Talk:Arduino/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Images needed

Images are needed for this article...

• Done. I have chosen a good looking one, but can't really decide, which fits the article best, so maybe someone want to change this,.. --DustyDingo 17:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Pronunciation

How is "Arduino" pronounced?

• It's pronounced italian. The 'r' is hardly pronounced. --DustyDingo 17:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
• Ar-du-i-no like english "are-do-ee-no" (you are, to do, ee like in bee, yes / no). -- Anonymous.

License

• The Creative Commons license used for the hardware designs is a non-commercial license, hence not Open Source in any relevant meaning of the word (for instance, the one in the Open Source Hardware article. -- Anonymous.

• • Actually, they're (now) under a CC-SA license, without the non-commercial clause, and the software is all GPL or LGPL. DMellis 21:59, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Links

Sept 20 2007: I added links for the Barebones and Runtime versions. I hope that doing so is not link spam; these boards are significant offshoots of the Arudino project. They are derivatives of the Arduino's open-source design and represent a part of the project worth mentioning with a link. It's all so confusing huh? --DJ

History

when was the Arduino first published? or developed?

Name

It's not that critical... but the lines related to the name are really confusing: the meaning of the germanic origin is not important, while it is the relation to the historical character and hence the town: one of the first incubator of computer science in the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gbarberi (talk • contribs) 19:59, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Prices

The article needs prices. And we need another article, to hold good comparison tables of all the current easily-user-programmable stand-alone device/development-platforms. -69.87.200.77 15:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Suggestions

As one of the creators of Arduino, I think I'm supposed to suggest changes to the article rather than making them myself, so here goes. Firstly, there is no "Arduino foundation" and no currently registered trademarks (although we have begun to put "TM" on the boards and consider it a trademark of the group). It might be simpler and more correct to simply say "The Arduino hardware is manufactured by Smart Projects, an Italian company."

We do release schematics to all of the hardware (including those for which the production files are not available). Not all manufacturers do this, and we think it's an important part of letting people what the hardware is made of and how it works. Can the fact that these schematics are available be mentioned in the "open source" section?

The C Stamp and ZX microcontroller links in the "See also" section seem commercially-motivated to me. They link to the manufacturer's website, not a Wikipedia and don't really seem appropriate in a "see also" section. Perhaps these can be replaced with links to appropriate articles or removed altogether if such articles don't exist?

DMellis 03:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest that some sample applications/projects be referenced to give people an idea of what can be accomplished.

Also, DMellis, please make any additions you feel would be useful!

TomTrottier (talk) 20:56, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Request for an Update

We (the Arduino team) recently released the Eagle CAD files for the Arduino Diecimila and BT boards, meaning that the full hardware design information is available for nearly all the Arduino hardware. See: http://www.arduino.cc/blog/?p=17 Can someone update the first paragraph to reflect this (i.e. remove the qualifying "for older versions")? DMellis 04:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Done Random (talk) 15:56, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Diecimila image

The Diecimila shown is missing one of the capacitors next to the other one, perhaps another image would be better? SomeoneElse699211 (talk) 13:42, 17 November 2007 (UTC)

Taken and uploaded. Random (talk) 16:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

new article on the Arduino model

Article at Wired. Should probably be integrated. Tedder (talk) 06:03, 22 October 2008 (UTC)

Arduino variants

Unless a variant uses a ATMega AVR and runs the Arduino bootloader, I do not consider it to be a variant. That includes projects/products based around ARM cores. Even if they are "hardware compatible", being able to directly use shields, they are not arduino. Yngvarr (t) (c) 11:58, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't consider Cortino to be a variant either, but it's a derivative and it's relevant within the scope of this article. In terms of taxonomy, your removal of it was correct, but in terms of the broader "is it useful to the encyclopedia?" test, then it ought to be listed.

I would even support a separate article as List of Arduino variants and derivatives. Arduino's a big enough field to justify multiple pages.
Andy Dingley (talk) 12:33, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

I agree that these non-ATmega boards have a place here. The way I see it, there are four categories of hardware that can be described in this article:

1. Official Arduino boards
2. Shield-compatible ATmega-based clones
3. Other ATmega boards that can still use the Arduino bootloader/IDE
4. Finally this new class of non-ATmega boards that can use Arduino shields.

I think the section needs to be broken up, perhaps along the lines I just described. It's a little messy at the moment too and needs a clean up. Perhaps move the external links to the end of the article, or use them as inline references? --Imroy (talk) 14:44, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Please include the FEZ Domino. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.155.23.24 (talk) 23:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Shield

'Sheild' is mentioned, but there is no description of what a shield is —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.61.130 (talk) 19:56, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I've added a brief section as well as an image. Tweak it as necessary. Yngvarr (t) (c) 20:14, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

I released the shield image Yngvarr uploaded (taken one sunny afternoon on my vancouver balcony) as Public domain. Vancircuit (talk) 15:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Wiring / Processing

Can someone please explain the whole Wiring / Processing thing? (I don't have adequate knowledge myself).

Clearly the Arduino "uses" Wiring, and although Processing is commonly involved in Arduino-based projects it isn't the native_(sic) language. User:Mulad has just made an edit to this effect. However what's a "language", what's a "library" and what's an "environment"? AIUI, Wiring is a language (not just a library, as the article now states), and it's the source code language used for "typical" Arduino work, hosted on some form of desktop. This is then compiled into AVR machine code, possibly via some intermediate form (C++? AVR assembler?) and uploaded to the Arduino board itself.

Processing OTOH lives in the "Java world", usually on a "desktop" machine, and is compiled to Java (to Java source? direct to bytecode?) which then executes in a JVM and calls Java libraries (most obviously, AWT). There's no route from Processing source to Arduino or AVR, AFAIK. However it's also popular for two processors, one or more Arduino & a Java host such as a desktop, to co-operate as part of an overall system, linked by USB or serial.

The Processing IDE is used as the default by both Processing and Arduino-targeted desktops writing Wiring source code. I don't know if this editor / compiler is written in Processing (or whatever). I'd love to find out that I can easily swap this IDE for integration with a nicer editor, such as Eclipse (Please! Just for the right-hand clipboard shortcuts!).

As Processing books are expensive and I know of at least one person who wasted £40 on one thinking it was an Arduino coder's handbook, it would be helpful to have a clear explanation of this somewhere! Andy Dingley (talk) 13:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Request for update

Hello I'm massimo banzi, co-founder of Arduino. can some of you guys edit the phrase "The project began in Italy in 2005 to make a device for controlling student-built robots less expensively than other prototyping systems available at the time." Arduino was built for Interaction Design students, robotics was never involved in the process. thanks Massimo Banzi

Would "student-built interaction design projects" be accurate instead of "student-built robots"? - Taxman ^Talk 21:40, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

yes that would work much better :) mbanzi —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.0.61.33 (talk) 07:32, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Buzz

That thing is just an Atmel AVR development board - and a very simple one. Why call it "a physical computing platform with embedded I/O support"? This sounds like buzzwords/advertisements and is not encyclopedic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.64.245.155 (talk) 22:26, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, the "Arduino Programming Language" is C, so call it C. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.179.67.95 (talk) 11:25, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Mostly correct. The Arduino build process page describes exactly what happens to a "sketch" when it is compiled.

1. Tabs (files) with no extension are concatenated together
2. #include "WProgram.h" is added to the front
3. Functions are searched for and prototypes for them are inserted before any statements. This means you don't have to worry about the order in which you defined functions (e.g like Perl).
4. The target's main.cxx is appended
5. This is compiled with avr-gcc, as are any other *.c or *.cpp tabs/files.
6. Finally, it's all linked together with the Arduino library

That gives you something to upload.

So, in conclusion: The language is essentially C/C++, but function prototypes are automatically generated. Otherwise the rest is an IDE and a library.

Can we stop this edit war over the language? (cleaning up my description though is welcome) --Imroy (talk) 19:25, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Link farm

Does this article need trimming per WP:LINKFARM? The most recent change to the article added only a link to a shield vendor, and that made me wonder if the article has too many links for the content it has.

Because the editor who added the link has made only that one edit to WP (at least at the time I'm writing this) the edit looks a little spammy to me. But that's just me, and this is not my article, so I will leave the link there as the community discusses.

Would these links be more at home in an Arduino wikibook? Pfagerburg (talk) 05:57, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Yep, it needs pruning. The best place would be to encourage those links to go to DMOZ. tedder (talk) 06:02, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't have personal experience, but I've heard others say that DMOZ is the place where pending links go to die of old age. Pfagerburg (talk) 03:11, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

I note that the Arduino group maintains a wiki-like website with several links to hardware (including the list of Arduino boards in this article), and a "playground" with an "edit" button, and a metric tonne of links. The WP article should probably point to the pages on arduino.cc. Pfagerburg (talk) 03:16, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Too Technical

This article is too technical for a non-expert to understand what arduino is. I propose {technical} tag. Moumouza (talk) 20:08, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't find this article too technical, but rather neutral - as expected from encyclopedic content. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.68.19.38 (talk) 11:15, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I clarified the lead so that a non-technical person would at least know what an Arduino is. I removed the {{technical}} template, because the technical content is appropriate for a person that has the technical background to use an Arduino. Obankston (talk) 17:19, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Usage?

This article barely mentions any examples of what Arduinos are used for, focusing way too much on the specs and software. Nave.notnilc (talk) 01:25, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

I totally agree. This is not an encyclopedia article, but a boring datasheet. Mazarin07 (talk) 22:20, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Attack of the Clones

Okay, there are simply way too many clones listed on the page. I am tempted to simply go through and remove around half of them. Comments? Nave.notnilc (talk) 02:25, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Please do! Or even kill the whole section on clones, and rewrite it; it's definitely notable that the Arduino has set a standard that others are following, but having links to every one of them (and directly to the manufacturers' web shops!) is definitely going too far. (And the wording of the opening paragraphs makes it read like the section was only inserted as a thinly veiled advertisement for the Freeduino to begin with.) -- magetoo 22:04, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

May I suggest an alternative? How about a new "list of Arduino clones" page? If you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Electronics_lists you will see that this worked out well for a number of other pages. Guy Macon 03:58, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

If that's okay with everyone else (the ever present "is this list encyclopedic" question, etc) I think it would be a good solution. This article could perhaps just have a brief mention along the lines of "the design is open and it has led to the creation of several compatible boards, such as (notable example 1) and (notable example 2)" with a link to the list as "main article: list of Arduino compatible boards". (btw, "compatible" is probably better than "clone" here) If someone who is familiar with the various clones could do it, that'd be great. -- magetoo 12:09, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

You have to keep in mind that many of those boards represents a person or company trying to make a profit. Giving special attention to a couple of notable examples isn't fair to the others. I suggest simply linking to the list without giving any boards special treatment.

Also, what does everyone think of a companion list listing shields?

Guy Macon 14:10, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, the key word is "notable", by which I meant things that would be interesting for someone reading this article; like the first clone to be made, the first one to use a more powerful microcontroller, or the most popular one (if there ever can be a clear "winner" in that regard...) but obviously it has to be verifiable and add something to the article. Not suggesting that there absolutely must be examples mentioned just for the sake of it, and a plain link to the list will work just fine if you want to go ahead and split. -- magetoo 22:29, 2 June 2010 (UTC)

I doubt any number of shields are notable enough for an entire list; I think the few mentioned on the page are sufficient as a representive-ish sample. I do hope to get going on a list of arduino compatibles page, though. Nave.notnilc (talk) 15:50, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

[Outdent] The notability requirement for items on lists is considerably relaxed compared to other types of articles. The list itself has to be notable, of course, but once that has been established completeness has a higher priority than notability. A good example is List of 7400 series integrated circuits. Some of the parts are not particularly notable. Also, it helps to consider the use most lists get. I use the 7400 list a lot; it's the best place to answer questions like "what is a 74HC45" or "what is the number for a BCD to Decimal chip?" Guy Macon 15:43, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

See "...Every entry in the list fails the notability criteria..." in WP:LSC for more on notability requirements for items on lists. Guy Macon 20:06, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Hello, I'm one the co-founders of Arduino. Can I propose two changes? 1. The bar is not located in Via Arduino but it's simply a bar called Arduino (minor edit) 2. I would propose we change the term "Clone" and replace it with "Derivative" (or something that works better in english)."Clone" sounds a bit derogatory while in the spirit of open source these boards are derivatives of our original design that we welcome. I consider clones only identical copies of the board using the Arduino name without authorisation (i.e. not contributing anything to the community) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Massimo banzi (talk • contribs) 10:36, 1 October 2010 (UTC)

I just made the change to the name of the bar, and will change the "clones" as soon as we reach a consensus as to what replacement is best.

I like the term "third party implementations" or some variation of it better than "clones" or "derivatives." "clone" implies less variation than is the case, and "derivative" implies that other *duino designs incorporate work by the Arduino team but the Arduino design does not incorporate work by other *duino designers. Comments, anyone?

The term that I see commonly used within the Arduino community is "derivatives", and I think it's quite important to distinguish between clones (which as Massimo mentioned are direct copies of the official models that are sold as a "counterfeit" of the real thing) and other Arduino-compatible boards that are encouraged by the Arduino team. The term "derivative" is quite accurate in that they do incorporate elements of work by the Arduino team, even if it's something as trivial as the header spacing. It's certainly a better term than "clone", which is used within the Arduino community to mean something different to the way it's used in this article at present. I will change the terminology from "clone" to "derivative". --JonOxer (talk) 06:36, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

[Outdent]

As I wrote in the comment you replied to, I object to the term "derivative" because it implies that other *duino designs incorporate work by the Arduino team but the Arduino design does not incorporate work by other *duino designers. Do you have a response to this objection?

As for whether the term is commonly used within the Arduino community, I did some Google searches of various terms, first seaching the entire web and then searching only arduino.cc. Please note that this method gives very rough and imprecise answers; for example most occurrences of "arduino clone" refer to hardware, but many occurrences of "arduino implementation" refer to software. That being said, my results were:

"arduino compatible": About 109,000 results

"arduino clone": About 7,890 results

"arduino implementation": About 540 results

"arduino derivative": About 271 results

"arduino copy": About 93 results

"arduino compatible" site:arduino.cc: About 3,170 results

"arduino clone" site:arduino.cc: About 506 results

"arduino implementation" site:arduino.cc: 26 results

"arduino derivative" site:arduino.cc: 8 results

"arduino copy" site:arduino.cc: 11 results

It seems clear that "Arduino Compatible" is the term most commonly used within the Arduino community. I have no objection to it. One might argue that this nounifies / nominalizes the verb "compatible", but the PC community has been using the term that way for many years. Guy Macon 20:06, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Interesting data. My response to the objection about implying official Arduino designs don't derive from third-party boards is that it's irrelevant. The "derivation" is probably bidirectional, as you suggest, but whether or not official designs derive from unofficial designs doesn't stop it being true that unofficial designs derive from the official designs. This is the same question that arises with Linux distributions, particularly the oft-discussed relationship between Debian and Ubuntu: distributions aren't a neat hierarchical tree that only "derive" in one direction. Likewise official Arduino boards and unofficial "equivalent" boards likely derive from each other. To put this in context and disclose my interests, I manufacture the "TwentyTen" board. It is most assuredly "derived" from the Arduino design, without question. But looking at it the other way around in the context of official designs deriving from unofficial designs, before the first unit was manufactured and before the Uno was released I sent the complete TwentyTen design files to the Arduino team in case they found something useful for their own purposes. Some time later the Uno was released. I don't know if they ended up getting any inspiration from the TwentyTen design or not, and it's theoretically possible that in some tiny way the Uno design "derived" something from the TwentyTen, even if only because they didn't like something in the TwentyTen and specifically decided not to do things in a similar way as a result. Even with that context, I vastly prefer that the TwentyTen be labelled a "derivative" of Arduino rather than a "clone" of it. "Clone" simply is not accurate in this context. "Derivative" may not be a perfect description, but it's certainly more accurate than "clone". The term "clone" is more akin to "counterfeit". --JonOxer (talk) 23:29, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

How about organizing the list like this: "Shield compatible" (fits on a standard Arduino), Mega shield compatible", "Arduino IDE compatible" and "Aduino form factor compatible" (same mounting holes as an Arduino, size identical to or smaller than Arduino).

May I make a suggestion for the official Arduino website? I would like it to be made explicit that the title "Arduino" is reserved for the official product, that the Arduino team has no objection to other *duino names, and that anyone is free to use the name "Freeduino" with no objections from other freeduino makers.

Finally, I really do think that the clone section is getting too large, will only get larger, and should be moved to a "list of Arduino implementations" page. A good example of such a list is List of 7400 series integrated circuits. Such lists are very helpful in answering questions like "what is a Rainbowduino?" or "is there a shield that adds a CAN interface?" A while back I put together a system with an Arduino Mega, an Ethernet shield, a Thermocouple shield and a 1024x768 VGA shield. A separate page listing shields would have made it easier to determine which shield I could buy off the shelf and which I would have to design myself. Guy Macon 06:54, 23 October 2010 (UTC)

We have a naming policy in our FAQ: http://arduino.cc/en/Main/FAQ. See "What should I call my boards?" — Preceding unsigned comment added by DMellis (talk • contribs) 23:15, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a policy on external links WP:EL. It states that they should be in their own section and that they should be to encyclopedic information that would be included in this article if it were at FA status, but that can not be because it is copyright. In other words, a massive link fest is simply not allowable. 0¹⁸ (talk) 18:42, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I don't think the clone/shield section should be a list of links (actually, it shouldn't be a section in this article, but rather a separate standalone list article). It should be a an annotated standalone list of clones and/or shields, with a short description of what each is and a link to the manufacturer whenever the manufacturer is not notable enough for a Wikipedia page. This conforms to the guidelines at MOS:LIST and WP:STANDALONE (see the examples under "Annotated lists") Guy Macon 20:49, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Version shown in images

I would like to propose that we attempt to keep the images up to date with currently shipping hardware (Uno, as of this writing). They only change every year or two, and I believe that the images on the offcial Arduino website are free to use. Also, an image showing all the versions from the past all in a row would be nice. Perhaps someone on the Arduino team reading this could provide that image? Guy Macon 09:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Dimensions

This being an Italian product, should the dimensions be metric? Perhaps with inches in parenthesis? Guy Macon 12:00, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

mbed?

I just reverted an added entry to mbed in the "see also" section that had links to http://mbed.org/blog/entry/mbed-and-Arduino-shields/ (mbed described as alternative to Arduino) and http://www.circellar.com/archives/viewable/Cantrell-227.pdf

I reverted the addition because of the problems listed below, but I think that mbed would be worth adding to the See Also section if done correctly.

My problem is with the link to the mbed-to-arduino-shield board, which is a link is to something someone saw on twitter that does not appear to be comercially available except as a kit sold only in Japan ( http://www.sugakoubou.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=23&language=en ).

That being said, if someone were to create a mbed Wikipedia page (start at ttp://mbed.org/ ) and link to it from the see also section of the Arduino page, IMO that would be a good thing. Guy Macon 02:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Direct links

Section Accessory hardware contains direct links. Shouldn't those be in references instead? --Mortense (talk) 17:52, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Josephantony1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 14:40, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Inception Date?

When did those students create that first $50 version? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Shabd sound (talk • contribs) 10:33, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

How to pronounce "Arduino"?

Does the official team have an opinion? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Evanwolf (talk • contribs) 19:43, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Arduino: The Documentary has many (all?) of the team talking about Arduino. --Imroy (talk) 02:05, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Can someone who knows International Phonetic Alphabet add an IPA or similar pronunciation to the article? DMacks (talk) 22:04, 25 November 2014 (UTC)

What is it? What can it do?

For someone not familiar with the subject this article barely answers the above questions. There is very little explaining the types of things that can be connected to the Arduino or even how. For example, unless one already knows the full meaning of the term Physical computing or reads that article first, this article tells very little about the basics of what it is. I'd suggest an easing into the subject and adding context to the physical computing term, essentially defining it inline. There's a lot of good info here, but so far it's definitely for people that already know what it is. - Taxman ^Talk 18:38, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, its fairly useless article - it reads as a tech manual, not an encyclopedia entry. However given that Google just announced they are going to support this in future versions of Android, this is probably going to be very popular and soon some non nerds are going to explain what its all about ;) --IceHunter (talk) 17:09, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Please read This. Thanks! Guy Macon (talk) 19:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree, this article is useless. I came here as an IT Engineer to understand what Arduino is all about and found a boring list of terms and data. I can't fix it and should not fix it because this is not my specialty. This must be done by those who compiled all this jungle. Mazarin07 (talk) 22:19, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

mY COMPUTER IS USELESS. aLL IT TYPES IS CAPITAL LETTERS. i CAN'T FIX IT AND SHOULD NOT FIX IT BECAUSE THIS IS NOT MY SPECIALTY. sEND AN IT Engineer over here to... Oh. Never mind. It just got better.

Just as an IT Engineer would tell the above user "It's not that hard! Just press the fscking Caps Lock Key!!", I am telling you that it really is not that hard. Just do a web search, find out what people are doing with Arduinos, and write up a section that describes it with links to your sources. We even have a nice guide to help you at Wikipedia:A Primer for newcomers and another at Wikipedia:The newcomer's manual. You think this article is useless? Fix it! --Guy Macon (talk) 01:06, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Strange attitude! People come here as users and you expect them to transform into editors when an article is of low quality! Surely users are allowed to express an opinion to inform those who have chosen to edit an article.86.159.252.42 (talk) 22:47, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Allowed to express an opinion about low article quality? Of course! And those opinions are more than welcome here. The thing is, I am equally allowed to express my opinion, which is that we as unpaid volunteers have no obligation to respond to that complaint and that it really is easy to fix things yourself. As of Saturday, 26 April 2025, the English Wikipedia has 118,057 active editors and 6,986,684 articles. That's a little over 30 articles per editor. We could really use some more help. We could really use your help. Just pick a subject that you are comfortable with, read the article, and make the article better in some small way. We even have a page at Wikipedia:A Primer for newcomers to help you. You might be surprised at how easy it is to become a Wikipedia editor! --Guy Macon (talk) 01:14, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

Release date of boards

please add the release date for each one of the table: "Arduino board models"

--79.223.127.92 (talk) 22:26, 3 October 2012 (UTC)

Applications

I started a new section on applications Arduino#Applications -- it would be nice of others would add the more mature applications with links to the external webpages - or if particualry mature to the internal pages in wikipedia - thanks Luli17 (talk) 20:59, 4 November 2012 (UTC)

Criticism

Where's the criticism section? There is so much overwhelming hate for Arduinos out there, I figured I'd come here to see what the crap that's all about. Hell, read the comment section in any one of these articles:

http://hackaday.com/category/arduino-hacks/

68.8.99.245 (talk) 06:28, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

I've been reading Hack A Day for a year or two now and I know about the 'hate' for Arduino on that site. As near as I can tell, most of the "criticism" of Arduino is simply elitism. Some people aren't happy that other people are using it when, in their opinion, another solution would be better.

For example, I found this comment. He doesn't like Arduino because he thinks it should only be used for prototyping, but sees people leaving the Arduino in the final project. That's not criticising Arduino itself and I think misses the whole point of Arduino - to make it easier for people to control electronics. Not everyone has the time or expertise to design a circuit, layout a board, etch the board, solder the components on, and program any micro-controller that might be used (and then find and fix any problems on the board).

Can you provide an example of actual criticism of Arduino itself? Because what I've seen has been pretty minor. --Imroy (talk) 13:55, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Wow, what a bunch of utter elitist jerks. I don't have a problem with elitism per se, but I want to hear it from people who write DSP code in their heads, not someone who's used a PIC and now thinks they can look down on Arduinos! Although it's seemingly inevitable that such jerks exist, I would question why they have encyclopedia relevance?

Personally, one of the best "Wow!" moments I've had in the last year was watching some arts grad (yes, pure arts) at Bristol Dorkbot tying some clever Processing code into an Arduino-based lump of hardware and achieving something for its sheer decorative merit, not for the geek points of how hard they'd had to work to make the hardware drivers multi-thread properly. I like Arduinos because they're a tool that the people with the interesting ideas can make work, not just the ubergeeken with the patience to wrangle hardware. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:12, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

There seems to be some intelligent criticism here: http://hackaday.com/2010/01/06/arduino-io-speed-breakdown/ 68.8.99.245 (talk) 04:27, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

For legit criticism, look at this - http://www.ruggedcircuits.com/10-ways-to-destroy-an-arduino/ - basically the criticism is that for a educational device, there are a bunch of ways to destroy the circuitry and/or microprocessor, and they all have pretty low cost solutions that could have been designed into the board (note that this is a site that used to sell their "fixed" board, the Ruggeduino, but while it's a company site, the criticisms seem fair. jmaslak (talk) 21:18, 1 December 2014 (UTC)

So for $40 they'll sell you a device that can still be destroyed electrically, but less easily than a $4 arduino. I think i'll just carry on with the four dollar unit, none of which I have managed to blow up. Greglocock (talk) 00:04, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

i don't know but reading through that website ruggedciruites it seems odd to me that they go on lengths to criticism arduino then suggest clone of arduino as fix. That would be similar if I went on lengths to criticism NES and then ended up suggesting famiclone rather than suggesting sega or PlayStation as alternative to NES. but the wikipedia article thou lacks criticism section there does seems to be plenty problems with arduino out there that are probably worth mentioning.DoctorHver (talk) 05:14, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

The main criticism I hear about is the strange pin spacing which means it won't easily fit on a breadboard or veroboard. --Dohzer (talk) 10:39, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Could one of you guys that does this page write about the very real criticism that Arduino seems to be turning into Appleduino? http://smartduino.com/arduinotmtrademark-intimated-us-to-close-the-domain-and-cancel-our-product/ http://arduino.cc/blog/2012/11/26/kickstarter-trademarks-and-lies Anon1491625 (talk) 23:34, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

To do that we would need to have reliable sources for the criticism, not just blog posts. If you locate any feel free to add them in yourself, or post them here and I can. a13ean (talk) 23:55, 26 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't understand how this site works, this is my first time trying to talk. What would be acceptable if the legal threat presented on the first page and the allegations of the Arduino guy on the second page is not acceptable? Anon1491625 (talk) 00:10, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Hi Anon, yes it's complicated! Thanks for asking first.

WP has a strong policy that emphasises WP:Verifiability along with Truth. Sometimes said to take precedent over it! (which it doesn't, but it's a popular misconception). The difficulty is that on a large site like WP, half of the editors are below average in their abilities. We just can't rely on "editors knowing stuff", because for every editor who is an infallible authority on a topic, there are plenty more who aren't. Worst of all, is when they know something about something close to it - these people are difficult, as they don't know what they don't know.

So as a result, we rely heavily on WP:V and WP:RS. We don't rely on editors saying things, we don't rely on WP:SPS claiming things, we rely on the trustworthiness of the published press and its established reputation for honesty and fact checking. It's not perfect, but it's better than two editors arguing subjectively - that really is chaos.

I'm surprised by this story. AFAIK, "Arduino" has always been strongly protected and "*-duino" was available for other projects and happily accepted by the Arduino team. They also know what a lynch mob they'd face if they were ever thought to have acted against the open source ethos. So this story needs careful checking and sourcing, but if it does stand up, then it's significant and warrants inclusion here.

I can't image that it won't be all over Boing Boing, Make Magazine and even The Register before long though. Then we can use them as sources to support it here. Andy Dingley (talk) 11:28, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the nice help Andy (and the cookies :) ), but I don't think I'll be able to learn all that's needed to edit in an acceptable way any time soon since I have pretty severe brain damage due to the brain tumors I've had, which makes it very difficult for me to learn new stuff. :( Would it be possible for you or someone else to look for "reliable sources" and edit the page? Anon1491625 (talk) 12:04, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

I've seen no other coverage of this as yet, but would expect to see it appear in the next day or two. Andy Dingley (talk) 12:13, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Olivetti, again

It appears that this rationale is being used to continue to refer to Olivetti in the article. There's no indication that Olivetti has anything to do with Arduino at all. The association here is no more appropriate than "Linus Torvalds was born in Finland, headquarters of Nokia" would be. Unless that's changed, this should be removed. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:34, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The difference is that Torvalds is older than Nokia, but the Arduino is younger than Olivetti, and was influenced by the effect that Olivetti had on the town, giving it an oversupply of engineers and a culture of creating such devices. It's hardly Silicon Valley, but it's similar to Silicon Glen and far more established than Silicon Roundabout. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:00, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Nokia's electonics division is two years older than Torvalds. :) As for Olivetti, my concern is that direct sourcing is weak: the best I can find is from Make, but it's no more than a throwaway sentence at the beginning of an article that doesn't elaborate on what "descendants of Olivetti" means. I'd be more comfortable directly referring to said electronics district as in this article rather than just alluding to them as if Arduino is directly descended from Olivetti. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 16:09, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

I fail to see how "In 2005, in Ivrea, Italy (the main site of the computer company Olivetti), a project was initiated..." implies that Arduino is directly descended from Olivetti. If the most notable thing about Finland was Nokia, we might very well say that Linus Torvalds was born in Finland, headquarters of Nokia.

That being said, where is the citation supporting "Here was also developed the Arduino platform by an Olivetti spin-off" in the Ivrea article? --Guy Macon (talk) 19:05, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

The citation attached to it was added at the same time as the assertion itself, so it appears to be original research. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:07, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I see that you cleaned up Ivrea, so my comment above no longer applies. I have been thinking about "(the main site of the computer company Olivetti)", and while it doesn't imply that Arduino is directly descended from Olivetti, it really doesn't add anything to the article either. On reflection, I say take it out. --Guy Macon (talk) 14:37, 24 January 2013 (UTC)

I've just discovered a book by Massimo Banzi called "Getting Started with Arduino" in which he explains the young geeks from Ivrea started by recycling the Olivetti electronical waste in the 80s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.13.129.169 (talk) 15:03, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Reception

Hi Thumperward. You reverted my change to the section title. OK. However, I request that you change the section title to something besides "impact", because, if by "impact" you mean "effect", receiving an award is not an effect.Michael9422 (talk) 16:17, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

The award is an outcome of the impact that the project has had on the engineering community. The section needs to be expanded to contain other instances in which the Arduino has affected areas of engineering such as rapid prototyping, hacker culture, DIY and so on. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 14:24, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I disagree that "Impact" is the better section title, and I especially disagree with the argument that the section title should summarize the article content that *will* be added in the future (or might be), rather than what is there *now*. Does the reader care what might be added later?Michael9422 (talk) 06:44, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Articles should be written in such a way as to encourage organic development along appropriate lines. If you title a section in such a way as to limit its focus to a list of awards, all that will be added to it is a list of rewards. If you title it so as to refer to the general impact that the subject has had on the world, the likelihood of receiving prose to that effect increases. Moreover, as the latter includes awards anyway, it's compatible with the former. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 13:02, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

I you want everyone in the world to know how great it is, "Awards" is better. If you want to write an encyclopedia article about it, "Impact" or perhaps "reception" is better. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:30, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Good suggestion, Guy. Chris, do you object to it being changed to Reception?Michael9422 (talk) 01:18, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

"Reception" is fine with me. Chris Cunningham (user:thumperward) (talk) 15:06, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Impact is an incredible word ! Fantastic ! You shouldn't target it unless you've got issues innit like. g4oep — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.96.60.31 (talk) 20:13, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

I disagree (or agree, if meant sarcastically). The words "impact" and "incredible" are both hackneyed.Michael9422 (talk) 19:49, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

External links discussion

I'm not sure why everyone is so "delete happy" about the "External Link" section? The "Further Reading" section is more "out of control" than the external link section. Giving a vague "see WP:EL" is not a good enough reason to delete all the links, seriously! WP:EL doesn't list a maximum number of links that can be in this section, yes it says "small number", but it sure the heck doesn't mean the number is ONE either! • Sbmeirow • Talk • 12:18, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

I haven't removed any of these links here, but I've come here cleaning up after some (single-purpose) accounts/IPs who repeatedly inserted links to a blog site at www.dilabs.co.in/2013/03/ into lots of electronics articles.

At least the following articles were affected (there may be more): Light-emitting diode, Surface-mount technology, Compile, Voltage regulator, Spectrum analyzer, Serial Peripheral Interface Bus, Headphones, Portable media player, Fog, Seven-segment display, Radio-frequency identification, and Display device.

The following articles still contain links to this external site (list may be incomplete): Arduino, Pulse-width modulation, LM317, 78xx (only one of the links inserted there is of a somewhat better quality).

Accounts seen inserting links to this site recently have been: Satwikmishravit, Buntybhai, Vibhutesh, 115.248.50.22 (and by timing there appears to be some connection with account Mr n Mrs as well).

The external articles were often only tangential to our respective articles' subjects. Most of them contained no new information for readers of the WP articles. In several cases I could identify text and pictures as being copied from other related WP articles (sometimes with minor changes), f.e. article on display types is made up almost completely from WP material, including Seven-segment display, Nine-segment display, Nixie tube, Fourteen-segment display, Vane display, and Sixteen-segment display. Finally, these external articles do not provide references and they carry no publishing and authorship info, and they do not seem to exist for a long time - all in all they are of low quality, and therefore IMO do not qualify to be included as external links as per WP:EL. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 16:23, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the post. The reason I got ticked off was this edit: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Arduino&diff=549480795&oldid=549460834 I could say more, but I think I already blew off enough steam above.

Thanks for taking care of the www.dilabs.co.in/2013/03/ links. Good job. I did see it added to a couple of articles, but I wasn't aware they were spaming a bunch of articles.

I agree that lots of blogs aren't high enough quality for Wikipedia and they should be axed, but also there are some really good ones with incredible technical details and very good writing. Case in point... I don't know the person that has been doing the Arduino pinouts, but I've noticed lots of people raving with positive reviews of "his" drawings. http://www.pighixxx.com/en/ Those pinout drawings are easy to read and very useful, thus is why I think they should stay in the Arduino article.

I feel that Wikipedia technical articles should include very useful links in the external link section. There is extremely useful high-quality information floating around on the internet and if we don't add that information to the articles, then we should be pointing at good sources.

I try to thin out the obvious low-quality external links, but I probably should be cutting more of the borderline ones.

• Sbmeirow • Talk • 02:50, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

I have a number of engineering and computer articles on my talk page, and when I see a new external link added to one of them I check the user's contribution history. Most of the time I find that this is a new editor and that his only edits have been to spam that same link to dozens of barely related pages. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:46, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, blindly cutting the whole section is certainly not the way to go. As you said, it should be a case-by-case decision. I have no problems if there are ten or more external links, if they really provide useful and possibly unique information that cannot be found elsewhere and cannot be integrated into the article for some reasons. I even have no problems with links to forums or blogs if they add real value and could establish some reputation over the years. That having said I would also axe these two external links:

http://www.dilabs.co.in/2013/03/arduino-sketchprogram-build-process.html

http://robodino.org/resources/arduino

Greetings --Matthiaspaul (talk) 13:36, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Section move

The "further reading" section was getting to be quite long, but I didn't want to try to trim it down because it is so useful. I decided to WP:BOLDly move it to List of Arduino boards and compatible systems. Being a fairly long list, that page isn't overwhelmed by a long "further reading" section. Also, anyone who is interested enough to buy books on Arduino will probably also be interested enough to look at our list of Arduino boards. Given the popularity of the Arduino, eventually we may want to create a separate list-of-books page. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:51, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Andy Dingley and Guy Macon, for WP:SPLITTING out the "List of Arduino boards and compatible systems" into its own article. I suspect that there may be other aspects of Arduino that are already notable enough to support an entire Wikipedia article on that aspect -- analogous to the way several aspects of the IBM PC are notable enough to support several Wikipedia articles -- IBM PC compatible, Influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market, IBM PC keyboard, etc. --DavidCary (talk) 18:05, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

What about Robot?

What about an Arduino Robot? It's available in Maker Shed online. --93.154.131.43 (talk) 15:20, 8 August 2013 (UTC)

Open Source and Open Hardware?

Is the Arduino project still open source and open hardware? There seems to be some question marks on this regarding the latest boards, the Yun and the robot. Mossig (talk) 12:49, 19 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the Arduino website still says it is open source and open hardware.

The Arduino FAQ ( [1] ) says the Arduino hardware is open-source hardware, and the Arduino software is also open-source.

In particular, the official Arduino Yun page ( [2] ) specifically says the "Arduino Yún is open-source hardware! You can build your own board using the following files" with a link to the schematics.

In particular, the official Arduino Robot page ( [3] ) specifically says "The Arduino Robot ... As always with Arduino, every element of the platform – hardware, software and documentation – is freely available and open-source."

Mossig, are there are any WP: reliable sources that question those statements? --DavidCary (talk) 04:28, 17 November 2015 (UTC)

Multidisciplinary?

This word sticks out in the first line as being inappropriate as the expected word is "applied" such as in "applied math." In technology, multidisciplinary would refer to applications in the direction of social sciences to link "humanity" to tech. WP is unfortunately weak in this area with its inbred bias against disagreeing POV (which it calls it "trolling") and contiguous exploration (which is thought of as digression and thus invariably dismissed as "off topic," or even "non-authoritative"). "Applied" is the word. --John Bessa (talk) 16:48, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Some just insists on using word which is hard to understand and largely irrelevant to engineer. If you think your word is better/clear/easier to understand, why not, you can change it. --14.198.220.253 (talk) 23:05, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

"Multidisciplinary" is quite a good word here, and for the Processing programming language too. We do see Arduinos popping up in the humanities, and not just the arts, in a way that has re-united some fields of tech and non-tech that have been very separate for many years. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:55, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

The term "Multidisciplinary" has no place in an article about the Arduino. That's pretty much common sense and self-explanatory. It's just a misused, 3-dollar word that makes any statement more ambiguous. Just because someone knows a particular word, doesn't mean it should be used. Most of the time, in writing, simpler is better. And I have written many technical documents for NASA and other big DoD firms. Believe me, simpler is better - no matter how complex the topic. At some point a document is either a) Useful, or b) Worthless. 98.194.39.86 (talk) 16:32, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

History

Here’s a good source: The Making of Arduino - IEEE Spectrum Cup o’ Java (talk • edits) 01:29, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

Yes, the chart linked from there showing the history of the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea Prototyping Toolbox is very detailed. --scruss (talk) 18:46, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

I have stared to rewrite the history section with the information that was recently published by Hernando Barragán, the creator of Wiring and of which Arduino is based on. (http://arduinohistory.github.io). Please feel free to add more of this interesting information. --Ihatetoregister (talk) 10:59, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

Pre-assembled ?

What exactly does "pre-assembled" mean? It was assembled BEFORE it was assembled? That makes no sense. The boards come assembled or do-it-yourself, the prefix "pre" on "assembled" is grammatically incorrect. 2.97.186.109 (talk) 08:47, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done • Sbmeirow • Talk • 04:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

It may be done, but it is a false pedanticism. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/preassemble explains the word. Simply saying "assembled" may or may not tell you if it was pre-assembled. You have to add more words, words longer in fact than the prefix pre-, in order to create the same meaning. And English is not a closed language; any valid combination of root words with prefixes and suffixes are real English words. Even if it was the first time pre-assembled had ever been used, it would be a correct word, not a grammatical error. But in this case, it is a known word that can be looked up. See also: http://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/preassemble http://www.thefreedictionary.com/preassemble 76.105.216.34 (talk) 00:13, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for your erudite opinion. I agree. Unfortunately wiki is a haven for actual (as opposed to false) pedants, who will argue interminably about, well, practically, anything. One has to wonder what universe 2.97 lives in never to have heard or understood the expression. Sadly many wiki editors live in similar universes. Greglocock (talk) 07:44, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Greglocock so much that I wish I could send him a six-pack or at least a box of candy. Cheers. 98.194.39.86 (talk) 16:28, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Prices

It seems somewhat foolish to quote prices in the lead, as an example I can get Uno R3 clones for $4.20 including postage this week. Greglocock (talk) 03:21, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

 Done • Sbmeirow • Talk • 04:20, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Arduino legal dispute

@Dsimic: — I notice that you reverted an edit by an anonymous IP user, removing reference to the "arduino.org" site in the "External links" section. While I believe that "arguino.cc" is still the official site, be aware that there is currently a legal dispute in Italy and in the United States over user of the Arduino name and which entity is the "official" representative of the project. I stumbled onto a very recent article at Hackaday.com that describes the dispute and includes a link to a PDF notice sent out to Arduino distributors. From the comment left by the IP user, I perceive it may have been someone with limited English skills and he was trying to shoehorn information about the dispute into the article, albeit rather ineptly. It may be useful for readers to be informed of this dispute and the dichotomy between arduino.cc and arduino.org. — Quicksilver^{T @} 14:40, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Hello! That's a very good point, how about describing that in the article? Seems like a brief description of the dispute might be more usable, if you agree? — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 14:49, 4 April 2015 (UTC)