标签: development platform

I truly love the folks at Sparkfun because of their love for making electronics fun everyone. You often hear that the days of people building their own electronics projects are over, but this really isn't the case. Take SparkFun, for example, which was founded in 2003, and which is growing from strength-to-strength providing everything from training courses in soldering to electronic parts and kits and ... all sorts of "stuff". Actually I regard SparkFun as being a real success story, because (a) they have grown to 120 people (b) they are helping folks (from young kids to retirees) learn about electronics and (c) they really enjoy what they are doing. Anyway, SparkFun recently announced a new line of products designed to help the novice electronics enthusiast ease into the world of programming, prototyping and design. Each product in the new ProtoSnap line features various input and output boards that are linked together, complete with traces, to form a multiuse prototyping platform. This allows users to experiment with embedded electronics without the burden of soldering, wires or other typical prototyping limitations. There currently are three different products in the ProtoSnap line—the ProtoSnap Pro Mini, the ProtoSnap LilyPad Development Board, and the ProtoSnap LilyPad E-sewing kit. We'll look at these in more detail in a moment, but first check out this video of Jim from Sparkfun telling us all about it. The ProtoSnap Pro Mini is an Arduino-compatible development platform aimed at teaching the basics of Arduino programming as efficiently as possible. It requires zero assembly, wiring, or soldering, so you can jump right into programming the ProtoSnap to control LEDs, buzzers, light sensors, and more. There's even a small prototyping space so you can add your own parts! ( Click here to see a tutorial) Once you've gotten a firm grasp of the programming, you can snap off the individual components of the ProtoSnap for use in future projects. Those components include an Arduino Pro Mini microcontroller platform and an FTDI Basic Breakout to program it. The ProtoSnap LilyPad Development Board is designed to get you started in the world of e-textiles (I hadn't heard anything about this, but the idea is to make things like T-Shirts or Pillows with flashing lights and suchlike). Combining a LilyPad Simple Board with other LilyPad components like a buzzer, a vibration motor, an RGB LED, a button, a switch, five LEDs, a light sensor, and a temperature sensor, the ProtoSnap LilyPad Development Board lets you dive right into wearable electronics. When you've learned how to program the LilyPad Arduino Simple Board, break apart the components and explore the power of the LilyPad platform. Last but certainly not least, the ProtoSnap E-Sewing Kit pairs a LilyPad coin cell breakout board with a switch, a button, and five LEDs. It comes pre-wired so you can plug in a battery and use the switch and button to turn the LEDs on and off. Once you've mastered using the board together, break off the individual components and use them just like you would with their normal LilyPad counterparts.. "The ProtoSnap line is really designed with the beginner in mind," said SparkFun Engineer Ryan Owens. "We really think it will help introduce people to prototyping in an easy-to-understand and user-friendly way." While the ProtoSnap line currently has three products, the range of possibilities for expansion is endless. The folks at SparkFun say that they are excited to see the implications this new product holds for beginner electronics enthusiasts, and they hope the ProtoSnap line will introduce a new group of people to the wonders of embedded electronics. For more information, visit ( www.sparkfun.com ).

A few months ago, I related my experience in switching to a Mac laptop after  years of using Windows portable machines. In the following months I've discovered that some of the Mac software is pretty poor. Finder, for instance, is terrible compared to Windows Explorer, but Path Finder from Cocoatech is a superb replacement. iPhoto is practically unusable if one is porting a lot of pictures from another machine. GoodSync is a great way to synchronize files between machines – I use it to sync to a Windows desktop. iTunes remains about my least favorite program in the world. But my article had a poll question that asked for peoples' preferred development platform. Windows scored a paltry 39% of responses. Linux won at 42% with the Mac's fan base at 12%. Though the vast majority of toolchains for embedded development are Windows-based, it appears most of us wish otherwise. The vendors went ballistic. I received a lot of unhappy email from them, as the results were orthogonal to what they expected. Is the operative word in the poll "preferred?" How does our preferred environment mesh with that which we're actually using? Are we coerced into the Windows world by the dearth of tools for other platforms? Or do vendors push for that OS simply because Windows has most of the desktop market share? I don't have authoritative figures, but Wikipedia pegs Mac OS at about 7% of the OS market and Linux just over 1%, though they acknowledge that other sources have somewhat different numbers. I would have guessed a much higher number for Linux, and suspect that in the engineering world it garners significantly more adherents than in corporate America or in the home. It's logical for a vendor to create tools that run on the broadest possible range of systems. But truthfully, the Mac's market share is so small that there's probably not a lot of upside for the amount of engineering and support needed to run on OS X. But if most of us prefer something other than Windows, you'd think true market leadership would be to boldly go where few embedded companies have gone before, and sell products that meet the needs and desires of the customers. What do you think? If you could be doing your embedded development on any platform, which would it be and why?

Just to make sure that we're all tap-dancing to the same drum beat, let's be reminded that Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software. It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments. Arduino can sense the environment by receiving input from a variety of sensors and can affect its surroundings by controlling lights, motors, and other actuators. The boards can be built by hand or purchased preassembled; the software can be downloaded for free. The hardware reference designs (CAD files) are available under an open-source license and users are free to adapt them to their needs. There are a variety of different Arduino boards. Two of the most popular are the Arduino Uno and the Arduino Mega. Different implementations are available from a number of suppliers. There are also a bunch of plug-in daughter cards called "Shields" – again, these are available from a number of suppliers. The whole Arduino concept has attracted a large following. One problem, however, is that just about all of the existing Arduino boards are based on relatively low performance 8bit microprocessors, until now... The thing is that users have been begging for more power and performance, and the folks at Microchip and Digilent have risen to the challenge magnificently by launching the first 32bit-microcontroller-based, open-source development platform that is compatible with Arduino hardware and software. The first board is the chipKIT Uno32 , which is a clone of the Arduino Uno board, but with much higher features and performance (32bit processor, 80MHz, 128 KB Flash program memory and 16 KB RAM, with two each of the I2C, SPI and UART peripherals). Amazingly this board is priced at $26.95 each (the average price for an Arduino Uno is around $29.95).   The second board is the chipKIT Max32 , which is a clone of the Arduino Mega board, but – again – with much higher features and performance (32bit processor, 80MHz, 512 KB Flash program memory and 128 KB RAM, with USB, CAN and Ethernet communication, as well as 5 each I2C, 4 each SPI, and 6 each UART peripherals). The chipKIT Max32 board is priced at $49.50 each (the average price for an Arduino Mega is around $69.95).   Both chipKIT boards can be ordered today ( Click Here ). Additionally, the open-source software for both boards is available today ( Click Here ). chipKIT Network and I/O Shields are expected to be available this month.

A few months ago, I shared my experience in switching to a Mac laptop after several years of using Windows portable machines. In the ensuing months I've found that some of the Mac software is pretty poor. Finder, for instance, is terrible compared to Windows Explorer, but Path Finder from Cocoatech is a superb replacement. iPhoto is practically unusable if one is porting a lot of pictures from another machine. GoodSync is a great way to synchronize files between machines – I use it to sync to a Windows desktop. iTunes remains about my least favorite program in the world. But my article had a poll question that asked for peoples' preferred development platform. Windows scored a paltry 39% of responses. Linux won at 42% with the Mac's fan base at 12%. Though the vast majority of toolchains for embedded development are Windows-based, it appears most of us wish otherwise. The vendors went ballistic. I received a lot of unhappy email from them, as the results were orthogonal to what they expected. Is the operative word in the poll "preferred?" How does our preferred environment mesh with that which we're actually using? Are we coerced into the Windows world by the dearth of tools for other platforms? Or do vendors push for that OS simply because Windows has most of the desktop market share? I don't have authoritative figures, but Wikipedia pegs Mac OS at about 7% of the OS market and Linux just over 1%, though they acknowledge that other sources have somewhat different numbers. I would have guessed a much higher number for Linux, and suspect that in the engineering world it garners significantly more adherents than in corporate America or in the home. It's logical for a vendor to create tools that run on the broadest possible range of systems. But truthfully, the Mac's market share is so small that there's probably not a lot of upside for the amount of engineering and support needed to run on OS X. But if most of us prefer something other than Windows, you'd think true market leadership would be to boldly go where few embedded companies have gone before, and sell products that meet the needs and desires of the customers. What do you think? If you could be doing your embedded development on any platform, which would it be and why?