When you flash the Pico with the latest MicroPython the Pico will enter a wait state, waiting for instructions from you through MicroPython. You can easily start to upload a pre-created Python file, a. py file, on to the Pico’s storage, however, you can start to ‘talk’ to the Pico immediately via REPL.
REPL, pronounced ‘ripple’, stands for Read, Evaluate, Print, Loop. Read means that MicroPython is waiting for you to enter code; Evaluate will interpret the code and begin to execute it; Print displays the results of the last executed line of code; Loop returns to the start, prompting you for more code.
You can access the Pico via the command line, through a tool called Minicom, but since we’ve already got Thonny up and running, it makes sense…
