AVR Freaks

You couldn't splurge for even a serial port version?

And that's why I pointed out the flaw, I did check to see how many other posts he made with the same content, only found one other (of his 3 posts).

Let's just say that if an MIT student can't come up with a design that can be used by more machines, they deserve to get an F.

It should also be noted that this is very likely a class assignment. Develop a product and market it. Once the course is over the product will very likely be forgotten leaving the owners out in the cold. The only way it would be continued is if it is a raging success. That said I would not buy it. I'd buy a Butterfly and Smiley's book first (and something I probably should have bought with my STK500 and Dragon).

edit

I should probably add that I work in a staff position at a college (I'm among the lowest of the low as a staffer), and building this with a par. port is just plain cheap and lazy. I have half a mind to send an email to that department and point out the flaws in the product and recommend a lower grade.

All designers make tradeoffs. We decided to prioritize having a character LCD over having a serial port version (and we're working on the latter). It was our belief that for an educational mission, lots of schools have older desktops with parallel ports. The degree to which we could simplify the system -- to the point where there's no "black box" mysteries of level converters, bootloaders, etc -- justifies this tradeoff, and means that the user can completely understand the entire system.

I think the Arduino concept is great -- for trained people like you and me. But if someone is truly new to electronics, handing them an Arduino is asking them to take a great leap of faith. Looking down at that PCB, there are many components they'll see whose purpose will be unknown. Letting them build the circuit from the bare breadboard, and explaining the motivation behind each step, is much more instructive.

All I'm saying is that there are different markets here, and for true electronics newbies, as this thread is targeting, I think our solution takes a different and better approach. The Arduino is filling a much needed gap, and we're trying to fill a gap for people who need an extra step of hand-holding beyond that. In fact, an Arduino is a natural upgrade path *after* finishing with the NerdKits program.

And I'm amused to hear that you think this is a class project! While I know someone who's trying to develop that kind of course in our department, it hasn't happened yet. This happens to be a purely extracurricular activity.

We're really trying to target the educational market, and hope that some hobbyists will come along too.

I think it is time that this post be split and a majority of it moved to somewhere else. I'll let the mods/admins decide if and where they want to split it.