroPython) will be giving a couple of talks at next month's PyconUK (http://pyconuk.org/) about said project. If there's enough interest, there may even be a more practical hands on session too.

I'm not really a huge fan of Python. None the less this is a really interesting project... makes me wonder if something similar could be done using Scheme.

I can understand the need for smaller runtime, but why a dedicated board? I mean, what not on top of arduino/pi/other existing board?

I'm just speculating, but maybe for low-level driver standardization?

I've used devices with python projects on the pi and some of the driver setup can get tricky.

Is there a list of interesting/useful non-hobby projects made with this? Or even something similar to this?

Considering that it just came out, no.

I would love to have some opinions of people that have used this. What for and how was it?

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