Hi Adam, On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Adam Jacobs <[email protected]> wrote: > 1) You need to add hardware to your schematic to make an "arduino".. This > includes a serial port interface chip and a few other things.
Eh, not really. You do need a serial port interface, but it certainly doesn't have to be part of your schematic. Sparkfun sells FTDI interface "dongles" that you can use. They're about $15. I just use a 6-pin header connected to the standard UART pins with a 0.1uF capacitor between DTR and RESET. No other hardware is required for bare-bones use other than a power supply and a reset button (with pull-up) if you want it. > 2) You are limited to a couple of very specific AVR chips.. the ATMega168 & > ATMega328 I believe. This kind of negates one of the primary advantages of > the AVR platform, the huge catalog of parts and the ease of migration from > one to another. True. It's the 128, 328 and 1280. > 3) You can't use AVRStudio, which is actually a pretty decent IDE. Like many IDEs, it's bloated. The new AVRStudio runs on a Visual Studio shell, which is a beast to download and install, as well as a memory hog. I thought Eclipse was bad, but this may be worse. The Arduino IDE is admittedly poor. But it's brutal simplicity helps it to get out of the way for beginners. Personally, I just use Vim with AVRDude, though I'm starting to use AVRStudio for new projects. > The important thing is to stop talking about it and start > spending some serious hours working on it. You hit the nail on the head. I'm a programmer by trade - I know high and low-level languages. I've also taught programming courses at a college-level setting. Personally, I think it depends on the student if you go top-down or bottom-up in levels of abstraction. The technically-adept student will learn it all due to sheer curiosity and hours spent tinkering, and may prefer assembly first. The student who just wants to make neat stuff will have far more success and be far more motivated to continue with a top-down approach. The nice thing about Arduino is the effort to reward ratio is high, and that's what keeps many students motivated to keep tinkering. Sean -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
