Arduino Due
John A. Zoidberg
Posts: 514
Hello,
This isn't something I want to start a war about, it's just that Arduino Due is gonna be out sometime later October 2012.
The best thing in that Atmel's ARM processor (Cortex-M3) is the abundance of peripherals, like the SD-Card controller, SRAM controllers and two DACs, alongside with ethernet and stuff.
This isn't something I want to start a war about, it's just that Arduino Due is gonna be out sometime later October 2012.
The best thing in that Atmel's ARM processor (Cortex-M3) is the abundance of peripherals, like the SD-Card controller, SRAM controllers and two DACs, alongside with ethernet and stuff.
Comments
It has all that good stuff apart from the ADC's and it could do with some more I/O pins. But that's just a cheap I/O expantion board away if you need it. For WIFI is just add a 10 dollar USB dongle. HDMI graphics output is a bonus.
Nice thing for me about the Pi is that it can run all the new open source dev tools for the Propeller including SimpleIDE, so add a Propeller "plate" board to the Pi and you have a stand alone dev system for the Prop the size of a cigarette box.
The Cortex is more fun to program than the ARM11 though.
An 8 core ARM Cortex chip would be fun. I wonder how expensive
it is to license ARM?
I got my two Stellaris Launchpad boards a few days ago. Cheap and
fun! (an ARM Cortex M4 board for 4.99USD from TI)
I saw on HaD where someone is making a 64 core ARM of some sort.
Creating a compiler for such a beast would be the hard part.
Actually, it's already done. GCC can support parallel programming of multi-core shared memory machines. It uses the OpenMP standards to enable parallel programming in C and Fortran. It can do smart things like split the iterations of a for loop over many CPU's without you having to change your code in some cases. OpenMP is great on your 4 core Intel PC up to super computers.
Amazingly propgcc now supports OpenMP as well which means you can now write parallel number crunching programs fro your Propeller, I have only yesterday tweaked the Fast Fourier Transform benchmark (FFT_bench) to make use of multiple COGS. All with very small changes to the original single COG version. I'll start a thread on it when it's in good shape.
Edit:: Sorry, I just realized where you saw that. Sounds like the 64 processor ARM machine recently built out of 64 Raspberry Pi boards. In that case you need to be able to spread your algorithms over 64 processors that do not share RAM, i.e. over a network. No problem, the solution to that is OpenMPI which can easily migrate lumps of you program over remote processors which then run it and return the results. Also supported by GCC and Linux. I don't think we will see OpenMPI on the Propeller.
cubieboard.org
I got so used to waiting for the Raspberry Pi that I think I found something else to wait for -- includes a SATA interface.
Regarding the Arduino Due, it seems to be past-Due. (oof!)
The STM32F4DISCOVERY is another great deal. Keil MDK-ARM was pretty effortless to set up for that board, and a lot smaller than CCS. But there's the 32k limit, of course.
I got my Stellaris boards last week also. I just downloaded and installed CCS 5, took over half an hour. I used the custom install and only selected Stellaris and MSP430 and still ended up with this monstrous folder full of files. Why in the world do you need this much stuff to program just two different boards? I guess it's for every possible MSP430 and Stellaris ARM chip in the known universe.
Now that's just showing off!!
Mine are still stuck in the queue, and the last email a couple of weeks back, said Early November..
I saw a claim of Oct 22 and $49, for the Arduino (over) Due.
There is also this, for $28
http://coocox.org/Cookie/Cookie_Nuvoton.html
That part is a M0, and it has 5V operation, so it is more shield compatible than a 3V micro.
It is not as 'souped up' as the Atmel variant, but is quite a bit cheaper.
Nice to see a combination of Board + Software.
Also, if you are lucky enough to live in an area where Avnet and others put on day trainings for products such as the NXP and others, you can get a good jump start on the device, and often the kit is included in the training. Done that here in phoenix at microchip and Avnet. Yes, I realize this is an arduino thread, there are other things out there at higher levels that can be had.....
That said I'll still probably buy one to go with the other Arduino's I have.
I was able to purchase an ATmega8535, and that was about it. It looks like it might be able to load the boot loader and run an adapted form for Arduino.
But the irony of the whole thing is:
1. It don't particularly need an Arduino board.
2. The ATmega series provides its own free C compilers.
3. It would seem best to learn conventional C rather than something cloaked for users to think it is something else.
End result.
I'll use the ATmega in something and forget considering Arduinos.
Simply put, I am not a 'board collector' - I build boards for what I require. I enjoy pondering board design and circuitry as much and maybe more so than code. And I have no need to prove to others that I am an artist as my bachelor's degree is in Fine Art with a major in oil painting.
Repacking is beginning to take its toll on Arduino's parade, whilst the Propeller continues to reign unique.
It would be very interesting if the Arduino 'wire' libraries could be ported and adopted to the Propeller. After all, the whole purpose of C is to be able to port to different platforms.
Seems to have a 64 pin 128KF Kinetis M4 as the main engine, and also a Mini51AT, which is a Nuvoton M0 part, with 16KF, but no USB ?!
The main M4 does have USB, so looks like the small sibling, is some sort of smart-eeprom, that loads USB drivers and maybe some locked kernal into the M4 before it launches....
Good for you, you may be one of the few "artist types" that has come to the realization that the Arduino is all smoke and mirrors. But let me tell you a story:
The other day I bought a "grow your own chilli" kit for ten euros. What did I get? A plastic flower pot, a handful of compost, a little bottle of plant food, a transparent propogator lid and five chilli seeds, all in a nice box. Add water, plant seeds, wait for chillies to grow.
Of course this is silly and expensive, I could by a lot more seeds than that for ten Euro and the rest is easy to obtain. But, hey, in ten mins I have chillies growing. If I had to collect all that stuff separately quite likely there would still be no chillies on my windowsill.
That is what the Arduino is all about, nothing special but all packaged and working instantly. Especially for those who otherwise would not have any idea where to start.
I'm kind of hoping the Prop I/II will head that way with C/C++ and the SimpleIDE and associated boards and education materials. Which Parallax is obviously working hard on. This could even include providing those "wiring" like class libraries. If they are actually usefull on the Prop.
And being of that mind, you buy the kit for growing chili peppers. Maybe plant them and get them started right away, carefully water them and might discover they die off due to you growing them indoors and out of season (only a beginner would start chili peppers in the UK in October). The net result might be that you just give up gardening. But the retailer got his sale by not mentioning that they requires the right season and needed to be transplanted at some point. (There is also more to know, but I won't go into it. I just happened to have the life experience of running a landscape gardening business for 7 years.)
The Propeller One is doing some very interesting things at this point with Catalina C and GCC, I suspect that there might be another surge of interest as the Arduino doesn't provide the means to reach further into C with video and a formal file system. When this surge comes (if it does), it would be optimal to introduce the Propeller TWO to extend the possiblities.
Both the BasicStamp and the Arduino have one great strength, they have invited novices to explore and learn. That is good, quite good.
On the other hand, over-simplification and brand identity tend to create barriers to further exploration at greater depth. I suppose this would be considered a problem of continuity in learning (something that may have defeated Heathkit from surviving).
Right now, Arduinos are big in Taiwan as the all-important introductory texts are available in Chinese with lots and lots of creative activities. Parallax only provides the Propeller Manual in Chinese. With the BasicStamp, Parallax does have translated activities, but no one ever has translated the BasicStamp Manual.
What's the point? The right texts are extremely important to introducing technology to beginners. And the vendor has to be openly honest about what is required. Yes, introduction to new learners via a simpler programming language and systematic hardware is good. But it does take a rather comprehensive approach to really succeed in a big way. And that means a full range of documents from the start if at all possible.
I have a deep concern that the Propeller II with C/C++ and SimpleIDE need a great deal of depth in education materials to overtake Arduinos as they are ahead in publishing in at least Chinese. It does little good to make a delightful board without giving the new user of some substantial ideas of what it can do.
It also helps to have different presentations for different learners. I don't think the Hydra did very well because it had all its support in one author and one presentation approach. Plenty of educational depth, but a bit confusing. NOW, I am delighted that Catalina C will revive my Hydra board and the 512K Sram that I bought for it.
That is where Arduino moved ahead. That is where others, like the TI430 or the Beagleboard tend to fall behind. Without the interesting texts and just offering mostly traditional engineer's PDF, the new user market doesn't open up. The TI430 is excellent, very low power, and has lots of board options for new user -- but it lacks the kind of publications that end up in bookstores for the curious to investigate. There was a time when I was really excited about FRAM memory, it is a technology with a future.
And above all, I don't think that all boards have to be stackable modules. That is just being too idealistic. Sooner or later, stack creates problems of its own. I stack some things, but I use a lot of multi-wire cables to adapt from one board to another and they work fine. If I have a 1843256970 sequence on one board, I can have 1234567890 on the other by adjusting a cable.
Ribbon cables can actually create serious problems as they expect one and only one way to connect. But other multi-wire cables that are single or multiple row can re-sequence the interface quite nicely AND avoid having to produce an adapter board to reorganize.
So if find DIY cables allow me to use boards from many sources that an Arduino user might consider impossible. Do you see how their approach may eventually fizzle? It is modularity, but restrictive.
Educational sales have to be careful and thought out to be sustainable.
It's good for what it does and allows people to accomplish projects with a minimum of effort. No smoke and mirrors.
If I was starting non-techies out on micros I'd use the Arduino. There are lots of low cost add on boards to build things with, lots of books and sites to help people learn. Plus you're not locked into one vendor. What's not to like?
The Raspberry Pi is also poised to sell a lot of units, but the two markets aren't the same, and what people end up doing with it is what matters. For $25 or $35 it's cheap enough that people will buy one (or two), but numbers alone don't create a critical mass. When you can't go two blogs without seeing an RP project you know it's actually being used for something, as opposed to just filling closet space.
-- Gordon
I agree. It just might be front loaded too much with 'what do I do now' kind of tasks. For savy Linux users, no problem. But for novices and kiddie novices, projects may seem a bit harder to get into.
"The Arduino wasn't targeted for geeks..."
I suspect you really don't have to target microcontrollers for geeks. It like a dog and bone. If it is withing a certain radius, the geek will find it, even when buried under a trash heap.
For artists....
As a charter member of Eugene, Oregon's Phony Art League (also known at the PALs), I have found being an artist has nothing to do with electronics. It is all about trying to be another Pablo Picasso - drink booze and chase girls. We had about 700 self-proclaimed members show up at our Labor Day block party each year, but nearly no productive art work got done in between.
We even had a women's auxillary, called the Pallets. But due to women's liberation, no one was sure how many members there really were. Face it, saying you are an artist is just a ploy.
It's worse than that. I'm in Finland! The winter days are much shorter than the UK and the outside temperatures a lot lower.
A few years back I might have agreed with you, but I'm not exactly a beginner anymore. I put chillies to grow in the winter a while back fairly sure that they would fail but surprise, surprise I got a result.
The timing and lighting may slow them down a bit but turns out they are tough little buggers. It helps that the average Finnish house is a lot warmer inside when it's minus 20C outside than an English house in a mild winter. I remeber chipping the ice of the inside of my bedroom window as a kid.
Anyway, after one week my seedlings are 3cm tall with two good healthy looking leaves on top, I'll keep you posted.
I'm sure you are right. I also think there is more to it than that:
1) The hardware design was open sourced. That means everyone feels cozy and warm about it. Academics/teachers can be comfortable that it's not "just another commercial product". It allows the emergence of clones. It gives other confidence to build add on "shields" knowing that the platform is not going to go away at he whim of some marketing department.
2) The software dev system was all open source. That means everyone feels cozy and warm about it. Most of what I said about hardware above applies to the software as well.
3) They provided the libraries, documentation, tutorials, references to hand hold the beginners.
As I said above. Except it's not true of course. The vendor is ATMEL. For this reason I stick to my "smoke and mirrors" statement.
Now, as I understand the Arduino arrived on the scene about the same time as the Propeller. The Arduino was inspired partly by the BASIC Stamp. How come the Propeller is not in the Arduino position just now?
That was only true once, when it was Atmel + AVR.
Of course, history has shown many can follow, and now we have Nuvton, FreeScale, and others doing Ardunio-clone alternatives.
OK, Yes. But now you have hit a sore point. That is where the "open source" thing becomes very important to acceptance and expansion.
If an Arduino type system had been attempted on the Propeller, and especially with Spin, there is no place to go. There is no other similar chip to migrate to when you want more speed and/or memory or whatever. There was not that cozy independance of vendor feeling with the closed source tools and unique architecture of the Propeller.
To advance your successes in the growth of chili peppers in Norway, might I suggest that you just get the seed directly from any pepper you might prefer eating. Some of the really good varieties are right in your grocery store. For fertilizer, a bottle of fish emulsion is useful as it can be diluted and tends not to chemically burn the young plants. Soil is everywhere as we live on planet Earth. And no one that has empty milk cartons available needs to buy plastic plant pots.
Having said all that, I still am a bit concerned with the success of growing chili's in Norway in winter. Chilis love heat and sun and lots of both, almost to an abusive level as these things seem to enhance the spicyness and flavor.
I have to admit, I am not particularly brand-name loyal. And the one girl friend that I had that worked for a major advertising firm dumped me as I was just "tooo generic". But I tend to thing good engineers have to be generic, whilst salesmen are the opposite (whatever that is).
Too a generic geek, innovation has to be substantial before something is recognized as 'special'. It also helps to be forthright, 'repackaging' really doesn't do much to turn my head and steal my heart.
AND, upon further investigation I have to admit that the one thing Arduino offers that Atmel's IDE does not is software directily in a Linux OS. One has to use WINE to use Atmel's IDE.
Popularity is a fickle thing and these days too many technological items are just commercial exploits rather than a true life-style game changer like the refrigerator or the telephone. I believe that in Japan last year, Hello Kitty doubled on the stock market while the rest of the economy suffered. The Arduino may just be an electronic equivalent of Hello Kitty. Not really a game changer, so much as an exploit of the playful consumer's curiosity.
"Cozy independence"? I'd like to think that avoiding the seductions of sophisticate marketing would lead to independence and objectivity. "Cozy independence" might just be an oxymoron, a very cute and clever one though.
I suspect devout Apple users are some of the coziest computer users out there, but I also suspect they are some of the least independent. Cozy has a seductive ring to it. Warm and cozy is even better. The media is the massage.
Anyway, I have grown such chillies before with some success. Just now I have some nagas from the store whose seeds will be sprouting soon I hope. Interesting, what's the recipe exactly? Nah, this is Finland, it's solid lump of granite. Besides what soil there is is frozen solid for half the year:) On the other hand the Helsinki Police horses are stabled near by... Indeed, as I said it's silly to buy a kit. But that was my analagy with Arduino use. I'm sure that's true, but somehow they grow, probably with much reduced flavour.
Should we start a chilli growing thread here? With the help of Parallax products of course:)
You are right "Cozy independence" is a bit of an odd phrase now you mention it.
I was just trying to express that freedom from being shackled to a vendor when you adopt opensource hardware and software solutions. It's not "cozy" like the mythical geek forever living in his moms basement but "cozy" in that you are self sufficient and confident. Helps of course that you have a huge community of like minded people around for support when needed.
And i am sorry, Tor is from Norway, you are in Finland, and so is Linus Torvalds. Feel free to get Taiwan and China confused.
I suppose you could take an Arduino, some grow lights, add some infrared lights, and substantial heaters to perfect growing indoor chilies. The great advantages of the Arduino would be that you have an internal real time clock, and ADC inputs for thermal sensors of air and soil. The ADC could also measure light levels. But when one considers the electric bill and all the work involved, there may be other items to grow that are more rewarding. After all, one can get all sorts of dried chilies for rather low cost in large quantities.
Fish emulsion is usually sold at plant nurseries as a starter fertilizer for seedlings and likely is easier to buy than to make from scratch in small quantities.
Making your own would merely be a matter of taking what is left after a fillet line finishes with a fresh catch of fish, pulverizing it - bones, guts, eyeballs, fish lips, and all, and then mixing with water to a slurry that is put into plastic jugs. Of course, the stuff really smells of rotten fish, just because that is what it is. One could just have a bucket full of spoiled bait fish and squid to do the job as well, but someone would complain about the odor.
Vermiculite, a mineral is often sold in nurseries in bags and is used for starting seeds as it is very light, holds moisture, and cheap. It also has the added advantage of being clean (no wild seeds in it and no fungus spores). And it is often mixed with clean sand, as the sand helps the roots support the plant. Pulverized granite is actually a good sterile base for seedlings. So gardeners, put their seedling soil in a oven to sterilize it before planting and add nutrients only later, after the sprouts are well established.
From Wikipedia for Vermiculite...
Seed germination: either used alone or mixed with soil or peat, vermiculite is used to germinate seeds. Very little watering is required. When vermiculite is used alone, seedlings should be fed with a weak fertilizer solution when the first true leaves appear. A tablespoon of soluble fertilizer per one imperial gallon (3.78 : 1) of water is the recommended mix.
Learning is never-ending, so why do we have to get all fancy and commercial to sell micro-controllers. Just make it informative and fun.
Remember that Chili I was planting in November last year an clearly doomed to fail?
It's up for a second harvest since that time. Mind you it's been damn hot around here this summer, up to 34C. Those chilies are hot too.
All the other seeds, from various sources, I have planted since then during the spring, totally failed for some reason.
Heater, I'm impressed. Growing anything beyond Cloudberries, reindeer, herring and salmon in Finland can be a challenge in my view so I'm really impressed with these chili peppers. Maybe this is all part of climate change and you can grow tomatoes the same way. Heck, maybe Nokia should get into farming. Kiitos! By the way you may not know this fact but Chip speaks Finnish fairly well.