Thanks for the time to write this. Sobering, but perhaps necessary. I will go through it carefully, a time or tow.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 10:43 AM, Jan Verhoeven <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jan@verhoeven272.nl" target="_blank">jan@verhoeven272.nl</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">On Monday 24 December 2012 23:29:25 <a href="mailto:Aubrey.McIntosh@alumni.utexas.net">Aubrey.McIntosh@alumni.utexas.net</a><br>
wrote:<br>
<div class="im">> I am getting some hard questions on my KickStarter<br>
<br>
</div>Which was to be expected. Easy money is gone down the drain since the<br>
americans sold out-of-control-mortgages to european banks. And they<br>
believed them!<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> why would someone buy my item instead of an Arduino.<br>
<br>
</div>They won't. Your project breaths just one thing: hobbyist. Nobody will<br>
invest a penny in it.<br>
<br>
The arduino was at the right time in the right place among the right<br>
kind of people using the right kind of tools.<br>
I was there long time ago. And was too soon (and the wrong audience).<br>
You are too late. You cannot catch up with Arduino. Arduino is a mature<br>
system with a large installed user base. Websites, wiki's, third party<br>
suppliers, available on dealextreme. Yours is a nice idea, at most.<br>
<br>
The days of designing your own hardware to sell to others are over (for<br>
over a decade). Arduino was in the nick of time and within the right<br>
(braindead) audience.<br>
Have you seen this: <a href="http://www.futurlec.com/ET-PIC_Stamp.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.futurlec.com/ET-PIC_Stamp.shtml</a><br>
<br>
ETT have a lot of affordable MCU circuits, off the shelf. These boards<br>
work. No need to debug the hardware (as is still the case in your<br>
Controls, I guess), just focus on the software.<br>
<br>
AVR : PIC = Cat : Dog<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> I suppose that I envision something like a programmers VOM. Something<br>
> to program chips via ICSP, step through simple logic sequences, safely<br>
> accept user programs to do innovative things.<br>
<br>
</div>Ah, you mean <a href="http://www.futurlec.com/ET-ARM_Stamp_Board.shtml" target="_blank">http://www.futurlec.com/ET-ARM_Stamp_Board.shtml</a><br>
<br>
Try to beat that at USD 25. You don't want to know how ridiculously<br>
cheap airmail rates from Thailand are. <a href="http://www.ett.co.th/" target="_blank">http://www.ett.co.th/</a><br>
<div class="im"><br>
> So this brings to mind the question, should I go with a MIPS<br>
> processor?<br>
<br>
</div>Go with Futurlec. They supply working boards for the price of the CPU<br>
plus the bare board.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> compilers to the Component Pascal environment,<br>
<br>
</div>Nope. There used to be a Mod51 Modula-2 compiler for the 8051. Not sure<br>
if they sold a single copy of it.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> board that competes sort of laterally with the Arduino?<br>
<br>
</div>Not in your life time. It's not very polite to say so, but if I would<br>
say the opposite I would be gambling with your money.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> I think this could be the killer app that I have thought Oberon<br>
> needed for the past 20 years.<br>
<br>
</div>The days of Oberon are over. If Oberon HAD days at all. It's a fun issue<br>
reading about and talking about. But nobody wants to program a<br>
controller in a safe way. A controller is programmed in assembler so<br>
you can do whatever you want.<br>
If things get hairy, you buy a creditcard sized PC and there Oberon may<br>
come in handy.<br>
<div class="im"><br>
> I hope you guys have an enlightened moment about this soon. I'd love<br>
> to see a community project come together.<br>
<br>
</div>Look at embedded artists. Can you come up with something like this?<br>
<a href="http://embeddedartists.com/products/boards/lpc11d14_qsb.php" target="_blank">http://embeddedartists.com/products/boards/lpc11d14_qsb.php</a><br>
<br>
I know the answer to my question. No single developer can. Look at the<br>
price and the features.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
Met vriendelijke groeten,<br>
<br>
Jan Verhoeven<br>
<a href="http://www.verhoeven272.nl" target="_blank">http://www.verhoeven272.nl</a><br>
<br>
--<br>
<a href="mailto:Oberon@lists.inf.ethz.ch">Oberon@lists.inf.ethz.ch</a> mailing list for ETH Oberon and related systems<br>
<a href="https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon" target="_blank">https://lists.inf.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/oberon</a><br>
</font></span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><font face="'times new roman', serif">Aubrey McIntosh, Ph.D.<br>211 E. 5th St.<br>Morris MN 56267</font><div><div><span style="line-height:20px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)"><font face="'times new roman', serif">(512)-348-7401</font></span></div>
</div><div><div><br></div></div>