As one of the creators of Arduino (and currently its lead software developer), I'm happy to see such a lively discussion of the platform. I'd also love to hear any suggestions you might have for improving it.<p>I should note that we've done very little promotion ourselves, apart from teaching lots of people to use it in various workshops. Of course, we're happy that Make is such a fan.<p>One interesting feature of the platform that hasn't been mentioned here is the fact that the whole thing (hardware and software) is open-source. We've had lots of people take the Eagle (CAD) files and design their own custom variants, which creates a vibrant ecosystem.<p>Finally, if anyone wants to get involved and help make Arduino better, check out our developer pages at: <a href="http://code.google.com/p/arduino/" rel="nofollow">http://code.google.com/p/arduino/</a>
<i>Way</i> oversold. The Arduino is a nifty AVR microcontroller board, no more and no less. It's distinguished from other such things that have appeared over the years (anyone remember the BASIC Stamp?) only by price (cheaper, but not much cheaper) and integration (it has a USB device plug and a reasonably attractive IDE).<p>It's not breaking any ground that hasn't been a four-lane highway for the last two decades. But it's cute and cheap, and if you're interested in playing with embedded stuff or hardware control, I'm sure it's a lot of fun.<p>But "the next Altair?". Please.
In comparison: <a href="http://www.xgamestation.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.xgamestation.com/</a><p>Build your own video game system, run atari-esqe games on there. More avenues for fun in my book.
agreed, the arduino is oversold in and of itself. However it does remove the need for a separate programmer board/aparatus and a simple language. The ease of just using USB is a win along with a mixed community of experts, amateurs and kids. The synergy and accessibility is the main point of the article IMHO.
No, the New Altair is Lego Mindstorms <a href="http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-4494799-Mindstorms-NXT/dp/B000E4FDAE/ref=cm_cr_pr_pb_t" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/LEGO-4494799-Mindstorms-NXT/dp/B000E4F...</a><p>Expensive? Yes. Underpowered? Yes. Thriving community? Yes.
Read the reviews (there's a few hundred of them) and see the number of kids for whom this is their first intro into programming. It's an awesome piece of kit