Arduino starter kits

Mon Dec 29 15:47:08 CST 2014

Save our cycles begins on April 1st, 2015
André

On Mon, Dec 29, 2014 at 2:01 PM, WB4JFI <wb4jfi1 at wb4jfi.com> wrote:

>   But, when does the SAVE OUR CYCLES rally begin?  hi hi
>
> And YES, Linux can be a pain in the processor...
> 73, Terry, WB4JFI
>
>  *From:* Andre Kesteloot <akesteloot at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Monday, December 29, 2014 1:52 PM
> *To:* WB4JFI <wb4jfi1 at wb4jfi.com>
> *Cc:* Alberto di Bene <dibene at usa.net> ; Tacos <tacos at amrad.org>
> *Subject:* Re: Arduino starter kits
>
> I agree, I should have checked the board's specifications
> Mea culpa :-)
> but I do not think that I ever said that the Arduino was the answer to
> everything, did I ?
> 73
> André N4ICK
>
> On Monday, December 29, 2014, WB4JFI <wb4jfi1 at wb4jfi.com> wrote:
>
>>   Guys,
>> I have to say that I agree with Alberto on this.  Arduinos are NOT the
>> answer to everything.
>>
>> My best answer to this discussion is to select the best tool for the
>> job.  If all that you want to do is something simple, a simple tool will
>> do.  If you want to build something  more complicated, a simple tool won’t
>> do.  It’s that simple.
>>
>> I have a pretty heavy investment in Arduinos and related accessories.  I
>> have at least ten Unos, two Mega 2560, several smaller versions of the Uno,
>> a Due, and MANY shields and various LCD displays.  I have a lot of projects
>> based on Arduinos.  There is several hundreds of dollars investment just in
>> Arduinos here.
>>
>> But, the Arduino is VERY limited.  I have hit memory limitations, speed
>> limitations, data accuracy limitations, and other problems with Arduinos
>> several times.  If you want to do something more sophisticated (SDR, audio
>> processing, etc), the “traditional” Arduinos, such as the Uno, just don’t
>> have the power.  IT IS THAT SIMPLE!
>>
>> If you are looking for something to learn embedded programming on, and
>> not a specific project, the Arduino is a good platform.  If you have a
>> simple controller project, the Arduino MAY be a good platform. Or not.
>>
>> There are a LOT of amateur radio-related projects that are beyond a Uno.
>> Limiting yourself to the Uno capabilities also limits what you can
>> successfully do.
>>
>> I also have several Raspberry Pis, BeagleBone Blacks, STM32 Discovery
>> boards, quite a few Xilinx FPGA boards, a Parallella, a UDOO (thanks Mike),
>> and several others.  The reason why I have so many devices is that one tool
>> does not fit all needs.
>>
>> What is this “wasting cycles” anyway?  Are cycles a limited resource that
>> we need to husband?  How many carbon equivalents does each cycle use?
>> Should I start creating protest signs saying “Save Our Cycles!” and “Don’t
>> Be The 1% That Wastes Cycles!”.  Are we going to a million-cycle-march in
>> front of the UN?
>>
>> I would MUCH RATHER have extra cycles available on a project.  I NEVER
>> want to invest a lot of time trying to shoehorn a project into a
>> hardware/software platform that is marginal or cannot do the job.
>>
>> I understand that some people are not comfortable with operating systems,
>> such as Linux.  You can either continue to shy away from it/them, and
>> thereby stay in an ever-decreasing bubble of protection, or you can start
>> to actually learn about the future.  You comfort zone is also your most
>> limiting factor.
>>
>> Keep It Simple Stupid is a very common comment.  If all that you want to
>> do is KISS, all that you will ever learn to do is to KISS. hi hi
>> 73 & Happy New Year,
>> Terry, WB4JFI
>>
>>
>>
>>  *From:* Alberto di Bene
>> *Sent:* Monday, December 29, 2014 11:08 AM
>> *To:* Tacos
>> *Subject:* Re: Arduino starter kits
>>
>>  On 12/29/2014 3:55 PM, Andre Kesteloot wrote:
>>
>> *What you propose is interesting, but Arduino has many advantage when
>> used as a dedicated state- engine: it does what you told it to do, and
>> nothing else, and therefore does not waste cycles to perform maintenance
>> tasks, because it does have an operating system such as Linux.*
>>
>>
>> The Discovery board does not use Linux, nor any other op-sys... you
>> program it "bare metal", as they say, in C language...
>> you have complete control of every and each cycle of the CPU... I know, I
>> used that board for prototyping the
>> firmware for the Elad DUO <http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/11933>
>> RTX.
>> It is a joy to work with, especially as the Cortex ARM M4F has a 32-bit
>> floating point unit, essential for all
>> those DSP computations (FFT, FIR, etc.) needed on an SDR.
>>
>> 73  Alberto  I2PHD
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
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