New Arduino Due Brings More Power To the Table 130
mikejuk writes "After six years in the making, the Arduino Due is finally becoming available and, with a price tag of $49, is bound to give a boost to the platform. The Due, which means 2 in Italian and is pronounced 'doo-eh', replaces the 8-bit, 16MHz Uno by a 32-bit, 84MHz processor board that also has a range of new features — more memory, a USB port that allows it to pretend to be a mouse or a keyboard say, 54 I/O pins and so on — but what lets you do more with it is its speed and power. The heart of the new Arduino Due is the Atmel SAM3X8E, an ARM Cortex-M3-based processor, which gives it a huge boost in ADC performance, opening up possibilities for designers. The theoretical sampling rate has gone from the 15 ksps (kilosamples per second) of the existing boards, the Arduino Uno, Leonardo, and Mega 2560, to a whopping 1,000 ksps. What this all means is that the Due can be used for much more sophisticated applications. It can even play back WAV files without any help. Look out for the Due in projects that once would have needed something more like a desktop machine."
WAV ? (Score:5, Interesting)
"It can even play back WAV files without any help."
Well, ZPUino [alvie.com] does this for a long time (14.4KHz, stereo, and more), and it's also opensource (actually, BSD for hardware, and GPLv2/v3 for software). Runs at 96MHz, and it's fully customizable (even the chip is customizable: see SoundPuddle [slashdot.org] for example, or the Rectrocade synth) [kickstarter.com].
What Arduino users were actually expecting (well, I was), was a proper IDE. I don't think writing proper applications for the Due platform with current Processing IDE is feasible. So far everyone has been quiet about this (there were rumours other IDE would be on the forge).
But the price tag is indeed attractive.
Alvie
Re:Unfortunately for Arduino (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazing to see how many don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
The Arduino was never about price or performance. If you really want a led display, you can get fastly more powerfull and usuable device by simply buying a dedicated device. Same for a remote control robot, even programmable ones.
But with an Arduino even those NOT blessed with a background in electronics could make it work. There are even interfaces for it where you program it completely through a icon interface like this http://www.electronics-lab.com/blog/?p=5865 [electronics-lab.com]
Yes, there are more powerful devices out there, there are cheapers devices there are even more powerful AND cheaper devices out there. And they ALL didn't succeed to even come close to the support Arduino had. Even if you have no programming experience and never messed around with a battery and a led, the Arduino community is able and willing to give you a hand.
It is the difference between Ubuntu and Debian, between Linux and BSD, between PHP and Python. Sure, the "experts" look down on it, but the first are the stuff that gets used by noobs who might or might not become experts (if they even have a desire too) while the second are the stuff people TELL you you must use before they even consider talking to you.
I know some people who never coded anything yet messed around with Arduino after buying a kit and did some silly little projects that won't amaze anyone bit it was fun for them, not unlike the electronic kits you could buy when I was a kid. Sure sure, if you all did it from scratch with a soldering iron, you no doubt ended up a much better kind of human being but us mere dregs had to make due with simpler tools. And get things done.
When it comes time for you to move on, as you outgrow the Arduino, you can go for the more specialist tools and hopefully overcome the lack of manuals and guides. But some people need the training wheels and sneering at them is only get you complete and utter contempt from all the non-pricks in this world.
Like I have utter contempt for a person who lists as an alternative a board that isn't available at the stated price anymore and another board that has a shipping time of anywhere from a week to a month depending on what the supplier feels like and neither has anywhere near the 3rd party support.
Let me know when I can give away an arduino kit and have someone make something immediatly even if it is as trivial as a led lighting up to a light sensor but THEY did it, themselves and get that makers spirit burning in another product that is both as forgiving AND as flexible, THEN you can come back.
No doubt people like taktoa scoff at childrens books too because for less you can buy great literature, in latin!
And how do you plug a led straight into that (Score:4, Interesting)
You just don't get it, what made the Arduino so popular is that you could do things with it straight out of the box, without first having to solder on pins like the cheapest Teensy. Just put in a led, write some simple code and the Arduino ran. That is what sold it. The arduino is something a kid could take to work for show and tell and that I find an amazing idea in this day and age when most kids are raised with black boxes.
All the experts and people that knew what they were doing could already buy all the electronics they wanted and put it together, the Arduino filled no gap for them, it was for all the people who aren't experts that this kit exists. For all those who want to try their hand at it but don't have the patience and/or knowledge to start messing about with setting up something completely from spare parts. The Arduino is a kit just a tiny bit under the electronic kits sold in toy stores. The teensy would be sold in a hobby store. Different level. Some devices help people cross over. That is why Lego is so immensly powerful, sure, you can make far better stuff with raw material and a toolset but it helps people get started.
And it doesn't help anyone get started if all the "experts" sneer at the choice of starter tools. It is the reason makers areas succeed or fail by the attitude of their founders. Some can be really hostile to any newby who comes in all excited but makes the mistake of having only a 9 bucks soldering iron. Oh NO! SHUN HIM!
Meanwhile the maker area's that welcome people are exploding and running out room.
Re:Unfortunately for Arduino (Score:2, Interesting)
the Pi IS a microcontroller. Just ask the company that sells them.
Just because by your definition it's not does not change the fact that the rest of the world considers any of the cellphone processors to be microcontrollers.
Re:Unfortunately for Arduino (Score:4, Interesting)
You shoud try Microchip PIC's then. $1.95 makes $5.00 look like a overpriced piece.
Re:Amazing to see how many don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
I got an Arduino Uno starter kit 6 months ago. Then a PIC based flyport (with Wifi). Then an Atmega32u4 based Teensy 2.0. Last week I even got a Parallax Propeller, also very interesting.
Last year I hardly knew how to hold a soldering iron, now I'm having smd and through hole PCB's made of my own design in China and I'm planning on controlling various parts of my home with them.
I'm a software engineer by trade, but I'm really starting to enjoy this hardware thing. Thanks to Arduino and its competitors there's lots and lots of info out on the web to lift a complete newbie up to a surprising (to me) level.