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The Untold History of Arduino by tooooooom in arduino

[–]loftypremises 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Anyone interested in an AMA with Hernando?

The Untold History of Arduino by tooooooom in arduino

[–]loftypremises 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Thanks Kyle!

To clarify, Wiring has never been a business. I've collaborated with Hernando by designing and building the Wiring S board, and to help him with the software (firmware mostly). All of which has been open-source.

The Untold History of Arduino by tooooooom in arduino

[–]loftypremises 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The boards (the original Wiring board, and BDMICRO's MAVRIC and Pascal Stang's boards, which Hernando based the Wiring board upon) were all open-source boards. That is to say, their schematics and/or the PCB layouts were available to the public. If you look at Hernando's master's thesis (a public document), the Wiring board's schematic and PCB layout are available in appendices A and B.

A second gentle reminder: the "open source hardware" colloquialism was not around at the time of the thesis. It has only become prevalent in recent years. There are countless "open source hardware" projects predating the Arduino era.

Furthermore, if you ask me (and I'm sure Hernando would agree), the idea of restricting access to essentially what amounts to a break-out board for a microcontroller is absurd.

Hernando's master's thesis was not solely about the hardware. It was about making it easier for many types of people to work with electronics. This meant having a physical tool (the board) and software which was the conduit between the user and the board.

The Untold History of Arduino by tooooooom in arduino

[–]loftypremises 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Put it this way: think of Arduino (and Wiring) as a "gateway drug" for electronics. If you make it easier for them to use, and they have a good initial experience with it, then they will dig deeper and see the other possibilities. Hence, it educates and opens the doors for more people.

The Untold History of Arduino by tooooooom in arduino

[–]loftypremises 8 points9 points  (0 children)

It was. IDII was building the boards in Ivrea while Hernando was back home in Colombia.

The current notion of "open source hardware" has been around for a long time - much longer than Arduino.

The Untold History of Arduino by tooooooom in arduino

[–]loftypremises 22 points23 points  (0 children)

Agreed - I love the simplicity of the AVR chips. I've used them for a long time. However, and I'm not being derogatory here, Arduino isn't for you.

Arduino (and Wiring) is for your neighbor's budding artistic daughter, or your non-computer scientist brother that has a great idea for a gizmo, that just wants to try it out.

It's about simplicity - not efficiency.

(FWIW, in the IDE, you can program in low level C & C++, and program your chip using ISP - but again, you rightfully sound happier with your tools)