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Remove broadcom port #10682
Description
The broadcom port runs CircuitPython bare bones on older Raspberry Pi single board computers. The main reason for it was to have HDMI output. Now with RP2 DVI and future DSI support, this is much less valuable.
The broadcom port is unmaintained and lacks a lot of functionality (WiFi and multicore for example). So, we should remove it in CP11.
Maybe in the future Zephyr will support it and we'll inherit support from there.
Activity
RetiredWizard commentedon May 15, 2026
I completely understand this decision and that the advantage of running CP on a Pi Zero is disappearing as micro controllers get more power and access to larger RAM/Flash. Micro controller boards like the fruitJam go a long way to filling the gap. I'm looking forward to incremental advances like more power/memory on the RP20xx micro controllers or DVI capabilities on the Espressif chips which will be far more competitive with a bare metal Pi Zero 😁
That being said, I do hope we see a future Zephyr implementation on bare metal Raspberry Pis. I believe at some point in the near future, the Pi Zero is not going to be a practical platform to run Linux projects on but it's got power and resources to spare for running CircuitPython projects. I guess until that time arrives, a CP port for the hardware really doesn't make a lot of sense though.
tannewt commentedon Jul 21, 2026
Note there is work for Raspberry Pi BCM support in Zephyr here: zephyrproject-rtos/zephyr#109880
Remove broadcom and renode ports