Goodbye

[Ioannis]

I could not follow you on this Norm. You mean that the Arduino is expensive? If so, chinese boards are available for much less.

But anyway, it is targeted to a different audience, with different expectations and knowledge.

And sure not to professionals in any way.

Ioannis

[HenrikOlsson]

The Arduino hardware is simply a microcontroller (an 8-bit Atmel job in its original form) with a bootloader mounted on a somewhat standardized form factor PCB with headers. There are many different versions of "Arduino" based on many different microcontrollers, from 8 all the way to 32 bits I believe.

It's not running an interpreter but compiled/assembled code from the Arduino IDE (which I believe is built upon the gcc compiler). You can download the bootloader and flash it into a blank microcontroller using a device programmer (which can actually be another Arduino) and it "becomes" an Arduino.

So no, the Arduino is not similar to a BASIC Stamp (which is running a propritary interpreter) and you can buy blank microcontrollers from "anywhere" and program the Arduino bootloader into them yourself.

[Ioannis]

Not just any AVR MCU you like I think. Only those supported.

And then you have to accept and tolerate the limitations of the environment, as you have no word on which pins will be input/output/analog/pwm etc.

Of course this is expected to be so that there is compatibility with the extension boards and libs.

Like what Apple did only Arduino proved more successful.

Great idea for specific purposes (learning, hobby or education).

Ioannis