Circuit Playground Express, Makecode, and a Mac

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geogriff
 
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Circuit Playground Express, Makecode, and a Mac

Post by geogriff »

Can you use Makecode (with the Circuit Playground Express) on an iMac or other mac products.
Thanks in advance.

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adafruit_support_carter
 
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Re: Circuit Playground Express, Makecode, and a Mac

Post by adafruit_support_carter »

Yes. You should be able to. Everything runs in the browser and the program file is transfered to the Circuit Playground Express using USB mass storage. So as long you have a reasonably modern browser and a USB port, then should be good to go.

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MrWigdahl
 
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Re: Circuit Playground Express, Makecode, and a Mac

Post by MrWigdahl »

I cannot find a way to make this work. Anyone have any ideas? I don't see how to make the CP appear as a drive to move the uf2 file over, as indicated. This all seems like PC talk and I don't see much documentation for OSX. Will keep trying and post if I find something!

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kattni
 
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Re: Circuit Playground Express, Makecode, and a Mac

Post by kattni »

You need to plug the Circuit Playground Express (CPX) into your Mac via USB. Be sure you're using a USB data cable - some cables only work for charging. Press the reset button on the CPX once (the small button in the center of the board). The ring of Neopixels should flash red and then stay solid green, and a drive called CPLAYBOOT will show up in Finder.

When using MakeCode, you click "Download" and it downloads a file called "circuitplayground-Untitled.uf2" (or it may have a number in parentheses after it if you've downloaded multiple files from MakeCode previously). You drag the file to the CPLAYBOOT drive in Finder. The tiny red LED will flash while it loads, the CPLAYBOOT drive will disconnect and the board will reboot. At this point, you've loaded the code and you can use it to do what you wrote it to do.

The Circuit Playground Express will not show up in Finder again until you tap reset once to enter the bootloader. Then it will mount again as CPLAYBOOT.

I went through this sequence again as I explained it to verify it. I'm on a MacBook Air running Sierra.

Hope this helps!
~Kattni

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