Oops, forgot to Cc. ----- Forwarded message from Kragen Javier Sitaker <[email protected]> -----
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2012 02:27:52 -0500 From: Kragen Javier Sitaker <[email protected]> To: Zooko O'Whielacronx <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Arduino frustrations: C is not a higher-order language, and timing is not an optimization User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) On Mon, Jan 02, 2012 at 10:05:45PM -0700, Zooko O'Whielacronx wrote: > Here are some cool-sounding projects/products: > > http://leaflabs.com/devices/ > > Integrated FPGA, and it claims that it does or will make them easy to use! Neat! "Oak" has a 250k-gate Spartan-3E. Looks like vaporware though. Also, looks like Spartan-3E pricing still starts [above US$10][0], while AVR pricing starts under US$1, and ATMega328 pricing just over US$2. So I think it's a different market from the Arduino, unless using the FPGA somehow drastically reduces parts count. [0]: http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/XC3S100E-4VQG100C/122-1479-ND/1091707 Their existing products sound pretty awesome though. The Maple Native is a 72MHz ARM Cortex-M3 (!!) with 512K of Flash (!) and 64K of RAM (!) and an extra 1MB of RAM off-chip (!!!) and 106 I/O pins (!!!) for US$75; the chip is the STMicroelectronics STM32F103ZE, [US$6.50 in bulk][1]. The Cortex-M3 is probably the fastest processor out there that enables cycle-accurate timing; see e.g. <http://infocenter.arm.com/help/index.jsp?topic=/com.arm.doc.ddi0337i/CHDIJAFG.html>. [1]: http://search.digikey.com/us/en/products/STM32F103ZEH6/497-9037-ND/2035359 And they claim "Arduino compatibility" for their Maple board, but I'm dubious that much existing Arduino code will compile for it, because they don't claim that. > http://leaflabs.com/2011/09/pymite/ > > Python! Python is the best language for beginners of all languages > that I have tried. I wonder why they're using PyMite if they have 1MB of RAM. > http://www.bugblat.com/products/cor.html > > (This one seems more for pros and less for beginners than the leaflabs one.) Same chip though, looks like. Unmaintained page, saying the Arduino is based on the ATMega168. > Oh, I see that the Arduino company has announced an ARM product: > > http://arduino.cc/blog/2011/09/17/arduino-launches-new-products-in-maker-faire/ Nice. I wonder why they chose the Atmel ARM chip instead of the STMicroelectronics one or one of the NXP chips? The NXP chips seem like a much closer 32-bit competitor to the AVR8 line. Kragen ----- End forwarded message ----- -- To unsubscribe: http://lists.canonical.org/mailman/listinfo/kragen-discuss
