Punyforth on the ESP-12E

ESP-12E module

I bought a set of ESP-12E modules, which are little dev boards for the ESP8266 uCs. ESP8266 has Wi-Fi capabilities built-in, along with the other usual uC capabilities like GPIO pins, SPI, etc.

The product had nodemcu labeling on it. I was going to give nodemcu a try, figuring that it must have come pre-installed on the chip. But nodemcu was not pre-installed, and I was running into difficulties getting it installed, and I didn't really want to program in lua anyway, so I just installed Punyforth instead. This proved to be as simple as running "python flash.py /dev/ttyUSB1 --flashmode dio" and then a minute later I was able to connect with "sterm -n /dev/ttyUSB1 -s 115200".

I've had a fun experience learning the basics of Punyforth programming. Also I used some of the example WIFI and NETCON code to set up a Wi-Fi AP, and to use it to send UDP data to a laptop. I have a sensor project in mind — more on that later, perhaps. I believe the ESP-12E has at least one ADC pin available.