Highly Anticipated 32-bit "Due" due When?

February is here. The 32-bit Due is not here. Why is Arduino so tight-lipped about this delay? This failure in open-ness is disturbing.

The LeafLabs module called Maple seems like an excellent alternative. Not sure why it's not catching on. Priced at $45 US dollars, that's $20 less than the 8-bit Arduino Mega 2560. The programming environment in Maple is compatible with Arduino! It's based on Wiring C. If it ever comes out, the price for the Due will likely be higher than the Mega 2560 - so I predict the Due will cost around $70 US dollars. Arduino can prove me wrong. Anyway, some high level specs on the Maple:

Maple | LeafLabs

Microcontroller: STM32F103RB (32-Bit)

Clock Speed: 72 MHz

Flash Memory: 128 KB

SRAM: 20KB

Operating Voltage: 3.3V

64 Channel nested vector interrupt handler

Digital I/O Pins: 39

16-Bit PWM: 15

Analog Input Pins: 16 (12 Bit!)

Integrated SPI/I2C and 7 Channels of DMA

Support for low power and sleep modes (<500uA)

Dimensions: 2.05"x2.1"

Perhaps Arduino should consider changing over from ATMEL to STM since Maple already has them beat on the 32-bit front. I think the community would be best served if Arduino & LeafLabs join forces!

There has been 2-3 long threads running about this and so far not one single response from Arduino Inc.

They aren't normally very active on the forum and that's OK because most questions can be answered by the experienced members, but this particular topic cannot be addressed by anyone outside the inner circle.

I would at least expect a "Sorry but we've had some issues" post but not even that. And has been mentioned a few times the press release stated that the design would be done in consultation with the community. Hmmm.

I suppose I get that you don't want to release too many details up front or you wind up with the Leonardo situation whereby there are so many clones out now that there's hardly any point releasing the real thing :slight_smile:

Never the less I think people need to know exactly what is coming out or they may jump ship to Maple et al.


Rob

Maple seems like an excellent alternative

I bought an Olimex Maple and it is no Arduino. :relaxed:

I have the Uno, Mega, and teensy and I have had no problems using LCDs, SDcards, and buttons.

However, the Maple has driver issues with Windows 7, that take a work around provided by someone outside of the LeafLabs team. The language is almost Arduino style but, not many of the libraries work. The LCD library has bugs that only allow you to use one line on a 2 lines display :(. I have posted about the lcd issue with no response. There is certainly no "Playground".

The processor and board are wonderful but, I am already frustrated that somethings that I though were simple do not work easily with Maple. I now have the task of learning libraries to try to fix problems myself.

If you want to see some of it for yourself, read a few pages of questions on their forum and look at how many are unresolved.

cyclegadget:
I bought an Olimex Maple and it is no Arduino.

Olimex Maple is not the same as the original LeafLabs Maple. Olimex is a foreign company that literally cloned & copied Leaflabs, and not very successfully. They even copied Leaflabs' wiki page. Blaming Leaflabs for Olimex shortcomings is like blaming Apple Inc. for problems with Chinese iPhone clones.

I don't wish to attack Leaf Labs or anyone associated. I just feel that the Maple still needs more development to make it as usable as Arduino products.

The problems I have had are the same as the people who claim to have the L.L. Maple.

The Olimex uses the same chip, bootloader, pin out, and IDE. It may very well be that it is not the same as a True Maple but, so far the problems I have encountered are common among other users that claim to have the L.L. Maple

I want badly to use an ARM chip. The Maple is the easiest to use ARM board that I have found yet. I have not had as much success with my STM32 Primer2, or my STM32F4 Discovery board other than using example sketches. The Maple is the first ARM that has a programming language that I consider friendly to a hobbyist.

I also want to say that I have been looking up commands and trying several things to see if I can fix the LCD library. I am not a programmer but, I think it can be done. I have not given up yet.

I think people are getting mixed up between an open source hardware project and an open source hardware development.
The Arduino is a product made by a bunch of people in a business. The product of their work is then made freely available for others to use without restriction. That is the open source hardware aspect.

The Arduino is not a community based development project where every one can chip in and contribute and a project grows. A good example of that sort of anarchy is to be found in the RepRap project. I am not being derogatory calling it an anarchy, it is what it is and anarchisms can be extremely good things.

The arduino team do consult and take note of some of the things here but they keep their distance. It is their project, their ball, so they can do what they want. All this lack of announcements is regrettable but as I say that is how they want to play it.

cyclegadget:

Maple seems like an excellent alternative

I bought an Olimex Maple and it is no Arduino. :relaxed:

Please don't call it what it isn't.

The Olimexino-STM32 is not the "Olimex Maple." It is an Arduino and Maple-like board.

LeafLabs, the original makers of the Maple, licensed their software and hardware as open source. Anyone is able to build upon it and Olimex has.

robodude666:

cyclegadget:

Maple seems like an excellent alternative

I bought an Olimex Maple and it is no Arduino. :relaxed:

Please don't call it what it isn't.

The Olimexino-STM32 is not the "Olimex Maple." It is an Arduino and Maple-like board.

LeafLabs, the original makers of the Maple, licensed their software and hardware as open source. Anyone is able to build upon it and Olimex has.

Fair enough, I will use the proper name if I refer to this board again. Often on this forum, if someone uses a Atmega328 with the Arduino IDE, they refer to it as some sort of duino or Arduino compatible. I was using that line of thinking when referring to the board, obviously you still knew what board I was referring to but, I understand your why you prefer more clarity. I was trying to be clear that I had the Olimex and not a Leaflabs board.

Come on Arduino Team. Reply to this thread and tell us what the progress is with the Due please.

Here in Genoa (Home port of the Lifeboats from the Costa Concordia), it's pronounced like " DO A" (A like the letter A is pronounced)

OverDue Due in Italian would be "in ritardo due"

We may as well play with words if we can't play with hardware :slight_smile:

I was looking for a 32 bits Arduino and I bought a chipKIT UNO32 just before the Due was announced.

The chipKIT UNO32 brings lot of processing power at 80 MHz, space with 128 kB, many
IOs and 2 hardware serial ports, for a price close to the Arduino UNO.

The IDE is based on the same standard Processing IDE and can handle both Arduino and chipKIT boards.

I'm glad I haven't waited for the Due!

terryking228:
Here in Genoa (Home port of the Lifeboats from the Costa Concordia), it's pronounced like " DO A" (A like the letter A is pronounced)

OverDue Due in Italian would be "in ritardo due"

We may as well play with words if we can't play with hardware :slight_smile:

Hey think of it as the perfect spaghetti sauce. It will be ready when it's ready, no sooner and no later. Speaking of later I think it's time for a nap. Retirement is great, it's worth the wait also. :wink:

Hej,

David Cuartielles here. First I should apologize for the delay in releasing Due, it has nothing to do with any of the possibilities described in this thread. Our relationship with Atmel is pretty smooth, our design process has been good, and we have materials in stock. The reason for the delay is that we are overwhelmed with the release of Due, Leonardo, Lottie Lemon, the new servers, the backup system, some other boards we haven't even spoken about yet ...

We have been reassigning responsibilities within the core group since we are far too busy to be able of attending everything as we used to and making sure hardware makes it to developers is one of our main concerns. This adjustment process has taken time, we have even opened an office in Torino (Italy) to handle a lot of the small day-to-day things that an open source project like ours requires.

If I look at this thread I can see three topics:

  • one is about the actual Due, when and how
  • one is about the Arduino platform, why it is successful or not
  • a final one is about the openess and not openess

I will try to elaborate on the three topics, but we should probably separate this into three threads and discuss things separately.

ABOUT THE DUE

Asap is the answer. We are working together with Atmel in polishing the BASIC Arduino experience to the board: coding in the IDE, uploading to the board from any platform, monitoring the serial port from any platform.

We have changed processor a couple of times because we want to have something powerful enough to cover many of the things you guys are already doing with Arduino and with other compatible platforms plus adding the power of the 32b. And don't worry it is a standard ARM processor, everything it can do with it at low level is already available in the datasheet of the processor chosen for the task. Please do not ask about the processor, this is the one secret we keep until release date. When the developer's edition of the board comes out, you will be able of making anything you want to on that core: Real Time OSs, basic Arduino functionality, DSP control ... up to you, but you will have to know how to make it ... therefore the name "developer's edition". The initial hardware design is very much like the current Mega, but we need some sort of form factor to reach you guys, let's discuss once the first release is out there.

ABOUT THE PLATFORM AND ITS SUCCESS

It is true that we did never expect to get our platform as far as we have done. We wanted to have something that could work for the lecturing scenarios we were facing at different European/American universities where we were teaching. We had years of experience in different platforms and some of us (Tom to be precise) had even successful books out there talking about how to make prototypes.

We realized that it was time to make things a little better and one of the most important ones was to reach as many as possible by:

  • having everything open: designs, documentation, software
  • being crossplatform: making tools that could run on any computer, anywhere in the world
  • being very active teaching to people, not caring about their initial resources or experience
  • making it competitive in price: we would not include any expenses coming from R&D into the actual design, like others did before us

These four rules required an effort from our side that nobody had been making before. In the "being active teaching to people" chapter: e.g. I spent 2006-2007 travelling the world teaching at different venues. Arduino would NOT pay anything for that, I had to close a deal with a certain university somewhere, make sure they would get the equivalent to the current "starter kit", teach the class, help the teachers there get used to the tools for them to move on, etc. The big difference between hardware and software -in my eyes- is that you need to be there, in a one-to-one situation to help people get started.

Have you ever heard of a company that has people working for it FOR FREE? This is not very different from what happens in the open source/free software world. You sell your expertise as a programmer, because the code is already there.

To be honest, the reason why I, David Cuartielles, was doing this is because I saw a great opportunity for me to write my PhD thesis in educational technologies. The whole world has been my playground to experiment with this platform and try out with people from all over how they felt about digital technologies. It was NEVER about making money. Not for me, and not for my partners. Each one of us has his own story about why Arduino was/is relevant for us and why we were doing it. I believe this is what many of you have also seen in Arduino, a chance for you to build your own personal relationship to a technology that you can use in your everyday life and that you can profit from.

In some countries I was invited by the local ministry in education, like in Argentina, where I made courses for teachers to evaluate what digital technologies meant for them. My courses were not just about Arduino, but Processing, Puredata, linux, etc. I made, with the help of the maker of DyneBolic, a live CD that included all of the above plus open office, etc. I had, and have, a political agenda in openess, specially when it comes to education. This was far before Arduino was part of the Debian/Ubuntu distros.

Summarizing, the reason of Arduino's success is putting hardware at the same level of "fairness" as open source/free software. Highlighting that hardware is nothing that happens inside a magic black box.

ABOUT BEING OPEN

Then again, about the discussion whether our process until now is open or not ... well ... making hardware, or open hardware is far more complex than just making a board. Some companies force you signing an NDA on the features of one of their chips before you can even start prototyping on them. Look e.g. at Raspberry Pi's FAQ and their statement about open hardware ... they just cannot be, period. We made no compromises, we release everything, but until Due we have been in the situation where we were just releasing small modifications on our previous designs. It made no sense to ask anyone to discuss about the boards ... there was no disruptive innovation in them.

In 2010 we used a whole lot of the Arduino savings in launching an even in NY where we invited relevant members of the Arduino community to come together and discuss about the platform, about the future of it, about how to make it better, how to get people even more involved ...

... one of the results of that meeting was that people wanted to be more involved in both the core development (and please join developers@arduino.cc if you want to be discussing about the development of the core) as well as being part in the hardware development. During that meeting Massimo introduced the idea of the development made at the Mozilla Foundation where they could reach very quick iterations in design by involving users in a certain way. At that point, internally we had been talking about the 32b version of the platform and we thought it could be a great opportunity to create the so-called development batches for people like most of you involved in this discussion to be a part in the creation of the next generations of boards.

We spent a long time during 2011 thinking about how to make this and we decided Due was the right step to take. We wanted to have Due demo'd on stage at Maker Faire 2010 in September. We wanted something more than the announcement. But there were technical issues beyond the Arduino team that made it impossible. For you guys to know, we brought our software development team all the way to NY because we believed possible to have a board on stage. They worked overnight to make sure the bootloader did the job and, unfortunately it was finished after the end of the show. Our idea with the Due was -and it still is- that we will make the basic things work on it, we will release it, and will invite you, that are interested in discussing about how to make things, to be part of the discussion.

When you want to make something cost-effective, and you want it to reach as many as possible, you need to make sure you ship your first 1000 units in good shape, and that you have enough parts to send the second 1000 in a week, because that is what happens in open source hardware: you make it and if it is successful, it will be copied (probably also improved) ... the only way to make things good is being there first, and making it right at first. Well, in this case we want the second 1000 to come with your improvements. We need to make a board that works, and on top of that we can all play and make something better.

So being open for us is to put everything we learned in the process of making things back to the community. And also now to bring the community into the development process of the software and the hardware.

I hope this answered some of your questions ... it took me some time to write it.

/d

as I have manifested this at plenty of conferences, open software gatherings, etc,

wow - thank you so much for taking the time
more power to your elbow

David
Thanks for the effort.
If you place a price on one of the 1000 first due's I (and probably many other) may want to order one before you made it :slight_smile:
For sure if it has debugging capabilities.
Best regards
Jan

I like this statement of vision.

David, First a very large thanks for all your work and dedication on Arduino. I'm sure it took you on a wild ride. Many of us have enjoyed the trip a lot also.

Could you answer, or point to, one more thing:

  • How can a moderately technically proficient person (Hardware, software or both) get involved right now:
  • Get in the queue to buy an early Due version
  • Get connected to the development / beta effort and contribute

I've read quite a bit, without being in the active group, and I still have no idea how to do those two things.

I know there are risks in adding people and connections: "Brook's Law" = "Adding manpower to a late software project will make it later!". I worked for IBM and I have met Frederick Brooks and I have worked on a software project that lost $11,000,000 proving it yet again. I believe.

But I want to help!

David,

Thanks for the update. I was wondering about the delay.

I've got a couple of the PIC32-based chipKIT "Arduinos". How does the Due compare with that?

Arduino has answered why the Due is late. Basically, they ran into technical difficulties and busy with other projects. They were very wise to avoid another release date for the Due because this forum will keep them honest. Glad to hear the Due is in work. I suspected a complete abandonment of the project. Glad to read I was wrong. Let’s face it, Italy is ground zero for the renaissance of modular microcontrollers.

After reading David’s response from Arduino, I realized the crux of their success is two-fold and difficult to emulate. First, the purposeful grass roots exposure at colleges and universities and usage by eager and energetic students made Arduino extremely popular. That kind of exposure is very difficult to buy. Then came “Make” magazine - more exposure - every month. Second reason for their success: price.

Two questions for Arduino: (I know, this is a long shot)

  1. What is the projected price for the basic Due?
  2. When will the Due be available?

It's still over Due.......... 8)

Lefty