Damien! Thanks for your reply. Dude, you really rock
Awesome project. (and don't even get me started how cool the theoretical physics & your involvement with CERN is!)
anyhow... your response seemed completely reasonable... until... until Pandora would not launch on my phone. huh?
Hey - so is it at all possible to somehow have *two* OS's running? (yes, I realize that's sounds like a ludicrous question, but hear me out) Surely the answer is no, as the ESP8266 is single-threaded, right? I ask, as before I flashed your binary MicroPython onto my board, I previously had NodeMCU/Lua installed. No big deal... sure... I had installed it myself and started at 0x00000, the same address I installed MicroPython. It appeared to have worked, as duh - there was no longer a Lua prompt rather a Python prompt. Even the "MicroPython v1.5.2-395-g5f6d12c on 2016-03-08; ESP module with ESP8266" message at boot time.
The crazy thing? I had previously setup a tiny Lua demo as a soft wireless AP & single web page on the ESP8266 before flashing the MicroPython. It seems like it is
still running!.
I was working on other things, and noticed Pandora on my phone refused to start. My phone was connected to the soft AP (with no router, no internet) that I setup on Lua, even though (I thought) - I had wiped it and replaced with your MicroPython.
So check this out: here's the diagnostic info being shown in MicroPython, showing connections to the WiFi access point I created in Lua with the NodeMCU software: (my phone MAC edited)
Code: Select all
#4 ets_task(40100268, 3, 3fff4658, 4)
MicroPython v1.5.2-395-g5f6d12c on 2016-03-08; ESP module with ESP8266
Type "help()" for more information.
>>> add 1
aid 1
station: fc:c2:de:xx:xx:xx join, AID = 1
err already associed!
station: fc:c2:de:xx:xx:xx leave, AID = 1
rm 1
I did nothing but install MicroPython; certainly did not create soft AP with python. I printed "Hello World", that's it. So unless you are doing the same with MicroPython internals: creating a software AP with the exact same naming convention (my phone still sees the same ESP_[6 digits of ESP MAC] WiFi Access point)... then both
must still be running?! Is that even possible?
And ya - your instructions clearly do state to "erase everything first"
and I noticed the "blank.bin" that I loaded is only 4kb in size...
So what I'm thinking, is that NodeMCU was already installed at a different base address, and the one I installed at 0x00000 - thinking it was an update - wasn't actually even being used. Then when I installed your MicroPython at 0x0000, somehow both are running (?).
Or is MicroPython not a new binary OS, rather an app that runs on some sort of internal expressif OS, to which it can give attention in addition to the concurrent Lua? Is there some way to communicate with that other process? Putty only seems to connect to the one UART & that UART sees Python.
I'm in pretty much incredulous disbelief that I still see my Lua access point with Python installed (and I have no other ESP8266's even in the building). So I'm really curious as to what you believe is going on.
btw - I have a variety of ESP8266 boards. Happy to test & help in any way I can.