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These two open hardware projects are great for learning embedded programming, and they take two different but complementary approaches. The Arduino project is both hardware and software: tiny low-power single-board computers that are programmed using the Arduino IDE (integrated development environment). The Arduino programming language is based on Wiring and Processing, which were developed as teaching tools, and to program microcontrollers. Arduino is especially good for learning the fundamentals of electronics principles and hardware. The BeagleBoard is more powerful and supports any ARM-capable operating system such as Debian Linux, Ubuntu, Fedora, Gentoo, or Android.
Here's hoping that the Raspberry Pi project is along shortly. At $25 or $35 a pop, that's a lot of processing power in a small network-accessible package.
And there's a full-story link now (thanks, Scott) so I can actually read the article. It's a good intro to two hackable board-families. I'll hope to see a followup once there's Raspberry Pi hardware to compare features on.
A few hints for anybody inspired by this article:
- Doing anything with plugboard (solderless breadboard) gets expensive quickly, mainly because you're always needing more of the fool things because you never seem to be ready to tear down what's on the one(s) you've got when it's time to build something new. Start scrounging up the discarded wire from wherever somebody does telephone or network cabling changes: that AWG#24 wire is better for plugboard jumpers than the jumper-wires they sell, plus you can color-code.
- When it comes time to move a plugboard design over to perfboard, Teflon-insulated wire (type E or type ET insulation thickness) will save you a lot of grief compared to soldering with wrap wire where the Kynar insulation can melt away without warning.
- A project board with an I2C port is almost as good as one with uncommitted GPIO pins. Aside from small EEPROMs (to keep configuration bits in), I2C is good for parts like PCF8574, with 8 port pins you can wiggle or read. Just don't try to do high-speed stuff with it; I2C isn't designed to move data all that fast.
- A cheap soldering iron is false economy; get a temperature-controlled one and stop ruining parts.
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And there's a full-story link now (thanks, Scott) so I can actually read the article. It's a good intro to two hackable board-families. I'll hope to see a followup once there's Raspberry Pi hardware to compare features on.
A few hints for anybody inspired by this article:
- Doing anything with plugboard (solderless breadboard) gets expensive quickly, mainly because you're always needing more of the fool things because you never seem to be ready to tear down what's on the one(s) you've got when it's time to build something new. Start scrounging up the discarded wire from wherever somebody does telephone or network cabling changes: that AWG#24 wire is better for plugboard jumpers than the jumper-wires they sell, plus you can color-code.
- When it comes time to move a plugboard design over to perfboard, Teflon-insulated wire (type E or type ET insulation thickness) will save you a lot of grief compared to soldering with wrap wire where the Kynar insulation can melt away without warning.
- A project board with an I2C port is almost as good as one with uncommitted GPIO pins. Aside from small EEPROMs (to keep configuration bits in), I2C is good for parts like PCF8574, with 8 port pins you can wiggle or read. Just don't try to do high-speed stuff with it; I2C isn't designed to move data all that fast.
- A cheap soldering iron is false economy; get a temperature-controlled one and stop ruining parts.