Since the PyPortal came out, there have been many examples written which take advantage of the CircuitPython displayio graphics system. We have been working on writing a version of displayio that runs on Blinka, the CircuitPython compatibility layer for Python 3 on single board computers. With Blinka, you can run your favorite CircuitPython displayio applications and games on boards such as the Raspberry Pi or even the FT232H.

To make things even easier, we also wrote a version of the PyPortal library that runs on Blinka to make it even easier to get up and running. The Raspberry Pi is already connected to the internet, so we decided to take advantage of this and removed much of the code that handled managing the connections and replaced it with the Linux equivalents.

The Blinka PyPortal library is a port of the original PyPortal library that is intended to be run in CPython.  It leverages the Blinka Displayio library, which is a port of the original CircuitPython displayio library and is built on top of Adafruit Blinka and the Python Imaging Library. The idea behind the PyPortal library is to be able to run many of the examples that are currently available for the PyPortal with minimal changes.

Parts

To run the examples, you'll need a Raspberry Pi or FT232H. If you are going the Raspberry Pi route, a Raspberry Pi 4 is preferred due to its processing speed:

For the Raspberry Pi, you will also need a PiTFT such as the 3.2" TFT:

If you would like to play sound, one of the easiest ways is to connect an amplified speaker to the Raspberry Pi such as the Monoprice 5-watt amp:

If you would prefer to run it directly from your computer, you could use an FT232H:

For the FT232H, you will need a Breakout TFT such as the 2.8" TFT Breakout: