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Converting CircuitPython to MicroPython

MicroPython was created in by Australian programmer Damian George in May of 2014. Although Adafruit originally supported MicroPython, in July 2017 Adafruit created a fork of MicroPython and called it CircuitPython. We can only speculate why this decisive action was taken, but the result is it divided the community into two incompatible branches and it doubled the amount of work needed to be done to introduce a new device to the Python community. Unfortunately, the consequence is that many programs written in CircuitPython are difficult to port to MicroPython.

Today, according to Google Trends, MicroPython is still four more popular than CircuitPython when we look at worldwide web search comparisons. However, in the US, the popularity is more equal. Although the claim was that CircuitPython was done for "simplicity" there is little evidence that CircuitPython programs are smaller or easier to maintain than MicroPython.

The one thing is clear, CircuitPython has lots of drivers for unusual hardware devices. If you find a driver you need in MicroPython you will need to convert it to MicroPython. This is usually done manually on a line-by-line basis.

Setting up a CircuitPython Virtual Environment

Because MicroPython and CircuitPython are incompatible, it is important that you don't intermix your Python libraries.

Here is how we setup a virtual environment for CircuitPython using Conda.

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conda create -n circuitpython python=3
conda activate circuitpython

Installing the SSD1306 CircuitPython Library

Per Directions Here

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pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-ssd1306

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pip3 install adafruit-circuitpython-displayio-ssd1306

Note

ERROR: Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement adafruit-circuitpython-displayio-ssd1306 ERROR: No matching distribution found for adafruit-circuitpython-displayio-ssd1306

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Successfully installed Adafruit-Blinka-6.3.2 Adafruit-PlatformDetect-3.2.0 Adafruit-PureIO-1.1.8 adafruit-circuitpython-busdevice-5.0.6 adafruit-circuitpython-framebuf-1.4.6 adafruit-circuitpython-ssd1306-2.11.1 pyftdi-0.52.9 pyserial-3.5 pyusb-1.1.1

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# Basic example of clearing and drawing pixels on a SSD1306 OLED display.
# This example and library is meant to work with Adafruit CircuitPython API.
# Author: Tony DiCola
# License: Public Domain

# Import all board pins.
from board import SCL, SDA
import busio

# Import the SSD1306 module.
import adafruit_ssd1306


# Create the I2C interface.
i2c = busio.I2C(SCL, SDA)

# Create the SSD1306 OLED class.
# The first two parameters are the pixel width and pixel height.  Change these
# to the right size for your display!
display = adafruit_ssd1306.SSD1306_I2C(128, 32, i2c)
# Alternatively you can change the I2C address of the device with an addr parameter:
#display = adafruit_ssd1306.SSD1306_I2C(128, 32, i2c, addr=0x31)

# Clear the display.  Always call show after changing pixels to make the display
# update visible!
display.fill(0)

display.show()

# Set a pixel in the origin 0,0 position.
display.pixel(0, 0, 1)
# Set a pixel in the middle 64, 16 position.
display.pixel(64, 16, 1)
# Set a pixel in the opposite 127, 31 position.
display.pixel(127, 31, 1)
display.show()

Using ChatGPT to convert CircuitPython to MicroPython

ChatGPT does a good job of automatically converting CircuitPython to MicroPython. In your prompt you just add the following instruction:

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Convert the following CircuitPython code to MicroPython:

An example of this working with the basic blink example is shown below:

Trend analysis

As of March 2021, MicroPython is about two to four times more popular than CircuitPython.

Google Worldwide Search Trends