It seems that the section is over

I think I missed it

Hello is the chat over ?

Stay tuned to learn what the March chat topics will be about. Or feel free to suggest some to me - email richard.quinnell@ubm.com

thanks curt and duane for participating. Was very interesting

NOOOOOOOOO!

Got to go too.  My wife is taking acting classes (!!!!!!!!!!) and I have to deliver her.  Hope your well down the road to full recovery Rich!  Bye.

Rich - good summary. This was a great topic. Good chatting with everyone.

and black boxes are black holes IMHO

well, guys. looks like time to wrap up. Seems like Arduino is on its way to being suitable for professional development, but still needs its language ported first

Curt - Just sa No to black boxes!

I hate black boxes.  DOWN with them!  UP with OPEN SOURCE!

Curt - that's probably a good way of putting it.

In a PC, you're basically dealing with a very big black box.  Maybe you just don't like black boxes -- but want to know what's in there.

Maybe that's why I got oyut of PC system programming many years ago and have settled into the MCU wirld. It's not at all unthinkable that a full OS, like Linux just doesn't fit with my brain.

might just be the difference between MCU and PC type systems. PC is way more complex

I like the concept of Linux more than I like Linux. Whenever I've tried a serious Linux project, I run into a similar issue with the support. There's a ton out there for PC-based Linux, but it seems to be obscured by a lot of the "SUSE is better. No Ubunto is better..." noise.

That's my experience with BB too.  I wish somebody would write a good book on one or the other (and price it humanely :-)

Rich - That's interesting about the fragmented support. Maybe it's just a matter of calendar time. It was designed for a purpose similar to the Arduino, but the Arduino has been around a lot longer.

and the mutable quality of Linux doesnt help

I find the RPi support fragmented and inconsistent, and thus difficult to use. Takes a lot more searching to find only clues (not answers) than I have time for.

I keep thinking about a Rasberry Pi as a brain for my robot. I guess the investment is low enough that it might be worth buying one just to try it. I have a Beagleboard already.

Agree -- the BB is much more for hardware geeks, while the RPi is for computer folk.  DIfferent segments again.  What do you think of the available RPi support out there Rich?

Rich - that's kind of what I mean. Those systems are closer to a PC than to an MCU.

yes, Linux. been a long time since I needed to learn a command line interface to a high-end OS. Taking me some time

Curt - the Raspberry Pi seems to be a much more complete system. I'd put it in the same camp, but more or less at the top of the camp with the BB at the bottom to the camp.

Absolutely.  And Linux to boot...

I have an RPi and struggling with it. Like programming a PC rather than programming an MCU

RPi is a lot different that BB Duane.  You really want one of each :-) 

The Beaglebone et. al. still have a high learning curve. They are really systems where the Arduino is really an MCU with a full ecosystem

ah, OK. I thought they might be a different camp but haven't looked carefully enough to tell

Rich - The Beagleboard/beaglebone/Rasberry Pi seem to be all in the same camp, but it's a diffenent camp

@curt, you may well be right, but the fact NXP chose to make its latest board arduino compatible makes me think that MCU vendors are considering the possibility that Arduino can burst out of that niche, and getting ready to support that move. If they are right, and they are in a position to get the arduino community to move to their MCU, they might have a huge new market.

Beaglebone lacks support, in my view.  It's definitely the Wild West kind of development tool.

But cool that they're about to release a new, lower-priced version real soon now.

how about beaglebone?

The mbed kind of fills a similar nich, but the Arduino seems to have a lot more peripherals available.

I think it will stay in its niche, but defer to Duane as I don't have any experience with it. 

Rich - I agree with that. It's a good step, but need some software.

bye BB. thanks for stopping by. Apologies to the dog for making him wait

@duane, that is what I was thinking might happen. THe NXP board is a step in that direction and I wondered how much further we need to go to get there.

Got to go. Can't delay walking the dog any more. Next time I will get up a bit earlier so I can stay for the full chat.

Bye All... Fun topic...

Rich -In my day job, I've run aross a fair number of engineers that are not of the electronic or software type that have been tesked with building electronics into some mechanical sustem. Today, there's a massive learning curve. But with a sufficiently powerful Arduino, the language, peripheral support and community support could make such a job dramatically easier.

@curt, but will it stay in that niche? When there is a lot of support, it becomes interesting to time-constrained developers. Not for all applications, of course, but for many.

@duane, so, MEs, and physicians, and other non-EE creative types will be able to create successful commercial MCU designs.

I don't think a professional would want to get locked into arduino hardware or software would she?  Wouldn't she be better off investing her intellectual effort in C with libraries, or equivalent, and a good set of breadboarding tools?

Which isn't to say that arduino isn't serving a niche very well -- it clearly is.

I can remember hearing people talk about Pythin as not being a real language, that it had too much overhead and was really just for hacks and beginners. But I think it's pretty well accepted as a professiona-grade language now.

I've heard the same thing about the Arduino language; that it has too much overhead. I think it just needs a faster processor, like a nice 32 bit ARM.

should that bridge be completed, how do you think this will affect MCU-based design? Seems to me that it opens up commercial development to those who are more application experts than they are MCU developers

The hardware step needs to be taken first in order to enable the software step. So NXP has done that right...

Rich - That might be a good summary. 

well, then, I hope NXP is watching and has plans to fill in the software hole.

so, good for proof-of-concept and initial exploration, but not really prototyping (since lots of the SW development won't port)?

If the value is in the language and code base you need these ported to other MCUs- yes..

The NXP board is a good hardware step in the right direction. Now we need to get the software steps going too.

Rich - I would say that you do get some advantage. There are a lot of peripheral put together in the Arduino form-factor, but you'd get significantly more advantage with the language ported.

So, the new boards are a step in the right direction,  but dont take us far enough

Ah, so to make Arduino professional, then, we need its language ported to other mCUs as well. Right, duane?

Ruch - It's roughlu Cish.

Curt, my answer to the Why is to gain access to the stuff available so you don't have to reinvent. My question remains, is that now practical given clones like the PIC and NXP

I would like to see the creation of some intermediate level drivers. If all you needed to do was 'plug in' some characteristics for your hardware (like locations of registers, control bits, etc) then the drivers could be more agnostic. The FPGA guys have done this and even provide 'wizards' to simplify the process of driver generation. Maybe we could do somehting similar for Arduino. Kind of the equivalent of a standard 'pinout'...

Hi Curt

That's the point of my R/C servo board example: the drivers are written in the Arduino language. I could used it on my FPGA Arduino and presumably the Microchip PIC32 Arduino with the same code. But I can't use anything other than the wiring on a board without the language.

ok, so that's something I wasn't aware of, the fact arduino has its own development language (not C)

I've not used arduino, but have read raves from people who want to focus on their application rather than their MCU technology.   So it's serving a special market segment very well I guess.-- which makes the question "_why_ would you want to use it in a professional system?" 

Rich -From what I can tell, drivers written in teh Arduino language could be used on just about any type of Arduino - maybe with just a few tweaks. But without the language ported to the particular MCU, that won't do you an good. The drivers I've seen are all writteing in the Arduino language.

perhaps I have too high an expectation for the drivers?

Agreed, BB. I was expecting that the drivers for the shield hardware would be MCU agnostic (although perhaps layout dependent)

The FPGA Arduino doesn't share the same physical hardware layout, but I was still able to get some Arduino code up in a few minutes.

Drivers are a big deal. If you need to reinvent the drivers might as well start the design from scratch.

the drivers are that hardware specific for the MCU? I would think they would be peripheral-specific but somewhat MCU agnostic

I haven't tried the Microchip 32 bit Arduino incarnation, but I have used an Arduino clone built out of an FPGA.

Rich - The drivers can only be used on and Atmel MCU, unless the language is ported to the new MCU.

I wouldn't look at going to a nice an powerful 32-bit ARM as a code portability advantage. I'd look at it as using a high-overhead language on a platform that is capable of running that language with adequate performance.

or are they not in an HLL?

duane, even if the generic system has the same pinout as arduino? Cant the drivers be re-used?

I bout a multi-servo board from Adafruit - it can drive 16 R/C servos using I2C. It took me about five minutes to get it working with my Arduino. To get it working with one of my generic systesm, I have to spend a lot of time in a long datasheet styudying a very complex chip.

ok, curt. So I oversimplify a bit. Still, developing on the same 32-bit MCU you will use in the final design is a lot more portable than developing on an 8-bit MCU before porting.

"...the software can be readily ported to your final design..."  Hah!

Looking at the Arduino as a hardware specification brings a lot of pre-built peripherals into your arsenal. But without the language, it loses much of the learning component of the system as well as the low barrier to entry aspect.

It does seem like the code infrastructure is probably where the most 'investment' is. The hardware design is fairly simple. 

duane, agreed software is the more important element, which is one reason the original arduino wasnt a good basis for a commerical development - too limited. But if you can leverage the support while working with a high power MCU, then the software you develop can be readily ported to your final design as opposed to recompiling the source from the ATMega to another MCU, with all the attendant timing and resource issues.

Dirceu- CU later...

Rich- That seems a more likely approach. If you need only one shield it could be a fairly simple system

By Dirceu

thanks for dropping in dirceu

Rich - My understanding is that original motivation for the Arduino put the software as being as important a prt of the system, if not more so than the hardware. With that being the case, it might evolve to the point where it's just an easy to use language with a good set of libraries and a set of defined hardware parameters.

Rich, I have to go. After we talked.

BB, that's what I am thinking, yes

So I could use the connector and shields with my own hardware design that is pinout compatible? No open source requirements?

actually, dirceu, I am wondering about the arduino ecosystem at this point. The board itself probably can't go professional in a big way, but the support that has risen around it might be able to.

BitBucket - depending on what you do with an Arduino, you may or may not need to publish your product as Open Source.

If Arduino is defined as just the pinout then you get into another set of questions...

Okay, but you were talking about the original design?

I think if you use the arduino base schematic you still are under open source, But the pinout is not.

However - I like the idea of the PIC32 Arduino-compatible and the NXP Arduino-compatible. Microchip and Digilent have an open source version of the Arduino langage for their 32 bit Arduino. I'd like to see the same for the NXP Arduino.

duane, do boards like the new NXP one change that balance? More powerful than the original arduino?

Must code deveoped on Arduino be published? If you use the schematic as a starting point do you come under any open source requirements too?

dirceu, but with the clones, which are not open source, can't you keep your development proprietary?

As it is, I don't see it being practical in professional/comemrcial settings except in a few cases. It's just njot powerful enough.

learning, yes. Thats what the arduino was created for. It's creating a commercial system I was wondering about

   I believe only for prototype (to take advantage of shields). Nobody wants to publish the source code of commercial application,

However, when trying to make a practical system, I rean out of power and memory way too fast.

I've been looking at a few peripherals: GPS, RTC, WiFi, Ethernet, and the Arduino and the mbed have made the job of learning the device a lot easier. It takes away some of the variables in the test system.

ok, explain that ambiguity, duane

BB, dont miss the rain, but its going to get too hot for me in Phoenix soon. Good time to leave

Rich - I would say yes and no.

So, regarding arduino. I have been working with the impression that it really isnt suitable for commercial development. Am I wrong on that? And I am speaking of the original. Are there professional-level clones besides the one  from NXP? Are they being used for commercial development?

I like the subject of this chat. I've been fiddling with an Arduino lately  to answer this very questions

Hi Curt. Was the R Pi born on leap day?

BitBucket - I'm doing well.

    When you say "Can Arduino Go Professional", you are referring only to the original design or that the enormity of clone boards (such as FRDM-KL25Z, FEZ Domino and ...), which just utilize the layout of the connectors (which use other languages not based on Wiring)?

Rich- Good news! You probably miss the rain...

Today is the Rasberry Pi's first birthday.

Hi Duane. How ru doing?

No, still in Phoenix. Got the green lighjt from the surgeon to travel yesterday, so have scheduled my return home for Monday

Hi BitBucket

Hi everyone!

Are you back in Washington now?

thanks good to be here

Welcome back Rich

Good morning all

Good morning!

Very interesting topic

Join us for a live chat exploring the possibilities for leveraging the Arduino ecosystem in professional, commercial development. Be here at 11am (1600 GMT) Eastern US time to let us know what you think.