A whole TI kit for $4.30

[Robert E. Seastrom]

andre kesteloot <andre.kesteloot at verizon.net> writes:

> [[http://hackaday.com/2010/06/22/ti-makes-a-big-bid-for-the-hobby-market/]]

Huh.  I agree with a lot of the comments in terms of the user base,
open source software, and ease of use being the combination that makes
the Arduino so popular.  Very very low hassle to first success.

Oddly, though, from the article:

   We like the fact that they didn't develop an alternative language like
   Arduino did for the AVR controllers. This makes it easy to clear the
   hurdle of setting up a programmer, IDE and toolchain, and get right
   down to developing in C.

Clearly this guy is programming a different "Arduino" than the one I use.

On the Arduino, the programming language is straight up C, and it
comes with a ton of libraries so that you don't have to learn about
fine points of talking directly to the hardware if you don't want to.
You can also take a very simplistic approach to C so that it ends up
very easy to understand.  It's not for nothing that the Arduino is
popular with artists and others who are not heavy duty techies.

Regarding the "programmer, IDE, and toolchain", let me just say this
about that: on Linux and the Mac, if you can copy a file or directory
(drag and drop), you can install the IDE.  The programmer is a button
in the IDE.  Toolchain comes with.  Only complaint is that the FTDI
serial driver installer on the Mac tells you that you have to reboot,
which is most emphatically untrue.

Joe-Bob says "Arduino for the win".  http://www.arduino.cc/

-r