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https://github.com/goatchurchprime/jupyter_micropython_kernel

Jupyter kernel to interact with a MicroPython/ESP8266 over the serial REPL
https://github.com/goatchurchprime/jupyter_micropython_kernel

jupyter micropython python

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Jupyter kernel to interact with a MicroPython/ESP8266 over the serial REPL

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# Jupyter MicroPython Kernel



Jupyter kernel to interact with a MicroPython ESP8266 or ESP32 over its serial REPL.  



Also with capabilities to work through the WEBREPL (available on ESP8266 only), 

do Ctrl-C, transfer files and esptools flashing (useful for deployment).

See https://github.com/goatchurchprime/jupyter_micropython_developer_notebooks 

for examples.



## Installation



First install Jupyter: http://jupyter.org/install.html (the Python3 version).

**They strongly recommended you use the [Anaconda Distribution](https://www.anaconda.com/download/)**



### Via PyPi



```

pip install jupyter_micropython_kernel

python -m jupyter_micropython_kernel.install

```



### Manual Installation (more maintainable)



Clone this repository to a directory using TortoiseGIT or with the shell command (ie on a command line):



    git clone https://github.com/goatchurchprime/jupyter_micropython_kernel.git



On **Windows**, Install this library (in editable mode) into Python3 using the shell command:



    pip install jupyter_micropython_kernel



On **Linux**, you can install this library in editable mode using symlinks, which makes it easy to `git pull` a debugged version later:



    pip install -e jupyter_micropython_kernel



Things can go wrong here, and you might need "pip3" or "sudo pip" if you have 

numerous different versions of python installed



Install the kernel into jupyter itself using the shell command:



    python -m jupyter_micropython_kernel.install



This creates the small file ".local/share/jupyter/kernels/micropython/kernel.json" 

that jupyter uses to reference it's kernels



### Post-Install



To find out where your kernelspecs are stored, you can type:



    jupyter kernelspec list



## Running



Now run Jupyter notebooks:



    jupyter notebook



In the notebook click the New notebook button in the upper right, you should see your

MicroPython kernel display name listed.  



If you have an ESP32 or ESP8266 already running MicroPython, plug it in, put the following command into the first cell and run it:



    %serialconnect

    

If you are on **Linux** and don't have the correct permissions to access the Serial ports you will get a "permissions error".  Fix it by adding yourself to the dialout and tty groups:



    sudo usermod -a -G tty your_user_name

    sudo usermod -a -G dialout your_user_name



If you are on **Windows** you need to have the right driver for the USB chip on the ESP32/ESP8266 breakout board.  

Look for the USB connection in the Device List to identify the supplier and look for instructions relating to that supplier.  



The notebook scans the serial ports (the COM-values in Windows) and tells you the possibilities and tries one of them.  If it picks the wrong port you may need to be more specific and use the command:



    %serialconnect --port=COM5



## Uploading the MicroPython firmware onto a new board 



This is done using the `esptool.py`.  The Jupyter micropython kernel has features to help you execute this command.  



    %esptool erase



and



    %esptool esp8266 /home/julian/executables/micropythonbins/esp8266-20200902-v1.13.bin



or



    %esptool esp32 /home/julian/executables/micropythonbins/esp32-20191006-v1.11-406-g4a6974bea.bin



Download these Micropython firmware files from https://micropython.org/download



## Further notes



There is a micropythondemo.ipynb file in the directory you could 

look at with some of the features shown.



If a cell is taking too long to interrupt, it may respond 

to a "Kernel" -> "Interrupt" command. 



Alternatively hit Escape and then 'i' twice.



To upload the contents of a cell to a file, write: 

    %sendtofile yourfilename.py 

    

as the first line of the cell



To do a soft reboot (when you need to clear out the modules 

and recover some memory) type:

    %reboot



Note: Restarting the kernel does not actually reboot the device.  

Also, pressing the reset button will probably mess things up, because 

this interface relies on the ctrl-A non-echoing paste mode to do its stuff.



You can list all the functions with:

    %lsmagic



## Debugging



For reference, the notebooks here might be useful:

  https://github.com/goatchurchprime/jupyter_micropython_developer_notebooks



The system works by finding and connecting to a serial line and

then issuing the enter paste mode command Ctrl-A (hex 0x01)



In this mode blocks of to-be-executed text are ended with a Ctrl-D

(hex 0x04).



The response that comes back begins with an "OK" followed by the 

actual program response, followed by Ctrl-D, followed by any 

error messages, followed by a second Ctrl-D, followed by a '>'.



You can implement this interface (for debugging purposes) to find out 

how it's snarling up beginning with:

 "%serialconnect --raw"

and then doing

 %writebytes -b "sometext"

and 

 %readbytes

 

## Background



This had been proposed as an enhancement to webrepl with the idea of a jupyter-like 

interface to webrepl rather than their faithful emulation of a command line: https://github.com/micropython/webrepl/issues/32



My first implementation operated a spawned-process asyncronous sub-kernel that handled the serial connection. 

Ascync technology requires the whole program to work this way, or none of it.  

So my next iteration was going to do it using standard python threads to handle the blocking 

of the serial connections.  



However, further review proved that this was unnecessarily complex if you consider the whole 

kernel itself to be operating asyncronously with the front end notebook UI.  In particular, 

if the notebook can independently issue Ctrl-C KeyboardInterrupt signals into the kernel, there is no longer 

a need to worry about what happens when it hangs waiting for input from a serial connection.  



Other known projects that have implemented a Jupyter Micropython kernel are:

* https://github.com/adafruit/jupyter_micropython_kernel

* https://github.com/willingc/circuitpython_kernel

* https://github.com/TDAbboud/mpkernel

* https://github.com/takluyver/ubit_kernel

* https://github.com/jneines/nodemcu_kernel

* https://github.com/zsquareplusc/mpy-repl-tool



In my defence, this is not an effect of not-invented-here syndrome; I did not discover most of these 

other projects until I had mostly written this one.  



I do think that for robustness it is important to expose the full processes 

of making connections.  For my purposes this is more robust and contains debugging (of the 

serial connections) capability through its %lsmagic functions.



Other known projects to have made Jupyter-like or secondary interfaces to Micropython:

* https://github.com/nickzoic/mpy-webpad

* https://github.com/BetaRavener/uPyLoader



The general approach of all of these is to make use of the Ctrl-A 

paste mode with its Ctrl-D end of message signals.  

The problem with this mode is it was actually designed for 

automatic testing rather than supporting an interactive REPL (Read Execute Print Loop) system

(citation required), so there can be reliability issues to do with 

accidentally escaping from this mode or not being able to detect the state 

of being in it.  



For example, you can't safely do a Ctrl-B to leave the paste mode and then a 

Ctrl-A to re-enter paste mode cleanly, because a Ctrl-B in the non-paste mode 

will reboot the device.