[time-nuts] PICTIC II ready-made?

[Chris Albertson]

On Wed, Apr 25, 2012 at 11:39 AM, Andrew Back <andrew at carrierdetect.com>wrote:

> On 25 April 2012 19:09, Randy D. Hunt <randy_hunt960 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Then there is also the matter of surface mount components.  Some people
> my
> > not physically be able to work with them, learning to solder or not.  I
> am
> > rapidly joining that group be cause of my vision.
>
> Since Arduino has been mentioned I feel obliged to provide a link for
> Nanode, an Arduino-compatible that integrates Ethernet and low power
> wireless (e.g. 868MHz) for around the same price of an Arduino. It's
> supplied as a kit of through-hole components...
>

Looks good, the advantage of Arduino is that compatible units are available
from multiple sources in the US, Europe and Asia.  You are not locked into
a single supplier.

The other good thing is the very easy development environs meant that runs
under Windows, Mac OS and Linus pretty much identically and it is easy
enough to use for beginners

I'm a fan of using Linux too. but for stuff like this a "bare" uP with no
OS usually gives better real-time performance.   I've used real-time
versions of Linux that do give you access to the bare hardware.   But as
much as I like it, real-time Linux on ARM or the like is hardly a beginner
friendly environment.  One has to know quite a lot got to get started.

One important goal for most hobbyists is to learn something.  So it should
be SIMPLE so more people can understand it.    IMO, firmware written in
assembly language and real-time OSes don't pass the test for "simple".
You really have to have discipline and resist the "for a little more money
we could do...." feature creep

I like the physical size of the Arduino shield too.  It is so small that
there is no room of feature creep without resorting to SMT parts.   Then if
some one really wants to add signal conditioning they can stack on a second
shield, kind of a lego-like design with the micro controller as the base
layer.




Chris Albertson
Redondo Beach, California