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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:
  • 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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@Michael - A few of those specs and comparisons might be a bit off...

Teensy-LC: DAC has 12 bits, flash is 62K, ram is 8K.

I believe Zero has 6 on-chip "sercom" ports which can be serial, i2c or spi. It's complicated. I can't figure out from just the code which are available in which modes. Zero's Uart.cpp defines "Serial" and "Serial5". It also seems their serial code lacks transmit buffers+interrupts, like Due until only very recently, so how many serial ports are really usable simultaneously is a good question.

EEPROM emulation is a really interesting topic. When talking of sizes, there's 2 numbers: the larger amount of low-endurance flash used, and the small amount of high-endurance eeprom memory emulated. On Teensy-LC, 2K of flash is consumed to emulate only 128 bytes of EEPROM. This feature is supported on Teensy-LC, both as avr-lib compatibility functions and using the Arduino EEPROM library. The proper "end user" spec is 128 bytes, since that's the amount of EEPROM they can actually use in sketches. On Zero, I believe the 16K is the max amount of flash that could theoretically be used. As nearly as I can tell, Zero doesn't actually have any code to support EEPROM emulation, nor an upload process that has awareness of the flash region used. Arduino.org's summary of "up to 16KB by emulation" seems to be very misleading on multiple levels. (but they're hardly earning a reputation for good ethics anyway)

Price comparison might be a bit skewed by Adafruit's slightly higher mark up. $14 vs $55 (both adafruit), or $11.65 vs $42.33 (pjrc & digikey) might be a more fair way to compare.
 
I updated some of the values, thanks. That's what I get for posting before coffee.

Anyway, in answering another question about PROGMEM, I went over to the Teensy page about EEPROM (http://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_EEPROM.html), and I noticed it does not talk about 3.1 nor the LC. It probably would be useful to have a discussion about the LC's EEPROM there. While the official Arduino EEPROM page only lists read byte and write byte, particularly on the LC, you might want to document eeprom_read_block and eeprom_write_block, so that if the user is wanting to write a series of bytes (such as a 32-bit integer, or perhaps a structure), they can do it in one operation, rather than having the LC do multiple byte writes.
 
The lack of an income stream is a problem for any business. I hope they (LLC) can get their manufacturing assets primed and going before the reserves run dry. More importantly, they will have to out-innovate the SRL folks with not only good substitutes but keep up the slew of IDE updates. Paul certainly has been doing a lot of work to help the LLC team.

Thank you, Paul, for that work as well as all the work here.

[Later Edit:] As for the about page and so on, I hope that it's a way for them to move forward. Do more to harness the incredible energy that the community generates, accepting more work from outsiders when it moves the platform ahead, etc. Leveraging all that 'free' work is what will help them stay ahead of the SRL folk. I plan to make the transition to 1.6 and 1.21 this weekend, if I manage to get home, that is.
 
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MichaelMeissner said:
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.
Click to expand...

Was it ever actually in stock? Of all the sites now claiming to be "shipping soon", I've not heard of *any* customer having got one. Perhaps Adafruit have stock but are not putting it on sale until situation clarifies.
 
Constantin said:
The lack of an income stream is a problem for any business. I hope they (LLC) can get their manufacturing assets primed and going before the reserves run dry. More importantly, they will have to out-innovate the SRL folks with not only good substitutes but keep up the slew of IDE updates. Paul certainly has been doing a lot of work to help the LLC team.
Click to expand...

Of course, any updates to the IDE made by LLC, Arduino Srl can just merge into their own fork. (Except the one that warns about Srl boards of course :))

Same goes for the hardware. Whatever open hardware LLC develop Srl can sell.

I have a feeling Arduino LLC are somewhat in denial, they need to go nuclear and not pull any punches.
 
PaulStoffregen said:
I'm sure everyone's now seeing the latest from Massimo.

And wow, they've updated their About Us page with really good info about their entire staff. Seems this terrible situation is really spurring them to step up their game!
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The About Us page is interesting, nearly all of those people claiming to work with users and developers etc I have never heard of. Are all those full-time employees? I suppose you need someone in charge of "Digital Strategy & Wearables", and other such things. Anyway, that seems like a large staff budget to keep up with.

The founder names I recognise, as also the names of the forum moderators. The forum moderators are not employees of Arduino, are they?
 
It makes you wonder how many of them are actually salaried vs doing the work on a part time / volunteer basis. If anything, this seems like a pretty good step forward to humanize the LLC staff. Curiously, the most visible part of the community (ie the unpaid folk doing the moderation in the forums) got the least attention. Arduino LLC continues to treat the most valuable website asset like a 2nd class citizen. Without the thankless / unpaid work of the moderators, the LLC website would become much less differentiated from the SRL site
 
I recognize some of the "new" names. But yeah, wow, so many people. Seems pretty expensive. They must have recently spent quite a bit on travel to get everyone together for that photo!
 
When I wrote the initial reply, Adafruit had around 40 in stock. When I checked back after the Wednesday Ask an Engineer show, they were sold out.
 
Arduino seemed so cool to me in 2009. I had so much fun building a Sanguino (from NYC Resistor) and watching my code running at a blistering 20MHz. In those days, the '328 and '644 processors seemed like a pretty good deal.

Now, all I see is a stupid IDE that looks the same as it did in 2009 and still has the same embarrassing lack of features that it did back then, processors with 1/32nd as much RAM as a Commodore 64, a half-hearted attempt to upgrade to a modern processor (the Due), and manufacturing decisions that encourage people to buy Arduino hardware from anyone but Arduino. (For example, a "real" Arduino Due is $50, but a SainSmart clone is $30.) Their whole customer base and ecosystem is biting it big time, so they can keep their factory in Italy, which is of zero importance to the majority of people. Except for the competition, which is busy profiting hand over fist, on the unnecessary inefficiency of manufacturing boards in Italy and Italy alone.

It doesn't surprise me at all that PJRC, SainSmart, etc. sell better stuff. There is too much unforgivable stagnation in the IDE, and they lack the vision to make simple, obvious decisions (i.e. "why not use an ARM processor with 64K of RAM rather than this wheezy old bull****"), and now they are infighting. Perhaps this is the "forest fire" that will clear the way for something new and far better to take over. I'm betting the Teensy will benefit as a result of whatever happens.
 
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from the zero page on .org seems like quite a change to add some pins:

SPI: on the ICSP header. These pins support SPI communication using the SPI library. Note that the SPI pins are not connected to any of the digital I/O pins as they are on the Uno, They are only available on the ICSP connector. This means that if you have a shield that uses SPI, but does NOT have a 6-pin ICSP connector that connects to the Zero Pro's 6-pin ICSP header, the shield will not work.
 
That's an interesting move. I have no problem with throwing donations at a pure software projects but for people in the business of selling hardware then it seems... conflicted. Of course Arduino.cc is trying to work out which business they ARE in I guess.

If they are going to have a donation page I would prefer to see a voting process attached to it. Would happily sponsor IDE work but less excited about yet another 3D printer or robot chassis.

Edit: the 'how we use the money' page is claiming the donations feed the IDE development.
 
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No account so not logged in - I didn't see a donate option on the downloads page?

<edit> Created an account and I don't see a donate on 'downloads'
 
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MichaelMeissner said:
When I wrote the initial reply, Adafruit had around 40 in stock. When I checked back after the Wednesday Ask an Engineer show, they were sold out.
Click to expand...

Interesting, Adafruit claim they had "a single digit number" to sell, but I think Adafruit are giving me complete BS. They are basically saying until the lawsuit is decided and tells them not to, they will keep selling stock from arduino.org as official Arduino products. AKA "it's not our problem". I imagine other distributors will take the same view.

Assuming arduino.cc start selling their own products, there are going to be two sets of hardware for distributors to sell, and two different versions of IDE for users.

I can sort of see that arduino.cc didn't want to spook users by talking about it earlier, but by letting it slide is going to cause an even bigger mess. It will certainly put some people off Arduino.
 
626Pilot said:
Now, all I see is a stupid IDE that looks the same as it did in 2009 and still has the same embarrassing lack of features that it did back then, processors with 1/32nd as much RAM as a Commodore 64, a half-hearted attempt to upgrade to a modern processor (the Due), and manufacturing decisions that encourage people to buy Arduino hardware from anyone but Arduino. (For example, a "real" Arduino Due is $50, but a SainSmart clone is $30.) Their whole customer base and ecosystem is biting it big time, so they can keep their factory in Italy, which is of zero importance to the majority of people. Except for the competition, which is busy profiting hand over fist, on the unnecessary inefficiency of manufacturing boards in Italy and Italy alone.

It doesn't surprise me at all that PJRC, SainSmart, etc. sell better stuff. There is too much unforgivable stagnation in the IDE, and they lack the vision to make simple, obvious decisions (i.e. "why not use an ARM processor with 64K of RAM rather than this wheezy old bull****"), and now they are infighting. Perhaps this is the "forest fire" that will clear the way for something new and far better to take over. I'm betting the Teensy will benefit as a result of whatever happens.
Click to expand...

To be fair, 4/5 founders wanted to move production out of Italy and offer cheaper prices, but this is where Martino dug his heels in and the rift developed. I think I can see where and why. The other founders, the software guys, are jetting round the world selling their services and getting fat consultancy contracts, perhaps earning some nice money on the side of the main Arduino LLC. Meanwhile Martino is stuck in Italy making boards, but doesn't mind too much, since he is in charge of hardware production and sales, which is his "bit on the side". Then the other founders are telling him they want to take away his hardware business and move production overseas (but keep the software consultancy side). If Martino is no longer in charge of hardware production, that leaves him without a role.

That's speculation of course, but it is possible to see how Martino might think the others are pushing him out. Either way he has now decided to take the ball with him.
 
defragster said:
No account so not logged in - I didn't see a donate option on the downloads page?
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It seems to have gone for the moment. There were some comments in the forum about having a more secure donate page which doesn't involve giving CC details directly.

People were asking for a donate button, so Arduino are responding to that.
 
bobc said:
AKA "it's not our problem". I imagine other distributors will take the same view.
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If I was a distributor like Adafruit, and my users wanted to buy the Zero board, even though it's completely underwhelming (~40MHz slower and 1/3 the RAM compared to Due - but for the SAME PRICE), I would sell my users the Zero board. I wouldn't see it as my job to intervene in the Arduino team's civil war, which I didn't start, isn't my fault, and should not be my problem in ANY way. This is ALL their fault, 100% of it.

It's too bad nobody over there is thinking beyond, "What is the absolute cheapest piece of crap processor we can use, which offers the most stifling, zero-headroom specs?" In the 1980s, Bill Gates said that 640K should be enough for everyone. He learned his lesson, so why can't they? Putting out a board to compete with Due, at the same price point, but with specs that make the Due look like a FAR better option? Come ON!!!
 
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626Pilot said:
If I was a distributor like Adafruit, and my users wanted to buy the Zero board, even though it's completely underwhelming (~40MHz slower and 1/3 the RAM compared to Due - but for the SAME PRICE), I would sell my users the Zero board. I wouldn't see it as my job to intervene in the Arduino team's civil war, which I didn't start, isn't my fault, and should not be my problem in ANY way. This is ALL their fault, 100% of it.
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Right, ethics should never get in the way of good profits! A business should never take account of how products are created! Their job is just to make money regardless of who gets shafted!

Although, Adafruit went a bit further by implying they would be happy to exploit the situation by becoming Arduino.cc's official hardware manufacturer. I suspect that Adafruit's support for OSHW is a veneer, like many other companies.
 
bobc said:
Right, ethics should never get in the way of good profits!
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I don't see how Arduino's internal spat is Adafruit's problem. If a customer looks at this and says, "I want to buy an Arduino Zero, despite the controversy and its lackluster specs," why does Limor Fried necessarily owe the world an obligation to tell them no?

Regarding the "veneer," they are there to make money because they have bills to pay, just like anybody else. They can say they support open hardware, but what matters is what they actually do. I don't think they're going to eat ramen just because the Arduino team can't keep their ship in one piece.
 
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