MichaelMeissner
Senior Member+
Now, as my can tell you my ability to read people isn't that great, but I got the sense that Limor was apologizing for carrying the zero plus, saying they had already ordered it a while ago (presumably before finding the people at arduino.org was not sending the proceeds to the people arduino.cc). Given that they have sold out of the zero plus, it will be interesting to see if the product is restocked.
Given the sad decline of Radio Shack, I wonder how many classic branded Arduinos are being sold these days.
Note, the description of what I read in the zero plus, is it has an additional chip that talks on the second USB port to a debugger on the PC. Also, the JTAG ports are exposed for other types of debugging. I presume you would buy a debugger package to use the debugger (somehow, I don't envision arduino.org providing new things free -- though I assume anything released in the libraries must be GPL though it might be worth a gander to check if it is compatible with the GPL). Back when I was supporting embedded boards, having a separate debug chip was quite common, and I even contributed gdb changes to talk to one of the Motorola PowerPC boards I was using.
In looking at the zero plus, I went over to the arduino.org site, and yeah it looks like they borrowed the inspiration from the original arduino.cc, but I noticed there is no 'forum' section. Maybe they don't want to hear from their customers?
Outside of the debug chip, it is interesting to compare the Teensy LC to the Zero Plus:
<edit> -- Note, some of the table entries have been modfied after Paul's reply.
If the size of memory is an issue, you can upgrade to the Teensy 3.1 for an additional $8, still much cheaper than the Zero plus.
Given the sad decline of Radio Shack, I wonder how many classic branded Arduinos are being sold these days.
Note, the description of what I read in the zero plus, is it has an additional chip that talks on the second USB port to a debugger on the PC. Also, the JTAG ports are exposed for other types of debugging. I presume you would buy a debugger package to use the debugger (somehow, I don't envision arduino.org providing new things free -- though I assume anything released in the libraries must be GPL though it might be worth a gander to check if it is compatible with the GPL). Back when I was supporting embedded boards, having a separate debug chip was quite common, and I even contributed gdb changes to talk to one of the Motorola PowerPC boards I was using.
In looking at the zero plus, I went over to the arduino.org site, and yeah it looks like they borrowed the inspiration from the original arduino.cc, but I noticed there is no 'forum' section. Maybe they don't want to hear from their customers?
Outside of the debug chip, it is interesting to compare the Teensy LC to the Zero Plus:
- LC has 25 digital pins, Zero plus has 12;
- LC has 12 analog input pins (12 bit resolution), Zero plus has 6 (12 bit resolution);
- LC has 1 analog output pin (10 bit resolution), Zero plus has 1 (10 bit resolution);
- LC has 3 UARTS + separate USB communication, Zero plus as 1 UART + separate USB communication;
- LC has 2 I2C ports, Zero plus has 1;
- LC has 2 SPI ports (both using normal pins), Zero plus as 1 SPI port (does not overlap with the normal pins);
- LC has 10 PWM pins, Zero plus has 12 (but you can only use 10 PWM pins at max);
- LC has 10 touch pins, touch sensing is not mentioned on the Zero plus page;
- LC has 62K of usable read-only flash, Zero plus has 252K usable read-only flash;
- LC has 16K of read-write SDRAM, Zero plus has 32K;
- LC emulates 2K of EEPROM, Zero plus emulates up to 16K;
- LC can supply 5mA of power on most pins (20mA on 4 pins), Zero plus can supply 7mA;
- LC has 1 pin that translates output to VIN levels, Zero plus has none;
- LC has the classic Teensy form factor, with most pins being usable in a breadboard context, the Zero plus has the classic Arduino shield layout, including the traditional offset between pins 7 and 8;
- LC is much cheaper than the Zero plus ($14US vs $55 at Adafruit, $12 vs $45 elsewhere).
<edit> -- Note, some of the table entries have been modfied after Paul's reply.
If the size of memory is an issue, you can upgrade to the Teensy 3.1 for an additional $8, still much cheaper than the Zero plus.
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