Arduino, David Mellis
I met one of the Arduino developers, David Mellis on Saturday evening. We talked about community building... Now I want to start up some sort of in-person hardware hacking community in Boston. I've often wished I had a clue about electronics, what better way to get started?
The first computer I owned was a true blue IBM PC 8086. It came with 128k of memory soldered onto the motherboard, and I purchased another 384k of ram for a grand total of 512k.
My 384k of memory came in clear plastic tubes holding separate chips that I pushed into the motherboard sockets very carefully. I bent one of the pins, requiring me to remove the chip, straighten the pin, and reinsert it.
I admit, that wasn't exactly electronics work, but nowadays working with computer hardware generally means plugging in PCI cards.
In today's world, if you want to play directly to the hardware with no proprietary drivers in the way, the Arduino is the only option I've found. Have you found anything else?
The first computer I owned was a true blue IBM PC 8086. It came with 128k of memory soldered onto the motherboard, and I purchased another 384k of ram for a grand total of 512k.
My 384k of memory came in clear plastic tubes holding separate chips that I pushed into the motherboard sockets very carefully. I bent one of the pins, requiring me to remove the chip, straighten the pin, and reinsert it.
I admit, that wasn't exactly electronics work, but nowadays working with computer hardware generally means plugging in PCI cards.
In today's world, if you want to play directly to the hardware with no proprietary drivers in the way, the Arduino is the only option I've found. Have you found anything else?