Skip to Content
Programming with MicroPython
book

Programming with MicroPython

by Nicholas H. Tollervey
September 2017
Intermediate to advanced
214 pages
5h 27m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Programming with MicroPython

Chapter 2. PyBoard

The PyBoard is the first device developed and built for MicroPython (see Figure 2-1). It can be purchased from the MicroPython website. Damien and Viktoriya’s company ships it to anywhere in the world.

A picture of the PyBoard
Figure 2-1. The original PyBoard is about the size of a large postage stamp

The board connects to your PC via a micro USB cable. This connection provides two ways to interact with the device: as a USB flash drive and as a serial-based Python REPL.1

Note

Perhaps the most common problem for people new to Micro­Python is the wrong sort of micro USB cable. There are two sorts: those that provide just power (often for charging devices such mobile phones) and those that supply both power and data. It is this latter type of cable that you should use.

If your board powers up (you should see an LED light up), but you don’t see it as a connected USB flash drive or cannot connect to the REPL, then you probably have the wrong type of lead.

This caveat applies to all devices discussed in this book.

The PyBoard contains a small filesystem as part of its flash (on-chip) memory. It also has an SD card slot with which you can add more available storage. If you access the PyBoard as flash storage, you will be able to copy files on and off the board’s filesystem. If you create a Python script called main.py on the board’s filesystem, MicroPython will execute this script when it ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

IoT Development for ESP32 and ESP8266 with JavaScript: A Practical Guide to XS and the Moddable SDK

IoT Development for ESP32 and ESP8266 with JavaScript: A Practical Guide to XS and the Moddable SDK

Peter Hoddie, Lizzie Prader

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781491972724Errata Page