Goodbye

[Ioannis]

This is not fair.

Have you checked this: http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/content.php?r=5

and this: http://dt.picbasic.co.uk/

Many good examples and a lot of info.

Ioannis

[astanapane]

This is not fair.

Have you checked this: http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/content.php?r=5

and this: http://dt.picbasic.co.uk/

Many good examples and a lot of info.

Ioannis

The book of DT's , i think it is also a part of your wonderful job. It looks like a STAR in the darkness.

But comparing those examples to ARDUINO expanded libraries, which every day there is an update to any bug or additional info to the current ones. It is not comparable.

Everywhere on the internet there is a help file, a help library and start up code for each application.

Anyway now it is late to talk about all these. My luck of knowledge and experience is not enough to make comments. I only said my opinion as a hobbyist. What i receive from this forum as a user is that there are only 3 people running like hell, to cover all the user's needs, and at the end of the day they are fed up to give the right info and positive directions.

[richard]

Now i feel like there are only 2 or 3 persons would really like to help, and all the others are looking to make money

I have never seen anyone really ask for money here, but expecting libraries to be produced for no reward so you can hobby away with
minimal effort is a big ask. i'm always prepared to help but want to see a genuine effort beforehand. just asking for code won't cut it .
I feel that my code could be updated and make better use of the packet engine. if I scrap the backwards combability requirement and maybe even use a small fixed length payload it could be simplified a bit too. I managed to learn a few new tricks bouncing ideas off mike k8lh on the nokia lcd project so these things aren't reward less if you collaborate with the right people . I'm open to suggestion.
nb.
even if some sort of lib is created you realise of course that pbp has no native spi commands . I would expect it to use
some asm and USERCMDS , you have shied away from these things in the past and are you even prepared
to upgrade to pbp3 ?

ARDUINO expanded libraries, which every day there is an update to any bug or additional info to the current ones

don't believe that at all , many libs have major defects that are never addressed. the rfm12b lowpower labs library has never been fixed and
has major bugs just waiting to bite the novice [bugs are often alluded to in the forums, seldom described adequately, seldom fixed]

[Scampy]

For me I tend to lurk around this forum less frequent than I used to. I've not used my EasyPIC5 board to program PICs via PB Pro for a few years now. The last project I worked on (hobby project) was Arduino based because it had readily available library files that suited the modern hardware (TFT screens) I wanted to use. Yes I too found I was spending more time sorting out syntac errors and typos etc, and the structure seemed alien after using basic for so many years, but everything in life is swings and roundabouts. Yes if funds permitted upgrading to PB3 which might have made things easier, but my personal circumstances has meant that I've never been able to justify the upgrade cost which would have included a new EasyPIC board to support modern PICs to make use of the functions PB3 offer.

There was a similar thread http://www.picbasic.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=21146 I started a couple of years back and since then I've noticed less and less posts on the forum. I'm guessing that with more and more one board computers coming out that offer far more than an Arduino or a basic PIC people are moving away from the whole project development side of things, where PCBs are designed and built around the PIC, which for me was all part of the fun.

I would agree that it's the people that make this forum, and sadly more and more of the core experienced members have moved away. The loss of DT impacted the forum immensely, and may have been the turning point for the decline. His library of include files filling the gaps left in PBPro and making things a lot more easy to use and efficient. Only a handful of old members still regularly post (Richard, Henrik, Ioannis etc) and should they frequent the forum less and less then the forum will simply gather cobwebs as an archive.

Its a shame things have got in this situation as BASIC is for a lot of people easy to pick up and understand, but IMO PBP has slipped in to decline and has now been left behind. Before Arduino became as main stream as it is now, MikroElectronika was PBP main competition, and they continue to support new hardware both physically through their main development boards and add on modules, but also in their compilers. PBP was slow to follow suit and as mentioned, been left way behind to a point now where it is too costly to catch up.

Anyway, that's my take on things....

[Normnet]

Dumb question. Is Arduino similar to a $50 stamp and is the processor available in its self for $2.00 or so or do all Arduino projects require a $50 board with the supporting circuitry? Also don't forget Meliane as one of the supporting members lost as time went on.

Norm

[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.

[Scampy]

Dumb question. Is Arduino similar to a $50 stamp and is the processor available in its self for $2.00 or so or do all Arduino projects require a $50 board with the supporting circuitry? Also don't forget Meliane as one of the supporting members lost as time went on.

Norm

You can pick up an Arduino Mega2560 board for around £10, and you can also pick up just the chip (probably for around the same amount) but the package if the chip does not make it practical to program it and then use that in a custom designed PCB as you would a PIC. As Ioannis has mentioned, the platform is not aimed at the professional developer

I agree that Meliane was also a good contributor, but there were also a lot of others, and I could be here for hours if I included everyone in that tribute, and most have since moved on.

[Normnet]

You can pick up an Arduino Mega2560 board for around £10, and you can also pick up just the chip (probably for around the same amount) but the package if the chip does not make it practical to program it and then use that in a custom designed PCB as you would a PIC. As Ioannis has mentioned, the platform is not aimed at the professional developer

I agree that Meliane was also a good contributor, but there were also a lot of others, and I could be here for hours if I included everyone in that tribute, and most have since moved on.

You are saying its not practical to program an Arduino supported chip and place it into a custom designed PBC as you would a PIC?
If so is it common for Arduino projects to be made up of jumpered development modules to make up the final project?

[lester]

I think that you are all missing one very important point.

Arduino and the Pi, have brought into our world a whole demographic of new users, ranging from Chefs to gardeners including artists and clothing designers.

the ease of use and the fact that they can reuse code without having to learn has opened the door

I see the downside, but I also think its great that a 60 year old lady gardener not too far from me, has built her own temp and humidity monitor for her green house. Never wrote a line of code, but built it from a Pi and a then looked at Arduino.

we never saw that from PIC basic of any flavor.

its a good thing to bring in new people from new areas. It reflects the real world fact that electronics now penetrates all areas of our lives. It is no longer a niche area for geeks like me , hobbyists and seasoned professionals ( like me also). personally I think its great that we are seeing these new entrants, even though they are learning the ropes Backwards. By that I mean they buy a Pi, they load someone elses code and make a project, then it sparks their interest and they learn a little electronics.

I dont care how they learn, just so long as it sparks interest and they begin on the road to becoming an electronics hobbyist.

Just think about it, she is 60 years old ( maybe older) she knows no electronics, but she is now one of us !

[richard]

Arduino and the Pi, have brought into our world a whole demographic of new users

not to mention a vast array of cheap "Arduino compatible" sensors/modules in a breadboard friendly form, making it easy to hook up something up
to test our wildest ideas with no immediate need for a dedicated pcb and better still there is a easy to tap knowledge base for all of them.

no matter what platform you choose the pi/Arduino movement is a boon for all electronics enthusiasts

[Alberto]

Well, I have to say that while I was learning (and still learning) to code in python 3, I have found all the library in use in my code all well and professionally documented. I think python is the computer programming language better documented today.

Alberto