Itsy Bitsy M 4 Express
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Aliased from ItsyBitsy

The ItsyBitsy M4 Express uses the Microchip ATSAMD51 Cortext M4 processor running at 120 MHz, with floating point support and 512KB Flash and 192KB RAM. It's quite tiny, at 35mm long by 18mm wide, and has 6 power pins, 23 digital GPIO pins (7 of which can be analog in, 2 x 1 MSPS analog out DACs, and 18 x PWM out). It has 2MB of SPI Flash memory to contain your program code. It receives both its power and connection to the outside world via a micro USB connection.

Programming #

The ItsyBitsy can be programmed in CircuitPython, and from AdaFruit comes with a UF2 bootloader for CircuitPython already installed. You can install an alternative bootloader if you want to program it in some other language, but we're happy with CircuitPython.

The steps are:

If you want to update your code just drag a new version onto the drive. You should see the results immediately as the M4 Express senses a change in the file.

Example Python Code#

This file, named "code.py" causes the little red LED on the ItsyBitsy to blink:

import board
import digitalio
import time

led = digitalio.DigitalInOut(board.D13)
led.direction = digitalio.Direction.OUTPUT

while True:
    led.value = True
    time.sleep(0.8) # how much time on?
    led.value = False
    time.sleep(1.8) # how much time off?